TO BE SURE
rejoice;
beware!
something
out there
a new
continent
as yet
undiscovered?
unnamed
asteroid;
new
planet?
something which
we found
found us
bound to change
everything
bringing, to be sure,
greatness and goodness
for
all mankind!
rejoice!
beware
something out there
already, to be sure
new planet
new continent
near
as it is far
THE POEM ITSELF
every poem
is a death knell,
death sentence
at one
and the same time, in
the same
breath
a wake up call and
astounding catalyst
so much ambivalence,
duality, simultaneity
helpless but to learn
how to coalesce
left lying around, unheard,
unfigured upon
waiting to be noticed
notice itself
An old poem, decades old, was originally published in New Contrast and then in my collection, but one that seems particularly relevant at this moment in time (conquest, civilization, war, atrocities). It also implicitly warns teachers about trusting their students, they might just, as with me here, start to think themselves too big for their own boots. Smartest, most generous and inspirational human being I have ever met, this poetic perfidy of mine notwithstanding.
LET ME NOT
let me not
overlook the spectacle
climbimg
your mountains
swimming in
your river
drinking
from your pools
but
having lost my
breath, almost
swept away
let me
find my feet
feel
grounded again
find my lips your lips
my mouth your mouth
our two
bodies
climbing, descending, rising
falling
a fit so neat so
sweet
so
s in splendid
for a night where time
gravity
forgot themselves
nothing on Earth
might separate
INVESTMENT
(poem for Gary Stevenson)
I smile at you Gary
from the bottom of my pram
though I’m
not sure you would
bet on me
find me
a good investment
I think you
smile back
(though what do I know
about trust
and the people and
the world
out there that
awaits me)
you seem
a good soul, generous
smart, a good enough human
as humans would
appear
to go, not yet
done a risk analysis, calculated
the percentages
my future out there
moving past, looking in
pram, ship of state, all
the same to me now, feel
the germ
of an Odysseus (what
seas
to navigate?)
are you Achilles, Charybdis,
one of the Sirens,
figure of myth, truth and
shadow Homer of my future, just
stopping by for a
quick, blind, taste
of the future,
sublimely
quiet peep in.
OVERKILL
“Eloquent, oracular;
A volcano heard afar.”
Shelley, The Masque of Anarchy
(poem on the Peterloo Massacre)
Ah, my beauties
here is poetry
where it has always been
first past the post
(postmodern, pissedmodern,
posttruth, postnuclear,
postapocalyptic, post-
whasoever)
play of language: you realize
of a sudden that deep
down in
your tin heart
you have to prevent it
look at the danger: exhibit A,
very drowned poet
his young pregnant wife
dreamt the future as monster
private parts monster
(as they all are)
scratching at her window
demanding
life, consciousness,
not exactly Turing tested but
she scared
the life out of us, this
virgin snake did cosmically,
with what
ex machina she
duly came up with
such overkill
need to nip it in the bud
radical danger of metaphor
surely
needs its own -dectomy
the threat of crucifixion
along every highway
and byway
resurrected again
something the billboards
really need, are crying out
for
real spectacle
behind them.
VARNISH
he vanished
because he lost
his varnish
the gloss
fell off
end of the licence
afforded to clown face
debate now raging
openly, covertly,
between
reflect
and refract
pitting the opaque
up against
the transparent
no space in this world
of everything hidden,
full disclosure
for the serious serial
beauty of the translucent
the mystery if the word as
it conjures killer fact
hard to
live
where condemned
to reflection, purity
of copy
completeness itself
THERE
feel you must be starved
so, disingenuously,
I offer you this poem
not sure how
life-sustaining
it will be (into
what food groups
do they fall:
metaphors, wordplay,
similes, images,
ink, paper?)
but
the thought is there
with poetry
the thought
should always be
there
here there
there here
what use
is anything
bereft of care?
poems 2 die for