poetry – Page 124 – poems 2 die for

ELEGY

AT ALL COSTS

When your whole narrative
is a lie

whole thing, all
three acts,
start to finish

you have to defend it
at all costs

dig in, buld ramparts,
lay mines
they shalt not pass

take no
prisoners, no surrender,

you have no idea
as to what a terrible, unforgiving,
merciless enemy

the truth can be.

SWEPT AWAY

SWEPT AWAY
.
do not presume
the stones to be silent

or that
they will stay so

do not think
that, seemingly inert,
they have nothing to say

here
where there was war

you can safely assumed
so much
has changed
very little remains

where mythology tells us
we aspired to be gods
in the titanic,
epic nature
of the slaughter
and struggle

Ah, yes,
the slaughter:

we shall
have to bury that

last echoes, nothing
left
one might call
brash or
resounding

time ticking out
so time to
gaze
out into the darkness

be swept up
physically, emotionally,

if not both
then one, or the other,

get
swept away. Swept away.

THANKS

thanks for protecting me
against evils known and
unknown

possible abd impossible

real
and imagined

and even
imagined-imagined

thank you for protecting me
from my self, all my
avatars and handles

thanks thanks thanks thanks
thanks
but no thanks

I’m too useless, uneducated, over-educated, uninformed,
misinformed, disinformed,
to know
anything anyway

do what i am
supposed

do what
is required

follow the plan
execute nicely and neatly
alomg the dotted line
tick my tock tick
the right box

be the perfecr customary
idiot you can package
in brown paper

send off to
war (just saying, just
saying!)

prime human material
ready to be exploited

smothered
in your love

suffocated
with affection

and now technology
world of
science fiction horror

alien
event horizon

thanks
but no thanks
thank you for protecting me
from it

must say this
demonic technology

was only
a pleasure, a joy
in this shit life you
do manufacture

milliobs of us
zillions of us
having fun, being
creatuve
feeling the same way

not feeling all
that mind control, becoming
other, changing shape
changing form
as our world turned pink
and then red
and then,
as that poison did its work,
complete Chinese
Communist Party

wonder what
we can do
now its gone, Devil
loving hands
idle

need a new vehicle to
go same-same to
ridicule this nonsense
throw
your democracy
back at you

mock, scoff, laugh, sing,
dance, ridicule

tell a little
needle sharp truth
to ridiculous power

CATCH UP

your lies
are going to catch up with you

all those untruths
fantasy fabrications
coming home to roost

returning
with a vengeance
karma
(that boomerang
principle)

it is a
theoretical, theological
necessity,
an empirical fact

switched
to remote targeting
hunting you down
.
no use screaming
crying
swearing innocence
denying everything
plausibly
implausibly

pleading with your lirs
flattering them
as tp their sheer
beauty, supreme
inventiveness

telling them that they are
your frankenstein
creations
monsters steeped
in the secrets of power

havibg sown
such much death, damage
and disillusionment

killed so many they
should be
to you
as children to
a Father
worshippers
to.a god

no, my friend, my lying friend,

what
goes around
comes around
they have not a shred
of belief in you

sad sad to say
they are here for us all
to rip you apart

ICE

the rich people
playing, partying
on their sleek ship

findimg their icy
wonderworld
as advertised

pampered, noy
wanting for anuthing
in this
inhospitable place

every crag every floe
a blue-white diamonf

fevellinv in the thrill
of this place, their
Antarctica

the luxury, the excess
of this crisp, cold Summer

the explorer-enterpreneur
archetype so clinical
clear in this
palace of
reflection

so much
at home

NO MORE

no more poems, paintings
three act strucures,
somgs

nothing to transport, nothing
to inspire
the visions of
the precious decades
all
thrown out

simple economics really:
supply and demand

city after bankrupt city
cutting, killing
every
creative grant

and now
its all
gon

the books have gone
the libraries have gone
the theatres seem
to be
closing down

the groves
have been ploughed up
statues have been
toppled
their stone recycled
(where other than those
of current corporate
executives
or business tycoons

or the current political class
who make
so much money for them

and good! I say
best
thing out

for words and pictures
that do not commuicate
straight
(as per
cybernetic model) are a
waste of profit
waste
of tax

are as
self-
indulgent, narcisstic a luxury
as they come

above all, that demonic genre,
satire,

which refuses to know
its place

should receive
the kiss
of death
accept

short
shrift

accept
that we
people of
grandeur
pinnacle
summit
polish and

yes,
class

need not
apologize if
we do not
prioritize

in our best intetests
for what
could be
in the national interest
possibly
that does not
first favour us

we
elected to this power
by popular will

and divine
comnand

that the best
must rule

and the
rest

hang

EMILY

Oh, my
quiet savage

everything about
you so starched white

yet underneath
along the underbelly
seething
simmering

and me
ready to come to the party

having drunk
a gallon of French symbolism
bordeaux sweet but also
Paris Richelieu
every syllable so smooth
every progression
as seductive
as it might
possibly be

together
let us then
aim for a masterpiece

chuck in a bucket
all that forever contradicting
itself Whitman democracy

sail
down the Seine
go full
Rimbaud
Mallarmé

total
raging Baudelaire.

ON SHOW

rolled the dice
looked at
the sky

couldn’t figure out
if there was any synchrony
any meaningful signs

or were there
no connections, not
even mere
coincidences

the leagues of shapeless
forever mutating cloud
clearly insisting
it was all a hoax

nothing in the box
nothing behind the door

if there were
they should know

if there
were
they should know

not
to protest
too much

but there is nothing
there to hope for
nothing there to show

USED TO

we used to have a better
kind of godhead
better
kind of self-
appointed god

pontificating papally
on every TV
across all social media

shadow deities they
may have been
eventual disasters
in the making

but dalling short
of the epic
idiocy
of this new breed

these crash car snake
pol plugging used vehicle
salespersons

for whom
logic, truth,
moral
being

are
problems of the mind
that needs to be fixed

in order for us to live
with their collisions
within
collisions

contradictions within
contradictions

Mad Hatter re-definition of
everything by
simple act
of spray-psinting