poetry – Page 97 – poems 2 die for

EMILY

those serial killer eyes
that butcher’s smock

dead give aways
told you are a poet
I would have put
good money on
you writing
thus exactly

your writing desk an
abbatoir
where you carve and cure
your fillet steak
cut thick or
thin, made
to exact measure

horrible and gorgeous
how when I read
a line
I can taste
the bloodwould you like your

poetry rare, Sir, or au
tartare

the potatoes, greens,
well these we can give you
done well done
all the way from
crunchy crisp
to
rock hard

sweeter than sweet when
you sing
the soul’s dark song though

solitary in the darkness, none
so intrepid as
to join, let
alone sing along

MEMORIAM

too much in tatters
to make a tapestry

so cold it is
this morning on the farm
it takes all
my enterprise and endeavour
to stitch one, two
things together

but
if poem is mirror

so the farm is a mirror too
it takes and it gives back
gives back
strangely, crafts
the strangest equations

and me speaking to
my shopkeeper friemd
asking him
for the meaning of
tte birds’ singing (and
their songs)
in the Holy text
of his religion

and here
where the birds do sing
you might have found
refuge
for your spirit
succor for your soul

those three years ago
might have found something here
to change your history, put
on path more safe,
less immediately fatal

and now
what legacy?

the world knows it now
too well, what
we cherish, but
what we have wished
to hide
of all thst is darker, bleaker,
all that is
so explicitly of the margin
the edge

but, as Afzil says, it is
for God Himself the birds sing

this love is what
their song
was given to express

as celebration
or in memoriam

STAR

star of the Nativity

sharp as
a shrunken

I see you not so far
into the future

leading the faithful
on disastrous crusades

FROZEN

my hands are frozen stiff
and yet
all this sitting
in the cold snow
in vain

nothing here
so
beneath zero
able to cool the hot
zeal of the words themselves

lust for life no
matter how empty
how inconsequential
this life
might well prove to be

my demons
marching across the page
demanding their right
to speak
for themselves, go
the whole way

a wildfire about to happen
whilst I must, logically speaking,
submit to
their will, to the right
of language to dictate
what it has to,
desires to, needs to

comply with the smart, counter
intuitive, freezing thinking,
with your
frozen-solid conception
of creation my dear
Monsieur Michel Foucault

idea
that author is
the thing the poem itself,
this poem itself
has issues with

confounding your dreamt of structure
        bringing it all
into one
mesmerizing sequence of
gorgeouslly miraculous fractal moments
       dancing, despoiling, flaunting
seducing, infecting,
                  overpowering

such resonance
birthing in the brain patterns of
wonder
            the world
            has not yet
had the pleasure to
                       discover it owns, it has, as
     has been ruthlessly revealed

and
still stuck
in the snow

once again, these fingers freezing

JUST SAYING

concave
contex

I overhead them
coversing (perhaps
conspiring) in the corner
of the coffee shop
(the one
i briefly owner before
the whole enterprise
summarily collapsed)

what a pair
what a pair!
the quantum demon and
the man for whom
everything
has a rational explanation

and you, Sean Carroll,
your name carve up
and you
Doctor Neil Degrasse Tyson
as I stared into the
tiny spiral milk gakaxy
swirling its way to
its ultimate
dissolution
in a second fresh cup
of dark, dark coffee

straining to catch the words
that would import
some solid sense
to me
of the final scientific outcome

but failed
at that endeavour

will
always fail to do so
in every
universe real
or possible

ever existed
or still to exist

let me
be seen by all

seen
to be going on record
to point this out

OPEN QUESTION

was over the rainbow
reading Gravity’s Rainbow

totally alone in the Manchester
Poly new lecture and dormitory complex
the night outside
straining against the streetlights
to impose impenetrability

occupancy
a month away, set for
summer and the new
academic year

and me
feeling secure, overlooking
the small matter of the SS20s
parked somewhere
in Eastern Europe
sights set on this city
and
thus on me

Oh V2 rocket
progenitor of these mid-range
city killers

this technology so set
on rendering all
human future an open
question

what Pandora could not have
imagined lurking
in the bottom
(true bottom
beneath all false versions)

but Pynchon
saw so intensely

setting his imagination
to dead end

FER-DE-LANCE

JUST AN ORANGE

no mixed messages here
just
thank you
for the sun juicy orange
you gave me

I love
orange

and, what is more,
orange loves me

teeth, tip of tongue
and every
bit of my mouth
that can
put it all together
to make
warm glowing orange sounds

I have prepped
brought to state
of readiness

the better
to tantalize the giver
with every
secret of receipt

so now
I spin it in my hand
my tiny
orange planet

planning to eat it
as sacred mindful act
like a true
Zen master

or eat it not
as stipulated by the sages

but like a character in
a novel
by DH Lawrence
or one of his
utterly sensuous teasing
poems

but
on second thoughts
my mistress of
mixed messages best

keep this
to myself

just pretend it was an orange
gratefully received,
and eaten as
was purposed

nothing more, nothing less
all that
preceded, all that fancy talk
flowing with crazy
flavour
dripping with suggestion

should stay
between the two of us, beloved
reader

kept
to ourselves

FAST FORWARD

fast forward

when I looked
at the film
again

it had
all been remastered

some
small scenes had
been tripped
cut down the running
time
to Hell with
the narrative

villain had
becoms protagonist
protagonist
did nothing

and old ending
charmingly absurd
had made way
for denouement generic

lay a foundation
for sequel

cruel to laugh seeing
them flounder
in that
wet cement

but I did
so anyway
(no
samurai suicide
for these
producers and
scripwriters whose

sense of
shame so
not of the best

Tag Archives: poetry