GRACE
by grace of
was saying grace straight
forty days
and forty nights
had to survive the flood
by surfing on my plate
could have
said it as
an epigram
spoken it
as haiku
no
saving grace
as every unsavoury creature
made its way to gorge its
greedy seven-
deadly self
turning our feast
into a mockery
as
bone-headed
as it
graceless gets
and raw
a ritual rhapsody
THE GODS OF FOOTBALL
the gods of football
turned against us
they scripted our defeat
up there, in the stars
No. They didn’t.
I checked with them
and they swore that
they hadn’t bothered to watch
were much
more interested in
the Burrow/Mahomes match up
than teams committing suicide
via the failed execution
of a diabolically bad plan
STAR BRIGHT
sapphire blue star
at my window
and you with a dish full
of technicolour mushrooms
figured
even with
the blessing of Vega
this is
just too early
in the morning for
over the rainbow
but the magic in those fungi
such that
a tin-
brained man can
solve such
complicated equations
as any red-eyed billion terrabyte
wizard
locking the pod bay
or monolith
on the Moon
Shuffle through selves
as though through cards
Tarot cards
really ancient, origin
God knows where
that reek of dark
and translucent magic
and here
is the Empress, all
Aphrodite
she I was most faithful to
in the face of
steep disregard
her beauty, as you see here,
leaving me floundering
leaving me speechless
reading in the arcanas
the failures of my journey
as I cling to
this mask trying to
keep it secure as
it slides down
my face
the tragi-comic smirk
moulded there
mocking my feeble
attempts and onrushing failure
as I grope in
this swallowing darkness
for some
kind of illumination
some
kind of source perhaps there a
complete reading, a divination,
the wisdom
that I need
if there is wisdom
you always telling me
we can
find the wisdom
(so Empress-like
in everything
you
do).
LINGER
unspeakably glad
you have
taken time
to read this poem
stepped outside the habitus
of your time zone
embraced relativity
treated each
word as special
allowed
your mind to linger
dally with the craziness
of each idea
such time to spare
such acumen, breadth
and depth
all of
which
a function of our modern
exponential economic
and social development transforming our
time space
space time
mindset
rendering our
reality much
more malleable, elastic,
receptive
which
you so most
beautifully exemplify if
you
have made it so far
GENIUS
who can
stand up to us
when we got genius?
genius here
demanding
sacrifice of blood
and elbow bone
in slavish following of plan
the plan everything in
its true brilliance
pity
they don’t buy into it
those eagles swooping
soaring
high overhead
FIELD
it is not
my baby
this multiverse of
fluctuating quantum fields
I was fine with Lego
with all those
Pink Floyd
bricks in the wall
was fine
with looking at my arm
flesh and bone
before my mind dissolved it
and you and me
was what we were up
to mere ripples in the flow
producing
out of nowhere
ecstatic conjunction?
as I said
this is not
my field
not my baby I lack
the total mathematics
the Platonic wisdom
SOMETIMES
sometimes
I am
just
randomness
Cummings words
jumping all over the
quantum page
as if
twin slit experiment
(the smile of physics gone Gemini
getting our minds pretty
tangled up together
you tell me coyly
inform me
in no uncertain terms)
if it cannot be
real
this everything
if it is lax on locality
could it
be dream?
I asked this of the iconic cat
in the box before it
disappeared
and now I am blessed with
the answer but sworn to secrecy
science
now in uproar
doctoral candidates frayed
fissile
exploding in clouds of
white chalky dust
as if
made of talcum powder
all over Tesla’s headstone
thinking of
the half-life of what
lies
in that grave
Sent from my iPhone
INSIDE
poem is the fiction
of interiority
trying to persuade itself
it is
what lies inside
ad infinitum
again and
again
and again
sometimes with quite
spectacular transformative effect
(who in
their right mind
would doubt there
is an
inside
after that?)
GO FIGURE!
was in Heaven enjoying the brand name
slurping bubbling carbonated cola
through a golden straw
thinking of all
the people in my life
whose names I no longer remember
(don’t feel bad, or alone:
I no longer remember my own)
did they make the cut?
hey who the hell knows?
it’s all
immaterial
but life
lounging by the soda fountain
is not so cool — albeit eternal
when
stripped of all its chemicals
devoid of its additives
seems whoever is in
charge of censorship here
is letting me
express some alternative ideas
a bit of a blow to those
it must be
sacrificed themselves
for
Holy conformity, divine
regimentation
go
figure!
poems 2 die for