ROY
you really loved
your King Crimson
wrote sweet
free verse
stepped off
the platform
onto the tracks
not a good day
for poets, poetry
blame the
boss man
blame the driver
behind the train driver
apartheid
scourge of humanity
you know
hook
or crook
short run
long run it got us all
got to
you that day
something
having to give
PARADOX
where are they
Professor Fermi
why are they hiding
why do they
not show themselves
do
they even exist?
no sign of those horrors
beauties
of our cosmic imagination
radically divergent evolution
our astonishingly familiar
mandibled nemeses and
arch-enemies
our tentacled lovers
and extraterrestrial friends
not a hint of so much
as a big-brained tadpole out there
billions of years for them
to be born, build and expand,
announce themselves
and yet
they seem
to have lost the plot
have not read the template
realized how much we need
to find them
(or them
to find us)
to mirror
all that is alien, otherworldly,
in the species itself
this
ape creature that somehow
seems determined to
alienate itself from
planet
galaxy, Universe
perfecting the expression
of all that
refusing to be integrated
is
divided, disjointed,
anomalous
essence of
oddness whetever
it tell itself
as it all is
everything that got seeded
throughout trillions
of galaxies
too limited in range
narrow in focus
parochial in
perspective
to stick its head out
its hole
show us
best and
its worst
celebrate all
that is other, thereby
all that is self
LEGACY
hope this poem
outshines me
that your children’s
children
(to the
very last child)
pay it
more than lip service
give it
more than a glance
bestow more
deep affection upon it
than
you gave me
in your lifetime
these poems I am
fated to believe
carry something deep and
strong I
myself lack
LEGACY
“It is your destiny!” Darth Vader, The Empire Strikes Back
at me again
about all the time
on my hands
call it
free time
(corporate
joke whose
punchline I
don’t get)
spending time
killing time
writing ace poetry
winning
at Mah Jong
when I could be
working more profitably
making nuclear weapons
filling covering
the planet with them
to express
my innate sense
of manifest destiny
fireworks display
for the ages as you
would have
to agree
closest thing to the Big Bang
could me my huge legacy
SHADE
that escalated
quickly!
Sun-soaked moment
after Sun-soaked moment
sign of Leo
lions of the Savannah
until a whole week there
cuddling, nuzzling
big cat
resting
king, queen of the jungle
making much mutual
adoration
in the shade
WHOLE PACKAGE
this is my
box
my beautiful package
devised, constructed, fabricated
to enhance,
verify, verify, rectify
this most wonderful
of weapons
so many thousands pointed
at each other (every
megaton worth
millions)
so now we have
more than enough to go round
protection, satisfaction
for all
no one to go needy
we guarantee you your share
so just put them in this box
here according to the wording
looks so nondescript
but it’s
marvellous, glorious I swear
look how eager it is
to embrace,
sword-swallow each
pointed warhead
turn them into
art, sheer poetry, true
beauty
as they disappear
somewhere, anywhere, nowhere
who gives a flying f where
they went to
disappeared to
leaving us
cold and alone no hope
of
final winter
ultimate prophecy
not the case with
all those
other worlds in
their parallel universes
ours
somehow surviving
beating impossible odds
of so
doing, of our
contriving to do so
a blip
on a switch, screen
misread, word
mistranslated
they got the required treatment
the whole package as detailed
.
DANGEROUS
digital artificial
intelligence multiverse
everything permissible
everything possible
and so me
here reading my poems
to all manner of
philosopher
and literary genius
Mr Eliot and Ms Plath
touching my hand
passing
suggestive comments
but
what can you do?
what dare you say?
better I get them to read me
proffer their insight
than ditch my standards
show
them to you
who know
about everything so
precious little
particularly dangerous
what you think about poetry
strange
you should sport a sensibility
way below the levels
that
seem to have
been approximated
in the lethally inspirational
evolution of
our machines
LOVE STORY
Not sure
what it was
if it is anything
you night call a
romance
a love
story
an orange cobra in the
short grasp
dancing for me
foot of the mountain
scales
catching the Sun
the grass grown tall now
no hope of that mixed
fear and
delight in once
more catching sight of her
turning serpent
myself
surrendering my life to her
my sweet
zero at the bone as
Ms Emily might
have
described her
whose young image it
will be
brought back from
all those years
ago
so lithe
so wise
as my eyes close
embracing darkness
with
a feeling
of love coiled up forever
full stop to everything.
MEMOIR
you thought we
would be lightspeed at least
but its
all just bumper
to bumper
pay the man
stop
and go
time to pull over
write a memoir
even if
a tyre not popped
be
good for you
good for
all of us
even if
not a single soul
ever bother to read it
.(no one
reading anything whole
thing in decline(
those that do
still read
well they
just dead already
this the crazy thing
about timelines in
realm of relativity
OR BY CROOK
this poem
is
unrefined
raw
yet curiously
fine-tuned
nothing pre-cooked
or microwaveable about it
not so much
drive through
as
drive-by
not dead yet
still moving which
is pretty much understatement
for here it is
still
gasping for air
thrashing about
on your table
your hook
still dangling
from
its fat mouth
and its hook
my hook
shepherding its way
into yours via classic dis-
traction
you are going to know its there
wili
have to come to terms with it.
live with it
though
not feeling it yet
poems 2 die for