Tag Archives: poetry

EXCEPTIONAL

EXCEPTIONAL

death will not
be satisfied with
simply thousands

death wants
millions, billions,
that’s the price
that was set
and will be paid

if this
were not so
why do you think
death had to invent
comets, supervolcanoes,
meteors, rogue asteroids?

to supplement the vast varieties
of weapons of mass destruction
its most beloved
of all
   species
happened to event

including, not exclusively,
the vast thermonuclear arsenals
huge stockpiles of
megaton, kiloton
missiles and bombs

sheer numbers here
dictated by the laws
of necessity
    of supply and
demand

and exceptional theory,  but
sadly it ends here
with the demise of
its authors

of whose disappearance
the rest of the Universe
could
    not give a damn

THE LIGHT

THE LIGHT

they switched off
the light

but could not
switch it back on again
or maybe
just refused

leaving the world
nor in state of day
neither that of night

just in that limbo darkness
betwixt and between

where all
their machinations
burgeon and thrive

reducing the value of
all that is
loved, all
that is life

taught
from the cradle to do so

finding this state
of being so
infinitely agreeable

BET YOU

BET YOU

bet you
you read this wrongly

take it
the wrong way
to a wrong place
against
the grain

exult in your power
as supreme
bad reader

sorry to
point this out
rain on your
May Day parade
of tanks
and workers

but everybody
misreads me
it is my fate,
the flaw
in my system

story
of my life
that gets blocked
at the school
board

denounced
in the praesidium

even though
it is all
so unreal

a game,
a mystery within
a mystery

one of those
far-fetched, trying
to push the envelope,
post-
modern, self-
reflexive tales

recounted by the most
untrustworthy of
openly
unreliable narrators

way too
metaphoric of its own
good

mirror image
of the stupid sublimity
of all
cosmic creation

HAND HELD

HAND HELD

fast moving need
to be so
fast-
moving

to shoot the world
better go
hand-held

bounce along
go with the slow
cut fast and loose
let the scene
take you

where
it needs to take you

infectious, frenetic
cannot stop to
take a breath
(going Luc
Godard already)

unless Steadicam Kubrick
is more your
insane
dream, more your
something not
quite right
about this cup of tea

the gravity that drags us
pulling stuff, shapes,
ghosts
beings up
out
of nowhere

as the architecture of place
changes
before our eyes

caught in
surreal rush and terminal
maestro sway

INTERREGNUM

INTERREGNUM

Ah! In that long
tiresome, turbulent
history
of puppets
and Kings

a strange interregnum took shape,
or thus I am persuaded,
a two minute hiatus
in the Danish line
before
it collapsed,
went
full-on Norwegian

Ah, yes younger Hamlet with
his thirty-second reign,
keeping the crown warm
for the more
cut-throat
Fortinbras

sublime moment in which
all were touched
by the great
poetry spoken

though stands to reason
pretty little else in that reign
masterfully achieved.

STREAM

STREAM

livestream
bloodstream

that dam
has burst

but
when it comes
to what is in those brains
best I can say
is it
thick as porridge

thick
as muck

definitive it be
nothing flowing
from
point A
to point B

much backed up
at point D for
devoid
D for
diabolical
stupidity

where whirpool-churned
it just
congeals as

brutal distortion, doling
out of
death

all in the name of compulsion
and voice
from above necessity

SONG OF INNOCENCE

SONG OF INNOCENCE

there are no
innocent poets
poets who are innocent

no innocent poems
no innocent poetry
no state
of innocence or
rest
   for poetry

find me the poem
that does not distance itself
from but supports
this insanity

the nore so now
since our words got sharp, learnt
to speak for themselves

transport themselves
wheresoever
        they desire

angry beyond measure;
armed to the teeth

PRECIOUS

PRECIOUS

I was confiding
in my friends
the insects

all the true scientific
horrors of nuclear war

when you came down
like a missile
from up
   on high

demand that I shut
my mouth, cut
all such nonsense

speaking through a translation
device
     this being a head, a father’s
head attached
to a stick

and then, since our debate,
was going nowhere
you opened up
on my tiny
friends
with a state-of-the-art
multi-
   barrelled weapon

firing
     millions, billions
of rounds ripping up the landscape

but fortunately
my friends being so small
took
   out such precious
few of them.

BEN

BEN

Ben is
in his bunker

thr missiles cruising in
with sirens to greet them

seems hard to believe
it has come to this
and yet its author
is now the nation’s hero

king of its deepest
darkest fantasies

best at
divining
his people’s purpose

see him in the swirling
smoke and other
miasma upon
this
fiery pinnacle

speaking with God, or
perhaps we should say,
speaking to
him
or even at him

returning in triumph with
the hot word
they dance in rapture
force-
feed each other

beyond which shores
no one no
way insane
can bend their brain
to believe a single word of.