TRACE
I knew I was going to going
to leave no trace.
But that we were all
leaving no trace,
erasing ourselves
frankly appalled me.
No more messages
leaving these shores
at lightspeed
inadvertently or
intentionally is
thing hard
to get one’s head around
a Universe of silence,
devoid of intelligent life
seems to defeat the idea of
purpose, meaning,
evolutionary achievement
I did say intelligent
but this intelligence
of ours
infinitely stupid.
FLIGHT TIME (NO RERUN)
gone
in sixty seconds
plus flight time
all of thirty minutes
the chess board burning
the pieces melting
it is a game
that no one
will ever play again
certainly none of these kids
sitting under their desks
they know
“duck, and cover”
no one thought much about this
could imagine it happen
forty, fifty
years ago whole
cities
shutting down
the streets, out in
protest
even Donald will not
pronounce all the syllables
calling it
his “N word”
the slightest nudge
and the species, scared
shits we are
went total
hair trigger
whereupon complete first
strike
went total retaliation
you evaporate me
I evaporate you
that’s the bargain, that’s
the deal
a winter to take us back
a hundred thousand years
nothibg
to eat
but each other
no more reruns of
Strangelove on You Tube
INVOCATION
It was my optimum desire
to forward you an invocation
and tell you (in an appendix)
that you should genuinely
feel free to deploy it
as you see fit
but I was unsure
of my vocabulary, in
particular which
verb would
be the most appropriate
so desperately reluctant
to get things perchance,
breaking every
protocol, twisting
customary practice,
getting things
irredeemably wrong
especially given
our fraught and brittle
exchanges
over the years
where so hard
to judge whether
things
between us
cold as Arctic ice
on boiling
like the magma
in massive Vesuvius
and so
I left it to you who or
what
best in this context
to invoke
whilst I felt caught between
the wish that
in all aspects
you might “glow”, or
there again “sparkle”
beauty of rich sunset
versus diamond string
of stars
unless
best do both
or best, neither
as the days shorten
and never
grows real
I will invoke the gods and
the Universe itself
to ask, as last best gift,
some light might find you.
OVID
the pompous Patriots
scoreless
at half time
Seattle (smart city)
with their
blitzkrieg football
acing it
in our own
back yard
meanwhile
between Oz and Kansas
the corn still growing
as spears go, every
clutch of corn
by
rank and file
deep as a legion
tall as
a phalanx
but Empire troubled
by what it sees
out at half
time
rapping in Spanish
(language
closest to Latin)
worse, singing about
love and
community
not
fish, beer, trucks
and dogs
as quintessential
song lexicon
and preserving a
language
for the sake of
ablatives, declensions
and gender
spoke as it
are
vestal
as a virgin
from
the horse’s mouth
(the Empire that
gave us
Spartacus
also giving us Ovid)
IGITUR SONG
doing
deadly doctorate
I see
if i
am
still alive
if anyone
is still alive
I would love
to come
to your
graduation
hear
of the massive complexity
in your
salutation
how
as research goes
could not
be
more
cutting edge
read your aims
and objectives
expected
outcomes
the sky darkening
as we sang
the igitur
song
GONE
what if I
become
a halloween
pumpkin?
what
if
before the
terror
of the abyss
I become
a pinprick
then
truly sub-
atomic
just
a probability
something
possible
but then
who knows?
in the bubble
that is
our Universe
trillions of stars
in billions
of galaxies
life
against the odds
just a freak
chance
precious, wasted
and now
big bang joke
of jokes
it happens
to have gone
BIZARRE
puppet shows
are all the rage
we dance and
dance
but
deep state
billionaires
who is
pulling the strings?
two entirely different species
(if my eyes
do not deceive me)
of dead matter
and me,
despite my poverty,
still battling
to ascend to a
resplendant emptiness
compulsively driven, like
so many above me,
by abject fear
that once I dip
beneath
the surface
will lose everything
and,
in synchrony,
the clustering stars
decide
to give their vote
throw in
their support
for nemesis
turning market
marionettes ghastly
shades of bizarre
their high high realms
of office now
so suddenly
overwhelming underworld
about them
EMPTY
the plane is full
the plane is empty
every champagne bubble
could be its own
tiny universe
every chess match
ending in stalemate
and not
every island
is Devil’s island
not every
island has a
Devil
even the
Devil fears the advent
of pure nothingness
why
he could well be
so desperate
to rebuild, redecorate,
have
his domain
look more like Heaven
WASHED AWAY
washed some
ants down the drain
they did not scream
did not complain
did it as thoughtlessly
as we might get genocided
by an advanced civilization
from a distant galaxy
or closer to home
guilt or innocence
accident or
intention
you call I believe,
falls under
your jurisdiction
but I
can’t give
evidence
face
cross examination
can’t even
see you, am blind
without my glasses
and I seem
to have misplaced them
lacking them
impairs my
pattern recognition
and my perspective
on morality
give me a moment,
let me
indeed
call a timeout
find my glasses
put them on
see what in
tarnation I appear
to have signed up for
what these vague squiggles
signify
I have written on this page here
OTHERWISE
“The poets help enslave even the best of us to the lower parts of our soul; and just insofar as they do so, they must be kept out of any community that wishes to be free and virtuous.” Plato
handle the narrative
we need to get a hand
on the narrative
otherwise
don’t come crying to me
when you get
handled
when you get written off
written out
hear a voice in your head
narrating you, got you
down to a T
got you
there on the page, down
in the text, character in
a story
anything but
open ended
not seeing it coming
(foreshadow radar turned
down
to zero)
the final sentence of
the final chapter
(should you
even
be that lucky)
closing on you
slamming shut
like a great iron
final door
poems 2 die for