poetry – Page 204 – poems 2 die for

REPAID

anger
from above

anger
from below

and here it is,
their
meeting point

where all the debts
and offences
of our kind

get
monstrously repaid

DESERVING OF THE WORST

evil never wins
I said this and
evil collared me
demanded I be
silenced
as a self-confessed
proponent of the evil
of anti-evil
and therefore deserving
of the worst that
evil can throw at me

and I have watched
in horror the workings
of your great and good holy
chosen nation evil

watched
how pure
the sickness of its anti-
human cruelty can be

DESERVING OF THE WORST

evil never wins
I said this and
evil collared me
demanded I be
silenced
as a self-confessed
proponent of the evil
of anti-evil
and therefore deserving
of the worst that
evil can throw at me

and I have watched
in horror the workings
of your great and good holy
chosen nation evil

watched
how pure
the sickness of its anti-
human cruelty can be

DESERVING OF THE WORST

evil never wins
I said this and
evil collared me
demanded I be
silenced
as a self-confessed
proponent of the evil
of anti-evil
and therefore deserving
of the worst that
evil can throw at me

and I have watched
in horror the workings
of your great and good holy
chosen nation evil

watched
how pure
the sickness of its anti-
human cruelty can be

BY DESIGN

I like the designs
she came up with
the adaptations
to allow
us to survive

and so much more
stepping into a teal sea
under a soft violet sky

we find
we love it in this
alien ocean

together we flow
forgetful of time and

smooth and succinct in
the way we explore
our streamlined acuity
release
from gravity.

TOSH

I wrote a poem
in which Christopher
Columbus
steps ashore
and is
captured
by a reggae band

sent back to Spain
to convert the Catholic
Churcb
to the wisdom
of Jah

and Charles Bukowski
Jim Morrison, Jimi
Hendrix and
the Doors

managed to slip aboard

strangely, their
preferred destination
was the siave port
of Liverpool

Timeline

TIMELINE

Christopher
in this timeline

never makes it
to the New World
his ships got stopped
in their tracks
by metal flying machines
with stars on the wings
and the power
to sink his
every ship
in half a second

huge metal boats
surfaced from under
the water
which appeared to
have a few aboard who
could speak Spanish
or Italian

who told him
in no uncertain terms
to return whence he came

there, upon his arrival in Cadiz,
no one would believe
his story

and even under torture
the Inquisition in Madrid
could not extract
a plausible account

and, thus, in these
grave circumstances
determined he must be silenced

the thought of such
an advanced civilization
across the Atlantic
would shake
the Church to its core
and threaten the sovereignty
of every European nation.

FROM THE MOMENT

from the moment
Christopher set eyes
upon the New World
he was plagued.
by double vision

a world not
the world he had remembered
not the world he had anticpated
it shifted
in and out of recognition

something so exceptional
about this place

whispering voice of
the Great Spirit, invincible towers,
swathes of wheat

light and darkness, darkness
inside the
light

suddenly Europe a land forgotten
the tired and huddled masses

Christopher scanning
the Eastern horizon

wondering,
stocks and shares
permitting

how many leagues their
ships lag behind

DITHYRAMB

god of the sky
god of the soil

dismembered god
reborn in the fire

your gifts:
tragedy, ecstasy,
drunkenness

curses and blessings
set our triumphs
our limitations

energy
that electrifies

energy that
destroys

you ask us to revere you
then destroy us for
doing so your song

sweet dithyramb
capturing the balance of
all our
equivalences
our dialectic
of extremes

all our pain, intensity,
destruction and desire

AND BUTTER

you butter
your bread
with genocide

got genocide
sizzling
on the stove
take it with
milk and three sugars
the taste
to sweeten

swing your fat arse
into the studio
there to pontificate
argue
the toss
(toss
the argue)

that genocide, by
very definition,
ia a crime
against humanity
that can never
be said to exist