Tag Archives: poetry

IGITUR SONG

doing
deadly doctorate
I see

if i
am
still alive

if anyone
is still alive

I would love
to come
to your
graduation

hear
of the massive complexity
in your
salutation

how
as research goes
could not
be
more
cutting edge

read your aims
and objectives
expected
outcomes

the sky darkening
as we sang
the igitur
song

GONE

what if I
become
a halloween
pumpkin?

what
if
before the
terror
of the abyss

I become
a pinprick
then
truly sub-
atomic

just
a probability
something
possible
but then
who knows?

in the bubble
that is
our Universe
trillions of stars
in billions
of galaxies

life
against the odds

just a freak
chance

precious, wasted
and now
big bang joke
of jokes

it happens
to have gone

BIZARRE

puppet shows
are all the rage

we dance and
dance

but
deep state
billionaires

who is
pulling the strings?

two entirely different species
(if my eyes
do not deceive me)
of dead matter

and me,
despite my poverty,
still battling
to ascend to a
resplendant emptiness

compulsively driven, like
so many above me,
by abject fear
that once I dip
beneath
the surface
will lose everything

and,
in synchrony,
the clustering stars
decide
to give their vote
throw in
their support
for nemesis

turning market
marionettes ghastly
shades of bizarre

their high high realms
of office now
so suddenly
overwhelming underworld
about them

WASHED AWAY

washed some
ants down the drain
they did not scream
did not complain

did it as thoughtlessly
as we might get genocided
by an advanced civilization
from a distant galaxy
or closer to home

guilt or innocence
accident or
intention
you call I believe,
falls under
your jurisdiction

but I
can’t give
evidence

face
cross examination

can’t even
see you, am blind
without my glasses
and I seem
to have misplaced them

lacking them
impairs my
pattern recognition
and my perspective
on morality

give me a moment,
let me
indeed
call a timeout

find my glasses
put them on

see what in
tarnation I appear
to have signed up for

what these vague squiggles
signify
   I have written on this page here
  

OTHERWISE

“The poets help enslave even the best of us to the lower parts of our soul; and just insofar as they do so, they must be kept out of any community that wishes to be free and virtuous.” Plato 

handle the narrative
we need to get a hand
on the narrative

otherwise
don’t come crying to me
when you get
handled

when you get written off
written out

hear a voice in your head
narrating you, got you
down to a T
got you
there on the page, down
in the text, character in
a story
anything but
open ended

not seeing it coming
(foreshadow radar turned
down
    to zero)

the final sentence of
the final chapter
(should you
even
be that lucky)

closing on you
slamming shut
like a great iron
final door

DAWN

where did you come fron
what day
did you dawn?

or is it that
I have my dates and
times screwed up

causing offence with
my words because
you were
always here?

plunging up through
through the ground beneath us
to claim foundation

music in one hand
syllogisms in t’other

reeking of born-again pragmatism
not here to
redefine, or control, or
take possession
but
just look around

and now I see
you still looking but
with wildly greater intensity
dissing, dismissing,
decrying,
       lecturing me
on what is good for me

sour-faced and malign
when it comes to all that
would wish
to flourish alongside you
go better
angel with you

for better
or for worse

THIS IS WHERE

this is
where

democracy died
saw its grave
despoiled

its name
erased

the thing
ghost danced
never
   talked about

outside the camps
where though
strong verboten

discussion
remains

AT LEAST

you tried
to write
a poem
but your
fat pen
slipped

sloshed
all over
the page

and me
when i
popped
in to
the poem
to have
a read

found
you drowning
in a torrent
of ink
and being

the saintly
figure that i am
leapt in
feet first
making
every effort
to save you

sadly, we
were not
entirely
successful

lost you
but managed
to salvage
fix your poem

some of it
at least