poetry – Page 30 – poems 2 die for

THE TEXT OF YOUR TEXT

you texted me to tell me
that i must be delusional
not to believe democracy
is doomed, on its
last legs

all that talk of
by and for the people
already well on
its way to becoming
laughably quaint

but
not so quaint or genteel
the armoured personnel
carriers full to the brim
with paramilitaries

screetching to a halt
pistols, automatic
rifles at
the ready

primed to debate
the finer points of political philosophy

CRIME SCENE

those faces
so bright and happy
so ecstatic, Sun
everywhere

paradise
just
off the coast
beneath
the radar

who would have thought
could have believed
it was, is,
a crime scene

a bucket of horrors
kept closed
at all costs
Atlantic breakers to
drown out screams

out in deep dark space
they know
all our Disneylands
are not the same

the light
at its brightest
deadly radioactive

that cancer goes deep
beyond
gold mine deep

and where
those faces meet
off camera, off script
are
returned to shadow
show depth
much darker

have calculated the
evil necessary
for everything

but
hurry along, be
on your way

no
concern of yours
not your
crime scene

FLOURISH

with a flourish of the word
I joined an ideosyncratic one
for an icecream
thing
of which he be
the undisputed emperor

the sky above us
a sort of blueberry gray
to which
we could not
place in any
everyday spectrum

resisting both
Saxon and Latineate phrase
beside which fact,
everything sufficient unto the experience

HI GIDEON

hi Gideon
sorry you missing
all the action

this despite itself carnival
of idiocy targeting, amongst others,
you and all of your inclination

yep, death is a bitch
when life becomes surreal
phenomenal
is about
to follow a course
cannot but
shatter your established
sense of things

and worst of all
the release
of these hellscape files
has shown us
how close we
are
to final
denoument

not a thing to
be part of, and yet
for the spectacle, not
a thing
to miss

and, me
out in left field for
the occasion
(would that
you might have joined me)
great point
of vantage yet
clear target too

and all this
just came into my mind,
unfiltered, unedited
out of
nowhere

most unredacted thing
to read this year

ROCKET

rocket
sprocket
in your pocket

so this is the social benefit
of billionaires
of wealth creation
the utter beatitude
bounteous bounty

pushing the boundaries
of masculine sexuality
through
the ceiling

right through the shitosophere
out into the absolute zero
of everything held dear

RHYME MINE

turned over a stone
was expecting
a scorpion
found
a solipsist

expecting
a scorpion not
my totem
or taboo

in which case
should have
thought fish cusp
with ram
and asp
would have been apt

but as sepent kind go
I do like to flatter
myself imagining
I must, could
be a mamba

a syllabic or alliterative few
metres of snake

claiming you as mine
as soon as cobra eyed you

swept
you into my coils

bade you, forced you
to teach me
couplets
ever-steady rhyme

turned over a stone
not expecting
to make
acquaintance

DEMOLITION

am
playing the game
DEMOLITION

not to be confused
with the poem
or the sometime-
to-be-finished
novel
of the same name

have so far today
clocked up
millions of kills, soon
to break
my own record

expect
globally, out
in the real world,
people lining up
to get
inserted into
the game
assume the identity
of a key character

as for me, however,
being just
your run-of-the-mill
addict

could not go
so far, invest all that, make
that level of commitment

live
total fight or flight
from
shockwave
to shockwave

beyond my mental
emotional capacity
to play
dusk to dawn, dawn
to dusk
(possibly for all eternity)
from a first
person perspective

right now right now
as we hit
the last stanza

I am somewhere in my mind
playing the DEMOLITION game

MEANWHILE

meanwhile
above the clouds
the Lolita Express
is banking
descending

is like an aeroplane
in a children’s story
inspiring thoughts of
magic and
mystery
and exciting destinations
full of memorable
characters, exotic beings

the speed of this jet
being quite impressive
you think you have
left that
shadowy raptor, harpy
that goes by
the name
of nothing
is the embodiment of
nothing
in its tracks, empty-
clawed, struggling
far behind

today it
missed its pray
the sneakiness of it all
just too much.
for it
existential disappointment
in its eye
as bleak as pure abyss

back to
Noam and Ali
after
so much
meanwhile

only two options
the man
is an idiot
confusing the meaning
of bilingual and bi-
sexual
(purely on the hidden
sexual punning
sounds of
language)

we have
the philosopher maestro
of linguistics
juxtaposed
with this hip hop
moron who
doesn’t
know right
from left

unless
   the joke
is on you and for
all your acumen
you took this
covert killer master-
satirist
   at face value
did not
    see his
       failure to
find and comprehend as
radical sign
beyond itself

leaving you
a bit denuded, stripped
of all
presumed acumen

an empty vessel when
nuance
called for

meanwhile
the jury was out
but is now
returning

let me see any, if any,
Chomsky satire,
Chomsky comedy

any of the resonant poetry Chomsky wrote

can recite
to end this thing with
less
nihilistic bite

as the Lolita Express
comes in to land

PARTY

mad hatter dude
is throwing a party
crimson locks
under scarlet hat
being
less than mag-
unanimous in
every
discussion
(all of them
shading into
existential struggle)

things
getting bad since
not a shred
of Alice
Virgo acumen
at the table as yet

lumps of uranium
lumps of
lead

the tea in the pot
hitting a
level of sweetness
already heading
beyond dangerous

things
transforming across
this fantasy landscape
(your fault
reader, with
your alien chemistry and
catalyst fabulous)

and opium from the East
fresh from funding
colonial wars

there in this Wonderland
everywhere if
you
do know
where to look for it

cool for
quietening infants, deadening
assegaai wounds

heightening the pleasures of
your every
textual addiction

here in
this archetypal monarchy
where
power

parties day
and night, awake
asleep

speaks
in a dialect of allegory
that feels like
quintessence of
dreamworld
and simply sounds so strange