JOE’S PEOPLE
Joe’s people put it out there:
the man
has the soul
of a poet
once wrote
a poem
or so the world
received it, rapturously,
myself I believe
the wit and wile
lies
buried thete
somewhere
though hardly
a poem
in my book
more a concerted attempt
at a daub; Rorschach blot
for the
dead in imagination
BUTTONED
slippery slope
one Hell of
a logical fallacy
not sure I buy that
he said as
poles reversed
and all
went vertigo
over a bad word
and the terrible, Earth-
shattering damage — go
figure! — it cannot
be allowed
to do
but she is erudite, and
in the New Yorker, no less,
she has
made her case
but elegance is an achievement
will not stand
up to deconstruction
your cracks and crevices
are there
for the taking
rhetorical figures interrogated
made to stand on their heads
and here you are
touting the danger
of weapons of mass destruction
but throwing
your own little not so
weak hand grenade
into the mix
thing that democracy, humanity
can well do without adding
to their wounds, their woes
at this particular juncture
useful idioting yourself with
stylistic flourish so spectacular
finding yourself
(yet again) on these pages
grown
synonym
for suspect
nice little diversion from
the calamity to the very
concept and
its understanding, of
civilization
with every blind moment of
pure slaughter via
two thousand pound bomb
testament to
our world, new
reality no
sooner than lips
first got buttoned up
PHIL AND BEN
Phil and Ben
shootimg the breeze
like they are major league gods
on Olympus
but caanot
taste the abrosia
in their words
run
with their wisdom
history sure to show
how here, like so many,
they shot themselves
in the foot
with some weapon
of horrendous calibre.
ASSAULT OF THE REAL MEN
they imagine
their captain
be Leonidas
they the brave 300
out to hold
the hot gates
save civilization
from
Xertes horde
who have
stayed at home
drinkimg tea, reciting slogans
and poems
holding impromtu history lessons
unarmed, democratic
and anti-
imperial to the core
DENIAL
you have turned
denial
into a fine art
and what
a self- portrait
it is painting!
one whose veneer,
we do see through
that history
will record, pass
down through
the generations
in its true, raw
hideously distorted,
criminal, culpable
least human of forms
ZADIE INSISTS
Zadie insists
here lie
weapons of
mass destruction
vehicles
of terror
but I check my words
for the monstrous
genocidal
do not
seem to find them
no sign of bacilli,
nothing that
seriously Geiger counters
no anthrax
lurking
between the lines
no plague about
the launch itself
between the lines
no Bond PPK Walther
with screw-on silencer
unless
I am misguided
mistaken
and you see it, feel it,
smell it, taste it
hear it
all here
planning some small,
strictly limited, quiet
(and quite nonsensical
operation)
to eliminate some person
or persons
in the cause
of poetic self-interest
or the more entirely
delusional inclination
towards
liberating you all
whole of humanity
poems 2 die for