RECEIPT
got long
memories
still vivid
still fresh
but even if we didn’t
even in everything
was forgotten
and forgiven
as you say
even if there was such
a concerted heartfelt effort
to get them changed
have
them erased
we buried it deep
we have the receipt
what you took
what we got
in all those transactions
down
there somewhere
we kept
the receipt
will
fill in the blanks
JIM TOLD ME
Jim told me
to turn out the light
when the music is over
he told me directly:
he was very clear on this
meanwhile a CIA assassin
is heading up the Mekong
tasked with liquidating Brando
everybody channeling
Joseph Conrad or Aldous Huxley
this dream of forever Empire
what a dark music
it would seem to play
discordant song it
so
beautifully sings
same theme
in its every repertoire
****
S’TRUE
in the zero savings villages
(like this one
where you see me now)
transformers pop like
rip-off globes
but you have a story
for me about multipolarity
and Empire gone
full bore infernal
can
see no wrong
where genocide aligns
with interest
but then its bombs
turned boomerang, return
to
sender
dressed in a bow and
box of tricks
to repay
with generous interest
which all is just crazy
ridiculous
gospel
true
s’true, bru
and so befok
likely (with
the death of sanity)
to strip
your mind
so let me just call
what I have a pack of lies
not suffer
your comfort to
collapse like a house of cards into
final
irredeemable
consternation
logic of Empire so
native to us all
****
THIN AIR
Like Ophelia
he died small
a paltry few to mourn
barely a stone
above the grave they circulate
unclaimed constellations
we have not figured out
let alone
found a pattern, given
them names
he put in the excruciating time
the hard learning
no lost to history, genius
savant
for whom we have to
concoct such a narrative
stretch creative fiction
to
its breaking point
oh that something so
miraculous, universal.
could be the deepest lie
complete travesty
where in our entire history
was such greatness
plucked out of
nowhere
flirt the the idea that
it was there for the taking,
be pulled
from the shadows
no greater alchemy
sucked out of thin air
BOMBWISE
bomb me
bomb them
bomb yourself
bomb
everything you hate
anyone you like
bomb
guided
bomb standoff
bomb
in peace, bomb
to start a war
bomb cruelly
bomb kindly
bomb to eviscerate
bomb to liberate
bomb up and down
and all around
every which way and wise
UP TO SCRATCH
when I arrived in Hell
was stunned to find
the place empty
the only
evil soul there
so to kill a bit of eternity
the devils and I played pool
sank some beers
discussed the state
of the world
and humanity
from a left-wing perspective
marking time for the torturers
to ready their equipment
the inquisitors in
Hell’s hierarchy
to stoke their fabled fires
get my suffering
up to scratch
RENAISSANCE
then did the tree cascade
burst into fruit
a poem, two,
three even there
to be
found
on every leaf
none of them great, none
very good
it has to be said
(or perhaps just whispered)
BLISS
here I am
conjugating the verb “blister”
where after
took a trek to the zoo
to escape (Mama taboo)
the schtick I was
taking in the zero point
quantum field
and you in your G string
playing the devil’s chord
entertaining
string as your
theory of everything
blitz attack it were
(forgive my dialect) when
you came
to seduce me
our ramshackle bits
that we might juxtapose
somewhat
surreal or
even psychedelic
shipwrecking me in the tropics
slave to fat climates
exercising your leverage
haughty in the knowledge
that woman
is subroutines, is
ex machina, is Grecian
statuesque chemical
factory
cosmic comedy, existential
tragedy
disjunction waiting
to happen
lured into those gardens
sheer abyss of bliss
fusion
is out there beyond the borderlands
of anything
possible
time beyond time if
we could but find it
place of riddle and parable
stamped in the image
of all that
ventures with trajectories
that
(for want of wings demonic
or distinctly angelic)
is suffered to stumble, crawl,
shuffle, hop and swing
sharp and lithe end
somewhere between
plain
writing stylus and hi-
tec Nile
crocodile
OR SO YOU BELIEVE
déshabillé
(or so you believe)
whereas I would say
too much is divulged
subtext is showing
paradigm so exposed
to the ruination of your reputation
need a cover up
heads to
spin
though my own stock-
in-trade be
scarcely golden
seems like you may just
have rushed too pre-
cipitously into
some bad
media alchemy
and now
are looking high and low
under every bombed structure
for each
and every collateral
making such a racket to
deflect our eyes
from the hypocrisy
the place
reduced to a desert
carnage
beyond words
sad that what might have
served poetry
bent out of shape to
sustain
the war industry
defend
death’s exceptionally
make the case for a rapture
thing so sickly sweet
will
annihilate the need for
theology
morality, humanity
basic kindness and love
the species professed to hold dear
TAIPAN
I do hope
these feeble offerings
meet expectations
blend in with perceptions
fit the ruling algorithm
work wonders in the wash
with
every colonial.mindset
under the Sun,
the skin-cancer Sun
likely to play havoc
with the
shade of our species
need to hit this one
not just out
of the park
but across the entire outback
(mustn’t
come boomeranging back
in any size shape or form)
or return
with that sour vomit reflux
that you
people antipodean
have just way too
many synonyms for
and so
as you see by my references
and appendix certification
I have not only
chosen wisely and well
but have measured every
word, graphene,
syllable using
precise laser alignment
and most exact
of micrometers
have filtered via pipette
to withhold any residue
what is left
should be
immune to distaste,
inoculated against deep scrutiny
unless somewhere in
the nature of the whole toxic
chemistry
produced a venom more
troublesome than
that of
the inland taipan itself
.
PLASMA (POEM FOR CARLOS SANTANA)
say it was gradual
no big bang but
some
kind of inflation
whereupon in this
fable
gas clouds gravity
stars
plasma
hydrogen helium
smorgasbord of elements
and you
subject of
every song
Muse of
every meditation
you every delicious atom
of your loveliness
from
an entirely different star
Oh baby
reminding me tonight
of that crucible
perfect furnace
and then
soul, word,
music
constellation
gnosis between galaxy
upon galaxy
ocean upon ocean
you wrestling with that
red python
on the Woodstock stage
(if you don’t mind me saying so)
cosmos coursing through you
poems 2 die for