NICE
better buckle up
sent down
a torrent of sarcasm
if rain can
be acid
the satire here
was molten invective
everyone expecting manna
sugar candy mountain
Wonka factory nice
but what
was happening in that dark
snuff film tunnel?
arms better be
sheathed because
if at
all upraised in
diabolical salute
so vicious
this tirade seem
bound
to get burnt off
SO MUCH BETTER FOR IT
When the great
god Emperors
go juggernaut
it will
ss always
be poetry
that suffers
and there we see Ovid
the pornogrpher
banned from Rome
languishing in exile
the great Julisn
city of Augustus
now so much better for it.
BUNDLED
and so I bundled
it up
my
lost soul
in some
old cabbage leaves
we (as a family)
could hardly scare
still somewhat green
they were
and likely to remain
though by no
means as green
as blossoming orchards,
rich fields or
(real
or counterfeit)
stacks
of new money
AJAR
white smoke
blank smoke
suddenly stymied
something is ajar
or it is just
that it seems so
need to
turn true scholatic
to question its quidity
and then habeam
everything geared to go
clocks
bells
and whistles
rerum
novarum this will
be no re-run
the new Vicar
(born under
the virgin at
least
stellar sigh of)
critically
testing the steel of a halberd
with his shepherd’s finger
new light in waves incarnate
as particle
this city within
a city
dovetailing itself into the heart
of the city of cities
paradigm for everything
we admire, everything we fear
first as myth
then as bad fairy Tale
the one where
a door is denied and
we
are prisoners of time
black smoke white smoke
a city
so divine must
find room for confession
that old river flowing
forever recycling the great
shapes of
virtue, obedience and power
dawn
a thing
we need
to
conduct as experiment
old medieval truth
not without fire
TO BE BELIEVED
there is ice
in my blood
my purpose
glacier
words freezing
up in my pen
before they hit the page
nothing to be eked no
out of the gangrene
of frostbitten fingers
this a coldness
that has to be felt
to be believed
total whiteout everywhere
all conceivable landscapes
both as regards
the external
and what
is believed inside
ZERO
and here I am chilling
among those
quick
to judge
creatures of
crystal clarity
hundred and
ten
percent certain
by
every metric
on every scale
where the temperature
is ice cold
hearts
at sub zero
DIRTY
talk dirty
write
dirty
this is not
the pristine poetic
world of eleventh century
Imperial Japan
no here
a poem might
so easily
get out
of hand
filch its meanings
transgress its codes
take
for a ride
things the goodly
well circumscribed reader
will find nigh
impossible
to
understand
OFF THE MAP
you lovd to frustrate me,
fire at me,
play sexual politics
strike true anti-colonial poses
revolutionary stances
in the bedroom
and pretty
much everywhere else
slide of lathe
recoil of the typewriter
hostile gestures of
a body
at large
naked in its knowledge
stripped of all pretension
the cement set to
seal the concrete of
your foundations
still
bottom of the harbor wet
as absurd
a lockstep as you
might
manage to get
Oh, you say, Medusa eyes
fastening upon me
we are that absurd
complete creature whose
permanent state of ecstasy
no god
or goddess could withstand
absurdly un-Platonic in the
daft contours of its beauty
and Aristophanes (for
it was he) rueful
of this
surgical separation even
if carved
by divine hand
at one stroke a lost comedy
and hydra of philosophy
from Socrates to Nietzsche
the words of
the mind to
bring merciful spin
to
the painful ontology
premised upon
that forever division
distinction
chasm
in the heart of desire
between woman and man
****
SMALL
here be
magic mirrors
reality killers
things Harry
Houdini found
in the book
of Thoth
magic they are
mirroring their means
but your inner
weather being stormy
heart
cloudy
they show only shadow
an
essential condition
and here we have
halls full, a glade
mirrors
covering, mapping
an entire topography
every mirror
giving room
for reflection, a room
a boudoir that
is a reflection upon
all
that is
hidden perspective
room within
a room
tesseract mirror
containing its
own reflection
and you
with pencil and paper tasked
to sketch
this truth in
myriad dimensions
all
unfolding
in real time
tiniest of spheres, indeed
infinitesimally small
yet
containing the Universe
containing every everything
****
DOWNSIDE
feel I am
going down
bound to get
relegated
have already fallen
half the distance
of any
dark angel
down a division
in fact
every division
imparting a whole
new meaning to
the word
“relegated”
but if
jury is already out
and what be
must be
(to the tune of
Helter Skelter no
lesser
lovey-dovey tune of
Messers Lennon
and McCartney)
into that place far from self
from the centre
from
the presence of
God (here I go with Augustine,
father
of Bishop Prevost lately Leo)
but not
for pride or for wrath
or envy
(or my worst, sloth)
but simply, honestly,
inescapably
for lust
for lust is hardly the deadly
to destroy the world
hardly the deadly of
the prince
of darkness (once light)
his
most precious self
and
in my defence to all
those who
never felt
your touch, ever cast
eyes upon
you
and yet
so quick to cite text
an eternity of torture worth
every second spent
DUET
am hear
to learn; listen
know
my
history
be
sweetly transported
these minds encompassing
everything
voices like
encyclopedias
from Custer to Agincourt to
Hastings to the Stones
all the way back
to eleventh
century Japan
and me
thinking I knew it all
knew
ever so much
and there at that court
ruled by these poetic ladies
cannot
but think
would have been
in my element
reading
her body’s calligraphy
drowning in
her incense
learning every nuance
code semiotic of
pillow
and screen
mastering those rules as
my imagination candle lit
by
this quite
precious fabric melody
of voices
perfect duet
Tom
and Dominic
(Dominic and Tom)
OF THE LIGHT
some divides
unbridgeable
reconciliation
not possible
the snake unable
at this juncture
to swallow
its tail
unless all it takes
all is solved
by a simple trick
of photography
such being the
forever rise by
that thing of paradox
which believes
and tells itself
it is
the light
poems 2 die for