Tag Archives: poem

WRONG WAY

WRONG WAY

do not take this
the wrong way

do not
take it all
quite so personally

the best metaphors
are the ones
you cannot help
but take personally

the worst,
the ones you take
the wrong way
are
   diabolical, lethal

some unidentified metaphors
on and beneath
your radar
are winging their way
to you right now

even as we speak, shoot

the breeze, could
be angels,
might be devils

might be
    arrows

soaked in love
killer envenomed

not being able
to duck them dodge them
shows
    for better or for worse
they have
your number

can’t miss
about to hit

TO YOU THROUGH ME

TO YOU THROUGH ME

have to confess
to not being
supremely invested
in anything

birth death cycles
blind repetition
in perpetuity

my eyes opening
for that first time
learning to ride my
bicycle
in the cemetery

doomed to retirn to re-
learn as if
on some Escher loop
believing I have
duly departed
but here
I am
returning again
and again

finding my way back
to the graves
I do remember and
each tiny
funeral chapel.

much hidden history
in every
      minor variation on
pretty standard epigraph

taking them on board
as I free wheel along
the lanes
    between the graves

and here I ask you
as you, and indeed
my sister
   ride alongside me

to define, via differentiation,
what penetrates
and, there again,
what remains

taking a deep long draw upon
that cold Northern air
as it comes
to you exactly, if things
should vanish,
happen
   to burn, if smoke recalls,
does at all remember
.
a complete, and, yes, complicated
tapestry
    we all swore to finish
but never do

and me thrown by
the strangeness of each
and every queation
                      unsure as to

where they
came from

and how could possibly
                   find their way.
to you
   through me

INFINITESIMAL

INFINITESIMAL

my desire
for you so binary system massive

so why
didn’t space time bend
everything bend
to my will
and with it,
            you?

everything stop
in its tracks slow down
to extremity?

must be
    what you felt for me, tiny
a void, antithetical, infinitesimal

as quantum
probability
        worst case scenario

thing massive in its negativity
whole universe size
singularity

BARBED

BARBED

Martians had landed
were disintegrating
every one
and everything
left, right
and centre,

the radio told us,
warned us
   was very clear
on this. broadcasting
every horrific detail

we ran
for our lives
all the five boroughs,
evacuated the city

except
the stoical, smart few,
aficionados of
one or both
    of Orson and Herbert
those unspeakable twins
in everything
but blood, though, well,
their surnames
spelled out that affinity

and there they were, those
apocalyptic sci fi diehards,
desperate
      to get a glimpse at
a tripod, if  not
an extended peek or
even guided tour
of the, cockpit

which might
just have shocked them,
seriously subverted
their assunptions

to find
these hideous, monstrous
creatures,
    having an
affable, charming side,
with poetry and
painting, culture, architecture,
religion

as alien as us
on the outside, and the inside,
as human
as us too

like us
     spreading their humanity
in their worst
possible
     most human way.

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