poetry – Page 176 – poems 2 die for

ALIGNED

ALIGNED cannot escape it this recurrent nightmare wandering lost around a campus looks like every university I ever taught ever studied at looks nothing vaguely like any of them at all and where is my time-table, my course guide, my GPS nothing in this scary dream line working like clockwork siderial-aligned and my classroom, when I get there, terminally empty an easier death metaphor would be so hard to find

PLUNGE

by all means
take
the plunge

by all means
rationalize your way clear
plunge
into bed with me

Benjamin and Joe
about to
play the
holocaust
card

cannot
help themselves
determined to
plumge us
into holiest
darkness

in the pursuit of
great principle wipe
out
tiniest speck of life

stitch us all up good
everything sewn up
good and solid

God’s great
gamma rays

like manna from
above

softly
parachuting down

and me

waiting for
birth of new universe
to have

any hope of loving you

so
here this
my

suggestion
that you
do take the plunge

GOLD

Ah! Mr
spokeperson all
that glitters

you shred what
was written

cover to
cover

as aligned with
every slurred devil
every
monster that
blasphemes

and this

before you
even read it

not even a single
painstakingly argued
ruthlessy documented
worth

sent
from ths South

our humble submission
where
all are
savages

know nothing
write anything.

THORNY

so much
ice in nice
in splice
and lice

barely
suffice

and there it is
in police too

shows what the brain
can scrabble through

a rose
by any other name
would be as thorny

thorns can do pretty much
all the bad
that barbed wire do

OF DARKNESS

OF DARKNESS

devil poet
of the children
of darkness

yes, I can
live with that

coming from
the mouth
of such
a monster
of light

except
there might be
a conundrum
of physics
here

absolute confusion
and conflation
of fire
and light

not to
mention so
flagrantly angelic

in your
contempt for the law

CHARLES

CHARLES

wanting the dream life
of a poet

Charlie L
put his faith in Spinoza

write with determination
and thd Universe
will determine

the world will
find its way and
death will come middle –
aged

find him
at the poverty shelter

under his pillow, big
as a gong,
the poetry medal
he once won

not
by a lomg shot tragic, nowhere
near the world’s greatest

not even
an also ran, but
despite myself

I care

CA-CHING

CA -CHING!

I asked the I Ching

am I loved?

made

a full inquiry

so many moving lines

I fear

every line moving

so many possibilities, dimensions,

levels of speculation

in the light of which

impossible to come up

with a

solid interpretation

except to notice

that, like the wind, you

came

and are now gone

CA-CHING!

CA -CHING!

I asked the I Ching

am I loved?

made

a full inquiry

so many moving lines

I fear

every line moving

so many possibilities, dimensions,

levels of speculation

in the light of which

impossible to come up

with a

solid interpretation

except to notice

that, like the wind, you

came

and are now gone

PHOTOELECTRIC

PHOTOELECTRIC

here I am
discover myself

awash in light
playing with
your photons

each so
beady-eyed

getting entangled
as I try for a mosaic

let there be
care

how
this is done

suddenly your beauty
out
of nowhere

shatter my faith in
all that is

abstract
transcendental

saving me from
consummation

of word
deciding

on necessity
of flesh

BROWSE

BROWSE

forget
about

who wrote this
pen, or keyboard,
you
will
never know

impossible to
ever know
me
find me

and yet
here we
are

finding you