Tag Archives: poetry

HYPOCALYPSE NOW

HYPOCRALPSE NOW

loving the smell
of white phosphorous
in the morning
will he still love
you if you script
all this a la Apocalypse Now?

will he promise you
sign of sanction and
spiritual favout
that is
    yet another
overwhelming victory

or is he taxing your faith
testing your strategic patience
by making this
a possible new
battle of Stalingrad,
advances only in inches
forward or
     underground
stop start
stop start

pity when it comes to
kill ratios even if
targeted and
supremely intentional

collateral damage figures
(including toddlers, infants
women and pensioners)
cannot
        be allowed to
seriously count

but there is no Kurtz and ghere
is no river

             no Dantesque journey
through the circles
of Hell

which makes no sense in a wotld
where it has become
impossible to differentiate between
    our
      angels and demons
      gods and devils

where everything and
everyone have their unique insane
      totally
clueless plan

       to deal with the shadow of
all evil

by massacring everybody
since
         we can no longer
be saved

cannot
       save ourselves

THING THAT

THING THAT

smoke, mirrors,
you have a thing
that falsifies

add on some wheels
bulld up
    some steam can
subjugate the world
with ease

bluff, and distraction
what need
       blades or bullets?

demolishing the truth
a right that that we see
we agree
can only be construed
as completely God-given

the smoke, all the mirrors
as Holy as can be

OVER

OVER

I killed you
as act of political revenge

which upset you
and shocked me when
you protested
      your innocence

later
    give and take and negotiation
and more give and take
and more and
more of the latter

the situation changed
      no more thought of murdering
each other
over matters political

happy that
        recourse to such violence

could only be the result
of neglect or jealousy or
                            bitterness
of a far more
intimate, homely, face-to-face  variety.l

in the
final (by which
we mean
                  human) analysis

Killing each other for or over
love not seeming so bad.

We might
honestly kill each other
                      for the joy and
Hell of it

again and again,

THIS PLAY

THIS PLAY

I came to the play
               in suffering

Hamlet this night
sure to be my guy
having pencilled him in

but no sooner ghost-talking
guards appeared on the parapet

then down in the audience
war broke out
        between those who
swear by
William of Stratford, and
              those who proclaim
a new king
by name of de Vere

sad that either way we
facing some
         serious anonymity

which is hard for any writer
     but perhaps par for
      the greatness course

I am told these poor folks
put their whole
        souls into it

and next time you scan
not a single bone remains

spiritual, symbolical, material
not a shred
     of connecting evidence

it’s like the stuff
  wrote itself or
             ethereal hand
              blessed the page

no chance here to debate
learning
        versus innate craft, the role
pain played in it

of trace of the causality that
produced this irreplaceable shape

         and there we are
watching, dreaming

          as it
all goes down without us

pale reflection of being
         perhaps not even

bridge
      best we can be, bridge
broken or
magnificent

Hamlet
dead again
      
                 as always

In state of acute longing some suffering,
      I came this play.

KILLER

KILLER

daleks and poets
it is the old antagonism

they have their bombs
and wire and goebbels-bibles

we have
      our metaphors and
satire that can kill

and now we are free range
and open targets
                  better we genocide
them “the people” say

but
   we are sitting
           on ancient weapons,
your words
    rallying to our cause are
exposing your
bleakness
       rebelling against you

even
as you speak
         (if you call it speech)

and

      come to think of it

cowboys and aliens

in the sacred spot of their
crash landings

        this is a juicy antagonism
turned connection

the cosmos putting this
planet to
                     strangest use
(a poem
       here
                      never
           make the news)

MR GLADWELL

MR GLADWELL

Oh Mr Gladwell
I am playing chess
writing poetry

writing poetry
playing chess

playing
             poetry

writing      chess

my brain has become
a RORSCHACH blot

there
     is blood all over
the board

strange body fluids
all over the page

wanted to be a kind of genius
but I’m dissolving into
nothingness

         Mozart composing symphonies
still at the breast,

                 working out
the arias for his operas

from within
     his pauper’s grave.