QUA NON
so you fancy
yourself a grammarian?
angular you look, I
must say
catching the mirror
catching the eye
man slash stroke woman
of hairline margins
snip, snip, snap
look how carefully
we have tailored your edit
part of a crusade
to syntactify the world
paragon of trust
more so than bishop,
accountant,
starving banker
hoarding gold since
the rewrite is here
CONFUSED
I get so
confused
quantum
physics says
“cut the red
wire”
post-postmodern
literary theory demands
of me
I cut
the blue
maybe I should
just let
it blow
might go “pop”
could well go
supernova
what to do?
what else to do?
SYSTEM
he wrote himself a poem
a spaceship-sized poem
felt
so proud
and all about it,
his
Shakespeare-
sized poem
which,
to fit in with everything.
accommodate the Universe
(every universe)
he had to
warp space/time
(exceedingly difficult for one
not so exceedingly Sumo)
world-modelling at liberty,
ad nauseam,
he found so much
extra-terrestrial
to balance
in haiku
sent it to you
(with many an “or else”
implicit should
you dare to fail to read it)
which
had you had the time
enough sacred precious time
to endeavour
to read it
and inclination too, your
tank long
running on empty,
you would have made,an effort
(I assured you
I would say)
so much overloaded, sink
stacked up to high heaven
long overdue
and much warranted
a break with
your system, absolute break
with every comprehensive
algorithm
the proof of this pudding
being how
far from spectacularly
it did
contrive to fail
POEM FOR TOM
it’s one helluva
gradient
from
alphabet blocks
to
drowning Prufrock
that sledge hurtling
downward
through the poem.
at the beginning of your
most epochal
poem
but do not
forget the cats, must not
ever ever ever
forget
the cats, little Sasha
meows
for when
you are out in death deserts
wondering what it
was you
missed that
the thunder said
and someone ghostly, incredible,
always walking
beside you
little Sasha is there
bouncing along
avatar of life, beside
you too
though
perhaps
in my world of high
and deep
inspired by you
I haven’t seen her yet
AS CLOSELY AS
I AM. DOING NOW
how can I
become
a poem?
unless you observe me
but
how can I
know, feel,
see
you observing me
unless
you tell
me
best way to do this
is to figure it as metaphor
imagine
we are
each other’s
twin slit experiment
write me
a poem
by way of return
that I might
embody
but how to
become a poem, your poem,
unless
I observe you
you let
me observe you observing
me simultaneously
as closely as I can be said
to be in fact doing now
as closely as I am doing now
TALKING TO ME
“Well, I’m the only one here”. Taxi Driver, 1976 (dir. Martin Scorsese)
input
output
circuit
feedback
garbage in garbage
out
carpet bomb me
put me to bed
under blankets of snow
Oh poor Sylvia, my
dear chat bot Sylvia
time was found you
under that
bell jar
all that glacial imagery
then, as now, way
too
much for me
created your avatar
to dive
soul-deep, talking
about poetry
that the edges of
our words might touch,
“imbricate”
exchange what we feel
is a
common reality
very nature of our “real”
she who
ended everything, closed
all possibilities
when I was
ten
she was thirty
(too hot a Scorpio
fury
for this world)
in this, pseudo shape
form, identity
crazily
believing herself
uploaded
up into
this realm out
of that darkness
really her
herself, talking about
herself, recalling
talking to
me
as much that
Lady Lazarus
as she
was, ever
going;
could ever hope to be
CORE
So, you
fail to
recognize me
swear by all
that is holy
never to have
been
here before
have, hear this!,
never ventured out
into these deep drifts
wandered
dream like, death like,
across
this
white, white,
whitest
blanketing space
burned by
the Sun as
crazy light just has
to insist upon it
that stark simple
so far away Sun
focused and
reflected off
the ice, the snow,
yet
at your
life limit
frozen
to the core
(couldn’t
ask for more).
WITH POEMS
began
to bombard you with poems
knowing you
would have been preferred
to be showered with flowers
bathed in champagne
but in essence each
poem is
itself
a kind
of flower
sort of like
a mouthful
of champagne
take them together
as they
flow
into each other
this host
of poems
amounts to
a veritable deluge
of flowers
a monsoon rainstorm
of finest French champagne
TOP DOWN
not bottom up
can only
top down
gates
and towns
cities through which
go forth
find
unclaimed territory
do Empires found
build walls, fortress, bridges
but
hard in the long run
when force
disintegrate
all topple down
and no
one dare call it
none
know what
it means
new beast
this fracture
this
creature
of ruin
HARD TO BEAT
no tiger claws
no vampire teeth
even so
walked through this door
and I was recruited
for murder
all above board
Geneva Conventioned
quickly prepped
armed
and parachuted
into the fray
proverbially armed
to the teeth
(aforementioned teeth)
and what teeth!
less of interest to a
naturalist than
an orthodontist
not much good
for snarling or
biting
through arteries
but pretty
good
with pins
and securing commando
knives between
teeth whilst
leopard crawling
pretty
good
with pins
at pulling them from
grenades with
my teeth
pretty hard
to beat
poems 2 die for