STING
The Master told her
a page
is like a lover
waiting to
be touched
demanding
to be explored
at which
point she frowned
not
fot the first time
reminding him, with
due respect
as his student
with
so much
to learn
that the words on
some pages
are satirical, no
nonsense
cut
to the bone
carry a sting
sharply pointed, venomous,
touch
them at
your peril
not big
on that
love-touch thing
COLLIDER
they claimed you were
the Einstein
of literary studies
but then
you went
and dissed
my poem
so I dragged
you down
to our local Collider
had you
smashed into
sub-atomic particles
the quantum impact
of which on the world
as we know it
being
at best purely
academic
OUT THERE
we sat around
the campfire
talking about
the evil out there
and anomalous
interstellar comets
that may well
be mother ships
such moments
the ontogenesis of
so much philosophy
the words out of which
much of our celestial framework
were once born
.
but the infant
in each of us sat there
growing ever
more terrified
the evil in our tales
quietly encroaching
creeping closer
drawing us
for comfort
closer
to the fire
until, ultimately
amongst the embers themselves
if we
are meant to burn
be
reduced to ask
prevailing logic
determines
best do it ourselves
we sat by the camp fire
long nights to talk through
FINALLY
the ground is calling
blind creatures of the soil
need me
I sense that
cloying feeling
and me — sad inevitability —
headed in that general direction
soon to satisfy
(in intimate fashion)
all those tiny
desires for connection
there
down in
the vertigo
imagining our
small, precious
time together
my time to revel
in close acquaintance that
is different, radically other
a change from all those
macro forces trying their
utmost to shape, define,
dominate me
as was the case from
first breath
was to
take
farewell to these forces
finally
CRAZY THOUGHT POEM
you are
a light
for
anyone’s
darkness
you are a star
for any
lost ship
at sea
as I float through
deep space
looking for
something
I might
call my own
new home planet
a crazy thought finds me
the idea
that should
I find it
you
will be there to meet me
exactly
my cup of tea
ARROWS
I have arrows
gold, steel, lead,
silver
one for the Earth
one for the Sun
for the Moon
one
for the abyss
have such faith
that all three arrows
once in range
will Saint
Sebastian
my target
all
notched, in the groove,
tailor made to
be lethal
every arrow a question
every arrow
an answer
Apollo
knows
it is what it is
they are what they are
challenge to
your sacred
armour
ORANGE
instead of apple
(green, red
or rainbow skin)
picked
an orange
colour a
misinterpretation of red
reinterpretation
of yellow
nevertheless
how that colour
did warm me
as I lay
with you you
in the tall grass
cobra of this very colour
luxuriating in its supreme
extreme elapid
deadly beauty
shrugging its shoulders
mission unaccomplished
shoulders it
definitely
deeply does not have
OTHERWISE
clockwise
counter-clockwise
I look for
the otherwise
am stamped as
otherwise
told I had to
do better had
better do
not do be
so otherwise so
anti-anti-clockwise
try to cut the gaslight halt
the rear projection
give up boiling my brain
thinking my way
out of
this impasse
want to do so love to
do so have to do so
be so otherwise
otherwise
who knows what
in Hell is what
NOCTURNE
either
it is everything
or it
is nothing
or it
is something
beyond time
beyond meaning
beyond
understanding itself
I wrote you a note
by a river
(not sure
when I think back
whether it was a real
river
or one
purely imaginary)
let the words flow
across the page
flow
into the night
S
what algorithm
of selection
rendered to
so
smart
so beautiful?
put a link, a curve,
an s
bend
in all my
evolutionary plans
Oh
those multiplication
tables
left me with a life
less
exponential
something in the logic of
father disowning son,
reflection who
brings hard truths home
as a broken child, the rejected
offspring in question I
could not get
my head around
poems 2 die for