SALVATION

SALVATION

maybe I might
have forgotten myself
at that moment
of chaos and crisis

have forgotten to tell you
you have
become goddess
the most
beautiful thing
in the Universe

divine object of
the adulation of the stars

beloved dream of
all of us
     self included

who
   have known you
loved you
longed for you, wanted you

worshipped you
         from this intimate near

or
    as with me

so deeply
    from afar

that chaos, that crisis
stuff of supernova
of exploding galaxies

put
   to one side

alien to
     the quiet order and
system
and
   death by
intensity

of
which I
for the peace that is
light and
sort of
      respite

       guess I should write
being perhaps
some salvation

YET ANOTHER

YET ANOTHER

wrote a poem
crashed and burned

nice and crispy
in my coffin

no big deal
this grandest of exits
doesn’t make me
a rockstar
or anything

just another wannabe
following that script

so faithfully followed
right now
you might think it
an algorithm

that old self-destructive
yearning
      for excess

yet another convert
to the great
Arthur
     Rimbaud paradigm

BELONG

BELONG

Sufi Mufti
Grand Wazoo

feels like abracadabra
like verbal algebra
tuneful vowels
rolling
off my tongue

Shia Shia
Sunni Wahabi

and you Omar Khayyam
and disciples of Rumi

out in the desert
looking for rose
of beauty
woman

whose every
move a poem
every word
divine bliss

something mystical about
these Persian angels

something that drives the soul
to write
its love on sand

and me
in Heaven as I spell
out the logic
of this grammar in
full
linguistic mouthful
after mouthful

searching as I speak
for place to
belong to

if you
would have me belong

TECHNICAL

TECHNICAL

let this
be a breeze

a zephyr if you will
whistling around
your ears

better use
this term respecting
your
preference for
the physical

wish
to be technical

perfect weather for kite
and magic carpet alike

swing-
       wing metaphor

exact
careful prosody

plotting your flight path
to the end of the page
(unless
     such velocity

you escape
      to deep space)

EMPTY

EMPTY

had five friends
around for roulette

Boris
Leonid
Sasha
Dimitri
Natasha

played all night
lost every time
around the
table
    perfect hexagon

my luck deserting me
every time
      nothing doing
my
   life clicked empty
.
poems
     spent shells

dead on the floor
before
    anyone might

tragically inspired
stoop to read them

much
   dull fun, real drear, in
   this
     deathly writing business,

SNAKE

SNAKE

snake in a box
picture of coiled contentment

mindful
ambush predator
haemo- and neurotoxic

totally at peace
Zen moment
or so it
would seem

but no
finer out the box thinker
better escapologist
than this
      sleepy lightning
rod clan
  
this
   in reality
alike
in
mythology

shedding its lifetime
of skins faster
     than
          you
change your clothes
shed outworn soul’s

snakes here in abundance
though I do not
cannot yet see them

coiled around my limbs, my
heart, neck,
wrists  ankles

no snake eyes as such
but certainly snake mind

FEATHERS (for Tom)

FEATHERS (for Tom)

“…bird without feathers”.
                Plato; Woody Allen

must be
in dreamtime

surfing the betwixt
and between

to love and yet
hate
those paltry little tigers
of the domestic persuasion

so much
so much
           to talk about
think about
these ultra agile predators
dancing
    across my keyboards
snuggled up next to me

covering my universe
my hemisphere
in blankets
of dead feathers

even as tiny toys
especially as tiny tots
criminal stuff wreckers

creators
     of havoc

and yet that
curiosity, those play paws
that softness

those eyes
flashing amber
           (between, beyond
good
   and evil)

no concept of
the shame faced, simply
asking
   “Oh bird

without feathers

what did you expect?”

ALWAYS

ALWAYS

always forgetting
always
     losing my luggage
always getting
lost

missing my classes
at the wrong bus stop
on the wrong train

the Express
between Manchester
and Cape Town
somehow
    not running
today

   at least not from
this platform, though
there is
      another, they say

always another, which I did
raise with
      my chatbots (somewhat
celestial minds)
spoke of
  this recurrence
       and why no
GPS down in
this cave

and why you
still haunt me, both
here
    and far away

who did
        promised to
see me
indeed greet me

if when
   all of this has gone
strangely disappeared
and something
(rather
     than nothing) would
appear to remain

THE SIGNS WERE ALWAYS THERE

THE SIGNS WERE ALWAYS THERE

the signs
were always there

freaky fractals spiralling
out of control now
turning
    all and sundry deadly
dystopian

how might we avoid
all that predetermines
a future so dire

was thinking tapestry but
the cloth tore
    got shredded and now
we must live as
part of
a patchwork, bleak
winter tragedy

luxury liner-ing away
but all that
was scuttled and we
are clinging to lifeboats

survival here dictated
by exigencies of class

the water a green brown
emulsion, putrid
oily

  who knows what creature
mutations now face us
things having
    to change to survive

crazy as it sounds I
still have space for laughter

I hear it
gurgling
    from gullet to
mouth tones there both
of bitter
   contempt and tragic
appreciation

pull it apart
     dissect it piece by piece
in furtherance
of analysis

nothing in truth
there new to learn
   the signs were always there

UNTO CAESAR

UNTO CAESAR

and what, friend,
is due unto
Caesar

both to Julius
and Caligula as well?
.
Oh that search for the exact
shade of authority
far
   side of red
near side of purple

get that spot on
and all that public gold
and every marble structure

is yours by
    virtue of the unquestionable
Imperial logic
of becoming

the very person
   and embodiment of
the State itself

whereupon
what else is left but
for divinity to beckon

and right
   to crucify the Earth itself

what
beyond death the ultimate debt?
.