THIS SPACE
found
or otherwise
you have no footage
of me writing, whole
creative process
you just have to
go with face value
take on trust
seems that no bot
wrote this
you think
as levels are
discovered;
let themselves
get uncovered
before, in
coming to
a reading,
you edit and
manipulate
impose
and frame
according to
best-
guess narrative
supreme
authority
over all
located in
this space
TITLE PAGE
I close the book on you
hear you worming your way
from page to page
soon we shall be
at the end
of our story
could try to track you down
strive to find you
wondering
how our stories now conclude
which no longer
speak to each other
of eacj other
are so fully finally intertextual
might not be in the same library
any world of shared
heart or
mind
stuck barely between
the covers
on the title page.
BET YOU
bet you
you read this wrongly
take it
the wrong way
to a wrong place
against
the grain
exult in your power
as supreme
bad reader
sorry to
point this out
rain on your
May Day parade
of tanks
and workers
but everybody
misreads me
it is my fate,
the flaw
in my system
story
of my life
that gets blocked
at the school
board
denounced
in the praesidium
even though
it is all
so unreal
a game,
a mystery within
a mystery
one of those
far-fetched, trying
to push the envelope,
post-
modern, self-
reflexive tales
recounted by the most
untrustworthy of
openly
unreliable narrators
way too
metaphoric of its own
good
mirror image
of the stupid sublimity
of all
cosmic creation
FRESH FRUIT
On the farm
I wonder
about the ideology
of a tree
the entire tree:
roots, leaves, branches
cannot
escape asking myself
what haiku currently
courses
through the flowers
Of course
this is (dear reader, I
do recognise) a
category
mistake
of the first order, and will
no doubt, none too late,
be brought
to my attention amidst
much
wild snarling
and thus forgive me
my contextualizing in a poem
how much theory
pervades
everything (truly
it is in
its nature
to be an invasive species)
and Fall and Autumn and
all those mellow feelings
much
written about
some ode or other
that leaf to dead leaf
is
remembered
all the wherefores and whys
as to how
this system getting greener
came
not just
to be but
into conscious being
ruthless and polite both
stuck in a rut this day whilst
supposed
of infinite variety
and my voice
estranged, coming back
to me alien
as if
freshly arrived, in awe of
all capacity to
shift the
word of perspective
see things differently.
HARD CORE
searching for
my inner Bukowski
scanning every word,
inclination
ruthlessly scrutinizing
fastening onto
all the scruffy, seedy places
where, turning over
some unkempt stone,
I might
just find him
turning
the tables upon myself
tables I can now easily
drink each
and everyone
under
sinking my last inspirational shot
to welcome first light of dawn
and
then there are the
creatures of night’s pleasure
I might now
feel
free to consort with
the boxes of cigarettes
stacked mile high
I should
suicidally smoke through
in
the name of art
burnishing an image
burning my trash
openly
on all and sundry’s lawn
that manicured lawn
cropped
close as a Brazilian
delight
in the mind as such
thoughts, hard
to the core just
spurt
from my mouth
STRIKE ONE
if the poem (this poem,
any poem,
freaks you, takes
you out
feel reassured
be happy that all
can call
it
collateral damage
for my part
condolence and
commiseration
that it
strikes you
out of the blue
as it is
meant to exactly
getting the retaliation
in early, serving
your revenge up
first
EMILY SYNDROME
stuck some poems
in a folder
ready for revision
(Oh,
happy day!)
left them not
so long but
long
longer than
intended
albeit without Sun
or air or
indeed watering
at all
so imagine my delight shock
and horror that
day of
days, moment
of reopening
when found the little bastards
to have thrived
and multiplied, some
even grown in size
to embrace the gamut
from
split little
atom through to
Pandora of expanding universe
poem growing up
prophetic,
apocalyptic
whispering, screeching
to the Universe
their
primal truth as mirror
and
testimony (dear
reader)
to all
expanding size
FROST
I am like
frost on glass
on grass
frost
on your window
am much akin
I am
frost on the page
cold
and old
frozen
to the touch but
thaw
when you breathe me
stay with me a moment
that we both
start to
smoulder
both
learn to flow.
poems 2 die for