Tag Archives: poem

EMPEROR

EMPEROR

“The only Emperor
is the Emperor of Ice Cream”.
             Wallace Stevens

Let’s get some
ices

currently spelled “iceSS”
the big esses there
to signify
exceSS

one fat lick
and you get
the instant brain freeze
you may not
have voted for
   actually been asking
for

or,
iced in a trice,

may just be
three bullets point
blank through the face

catching
up with you
     nine decades you
ducked them
but now they are here.

BECAUSE YOU STILL LISTEN

BECAUSE YOU STILL LISTEN
“My tongue betrayed me to the
butchers” Brecht

someone is listening
monitoring, eavesdropping,
looking for something

to
nip in the bud,
find full
flower
in their heart

someone listening
is about to plonk
me Adrienne
at the
dinner table
hold me hostage

vaporize humanity
whilst
    we dine
all night

but truth
be told
I am quite hungry
am so hungry
haven”t eaten
a square meal
for a
   thousand years

that starving
prodigal of
the parable
how effortlessly
I exceed him

what
fatted calf
was ever
sent my way

and yet
fortunate I am
compare those
who
simply died
at the very outset
or lived
through worst
of worst times

plague, famine, blitz,
slavery, torture
and every
subtle (and
not so subtle) flavour
of oppression

myself just chilling
at my desk
at school
    told not to sit
exposed but
climb under, find
perfect safety

some rum run in
over the question
of missiles
blockades
   and bluster
land of sun
and sugar
       embracing
the red philosophy that
told America “no”

the villain’s
children’s
smiling faces
on some canned
goods in my
Mother’s pantry
(bound to
be
simply
bound to be)

day of disaster
beyond
    any other

somewhere children beaming
asking “what
is thermo?”
     “what is nuclear?”

would not
be beaming if they truly knew

someone is
         listening got
my gist

left
me thinking

if my tongue did
          betray what
is there
to say?

DOVETAIL

DOVETAIL

the days dovetail
they print out
dot matrix
dolphin death to life
life to death
across the tawny edges
of the bottle blue/green sea

stuff
   out there arcing
in and out of the water
my life
so flat by comparison
when I want
to am asked to
speak up speak out
my squeak
of a voice drowned out
by crescendo of a wave
mighty
as those at Nazare

and to think, metaphysically,
long as, I can remember,
I longed 
   for fluidity

inclining
towards the deep, I searched
for quantum level
affinity

and now
the deep, unannounced,
breaking protocol,
coming to find me,

no idea
of the rationale, no

idea what this means

the days dovetail
                 someone out there
could be
so kind as
          to dump to print

AT DAVOS,

AT DAVOS

they all loved
your speech

sadly, I had missed it,
going full introspective
(had such
a hard on
for philosophical ideas)

and then
there was the warpaint
smeared a mask
across my face
with it

words flying at me slowly
half-heartedly
like blunderbuss bullets

need
  a missile screen to
deflect them
golden
   dome in my
brain AWACS in my pocket

sold on the need for
rigorous dissection,
deconstruction
of the spiritual segue
from
   rupture
to rapture

when i
came back to myself
I saw you
pulling a crowd surf

every delegate
having lost it
gone 107%
apeshit

and poor Premier
Carney
     still floating, sailing
over
  everybody’s heads

not speaking the language
native to white people

telling it
like it is
      staight brain
to mouth
   no filter, zero   intervention

fractured, incoherent,
as Mr Tommy Eliot’s
The Wasteland
was in its day

and so now
the rush
      to reward, honour,
praise him

every Nobel Prize possible
every honorary degree —
institutions
     tripping, falling
over themselves

to rewire
reinvent

install
   the new Maga wisdom

screen out
   every conceivable
Sophie Scholl
                  likely to rain
on this parade

SHUT

SHUT

make
America
great again

send in
the Pied Pipers
with tear gas
and pistols

and pepper balls
too strong for tacos

shepherd, corall,
light
     the big bonfire
square the
circle

make the flag big
exceptional, exponential,
bigger and bigger
stick it up
on a pole
tall as
an ICBM or
at least
puny cruise missile

expanding, contracting,
what need
      Monroe, Donroe
doctrine
when flag shroud
swathes the planet

no more
    talk of inside or outside
Rams, Patriots, Broncos,
Seahawks
   there can,
must
  be only one:
undisputed world champions
ball in
     the endzone, ball
always next to your desk

and
   in the meanwhile, as
the spotlights
    turn
on
themselves, do morph
into searchlights

stars
   on the flag eclipsing
the real
stars
  themselves

no sense asking
where the pipers
took us
what did
with our children

was the
    suicide of grace, assassination
of elegance

took
  us to this place
gate
    closed, locks snapped shut

MEDUSA

MEDUSA

stared into
the face of suffering

your
hard suffering
that turns
to stone

turned me
to stone
relief to
my soft
suffering

equality in
the transaction
turning us
both
to stone

and they we were
amongst, what she
we call them
that
host of statues,
perhaps effigies?

but there you are
reptilian, murderous,
no crown
of thorns to adorn
only headdress of vipers
spitting, writhing,

their eyes
trying to make sense
of my pity
my sorrow

only thing to
match
your anger

blow for blow
run with your wrath

JIMA TRUMP

JIMA TRUMP

Iwo Jima Trump
planting the stars
and stripes
on closest thing
on Greenland
vaguely
resembling Mt Suribachi

garnering Peace Prize, Medal
of Valour, and
Purple Heart
in one
fell swoop

Vance and Rubio
there
    to reload him
feed
him ammunition

Donald J D-
day overlord
of glory

MAGA disciples’ delight so
ecstatically high
all of them
self-
pleasuring themselves
everywhere,
the sexy swine

hot jizz melting
the ice sheath, turning
this arctic island
basically
as sweaty tropical a paradise
as Mar-a- Lago

O AMANDA

O AMANDA

Oh Amanda,
I have you
in twenty
twenty hindsight

gone
totally
retrospective

just to
see
just how
badly you
recited us

how much not
just off key
off track
but mistaking
the climate

leading us off
in the wrong
direction

not climbing
the hill but
on death
descent down
the mountain

you there inspiring us
with hope, false hope
stuff
   of bad ideology

in your sun yellow dress
beautifully assured

and
    battling down
those slopes it was
all ice,
  all winter, death
by exclusion, excision,
by  bullets
through
the side
window at
point blank range

and the house
on the hilk with
its shining city
hoisting
   an old hated, feared flag,
as bulldozers knock
down
  and everything gets
restructured

need space for
the ritz whilst
homeless
go hungry

ghouls at the ball, macabre
how much space
they need
      to dance and
twirl
and plot human structure

should have been
severe on yourself before
flaunting your
skills
before us
Miss Gorman,
should have checked
your subtext for
masquerade

and so
why should we climb
that hill
   since we can buy one
elsewhere
greener, cheaper

take one out there
for ourselves
     we write good poetry,
exceptional lines really
that
   nothing
can compare with

the sun setting on that hill,
your hill

suddenly
    I smell abyss
and feel the slippery slide