SOFTLY
(for Emily
Maitlis)
speak softly
when talking
truth to
power
walk
circuitously
and carry a small
yet not
too insignificant stick
above all
addressing
the voice that
must
never
be addressed
don’t go for it
call
sign
Maverick
like a
shrieking naval jet
on a strafing run
however much
after-action satisfaction
however
much top dollar
sheer
redemptive fun
TO SEED
I swim
in the hot sea
the sharks
making
a cup
of tea
the dolphins
having a siesta
and the octopus
(whose name is Alice)
has
contrived a garden
that is
itself an
eighth wonder
shells and pearls
fragments of coral
and
sea cucumbers
something so
Imperial in all
her
propensities
(expanding to Empire
the germ
of an
idea).
ROSE?
is that
a rose
or is it
a bullet hole?
red rose
red rose
so many of them
slaughtered in the snow
days of
York and
Lancaster
tried to stitch those
wounds together
but blood still leaking
through that tapestry
carnage
somehow still
in your
poetry
freeze
framed you thought
for all
of history
not forever displaced
from theme to theme
SHORTCUT
taking a shortcut
across the river
to the recruiting office
need to get there
before the apocalypse and
before closing time
running across the river
and through the rainforest
where
I can die next
to the bombed-out Church
like Sergeant Elias
defending freedom and
Democracy, for
the salvation of humanity
need
to put my
life on the line
before
closing time
cpuld have been dropped
by a purple haze bird with
voice
of a mini-gun
but my feet just
brushed the surface and
much to my My Lai rapture
I had
reached ths other side
about to enlist staightout
but they needed
to first test
my morality
wanted no Sergeant Pepper
dreamer imagining
peace upon
the
world
community in our time
all you needing
number nine
and me
heading for the station
but it closing
vanishing from
me
like the thing just apocryphal
thing
a complete mirage
and me
passing cross after
cross and
pyre
after pyre
no doubt in my mind
this the last battle, the finsl war
in the midst of fire and
death and blood
something feels reborn
PROFESSOR SUGAR CUBE
wanted to
dissolve all boundaries
between
self and cosmos, writer
and word
sucked that juice out
instantly
on the road to
strangest territory
such a dark, dark terminal
sweetness
and multiple many-track
dimensions trapped within the
confines
of that cube
.
MR DARWIN
the observation
became conjecture,
became hypothesis, became
theory, became
scientific truth
(most
assured of
truths)
but it was
when it became
metaphor that the world burned
burned
in the interests
of survival of the fittest
when extended into our
realm of analogy
a monstrous fitness
giving itself license to brutally contrive
rewrite the world
slaughter half
the species
in name of room to maneuver
space to
be
fresh habitat to colonize
build that new fantastic civilization
some of us always dreamt of
the rest, our worst
nightmare fear
this on the supreme strength
of the
shape of a scale
length of a
feather
NOT YET DAMAGED
was born unto
you
a son
eyes brown
hair (then) fair
the whole
not yet damaged
beyond
repair
in case
you hadn’t noticed
in case you
didn’t care
on way or another
COLD JOE
Joe
you are old
you are old
your brain
is cold
seems you need
something
thermonuclear
to give
it a spark
get it working.
THINK I MUST HAVE READ SOMETHING LIKE IT BY H G WELLS
I feel it now
something
burrowing
into
my brain
know the strategy;
see the tactical plan
how they plot
to nuke that landscape,
shred
my opinions
reduce me to a compliant
all-accepting wreck
crucial my contribution
to this war
of the worlds
upcoming election.
SPIT AND
we polish
the statues
of those
we imprisoned,
tortured, killed
bring out our
Muses of
history and, yes,
poetry
fiction is apt, though,
to re-cast this scene
knowing the story told
false to fact, unless
true to the certainty
of our
hypocrisy
poems 2 die for