HOUSE RULES
there is no
poetry
about
this house
no fibre
in this room
to speak of
just so-so people
who
when the word
was elevate
when the word
was transform
were absent from school
dreaming the dreams
that children
of Empire dream
of securing power
of the ever so nicely
polite and
compliant backs
of the suffering mass
of the British people
LORD JOE
Oh great senile
lord of the world
you brain is a barn
in a hurricane,
a barn without
a door
the wind whistling, wheezing through
telling you
you need some structure
to your stupidity
and perhaps Amanda to
write and perform you
another of her
golden,
inspirational,
nonsensical poems.
MOREOVER
got shot
at point-blank range
but you say
I ran straight
into a bullet
a good bullet
moreover
one that knows
the difference between
right and wrong
a silver bullet, a golden
bullet, a Willy Wonka
eternal
gob-stopping bullet
made by the great
celestial munitions factory
over the rainbow
before that got
shot to shreds
BY GEORGE
by George he has
won the election
by a thumping
gazzumphing
tub-thundering majority
Dundee’s master
of words, knife-thrower
by vocabulary
a voice growling like
Churchill
from the benches,
resonant, indefatigable
leaving those who battle
to string two
words together
at a
loss for any of them
DANCE
went to
a damce
mat at
a dance
danced
at a dance
fell
in love
danced
their dance
came
and went
from my
lifelong observations
never
danced again
things so
much happier;
simpler then
IF ONLY (LIFE WERE A TAD
MORE POSTMODERN)
They put the poet on reality television.
I did not get
to see the programme;
analyse the working
out of that proposition.
what was done
in the shower.
Caught on CCTV
for all eternity.
But I think I can hazard
a guess
how it pans out
as poetic expression:
the poet
dies (of course)
as a figure
of tragic exclusion
and the poem, given
space and time,
gets over its grief
rides out into the sunset
with a sestina side-saddle
and everyone, cast
and crew,
all set to
live their lives not
stoically but
much happily ever after
figure
they might need
a script
one where some
budding your therapist
pays off
the mortgage
attending to each psyche
with radical
depression therapy.
FOR BLOOD
asking for trouble
telling me I’m
not allowed to, supposed
to think
like that
as if I’m dead in the apotheosis
of Solaris
Chris
Kelvin about to be absorbed
by massive
alien love
and so
I throw philosophy, or its
kitchen sink equivalent at you
hoping to
shift your
tectonic plate
Nietzsche warning about the abyss
but here you
go falling
into it
silly me, silly person
must be
a horrible species of
xenomorphic extraterrestrial alien
having
thick satirical acid for blood
TRILLIONS
give them
a pleasure
treasure island
beyond
their wildest dreams
self-
contained
far away
from the rest of us
where they can live out
their deepest aspirations
most intense fantasies
except
they do
not have any
witness their only joy
to be accumulation
primary accumulation
as they build skyscrapers
and mountains higher
than any
in the Himalayas
stacking trillions
of sea shells on the sea shore
PRECINCT 13
massacre out there
somewhere
British bullets? Hell,
who cares
certainly not
the Mother of All Parliaments
shamefully abrogating
its democratic responsibilities
and duties
turning its
great narrative into
Assault on Precinct 13
BLOOD
I whitewashed
my poem
silly me
I got all my facts wrong
good job
the mainstream
media was
on hand
to correct me
poet nobody
cleans up his act
at least now
I might make
some kind of
headline
worth the whitewash
restoring the page
to its pristine blankness
worth
all the effort picking
up the body parts
mopping
up the blood
poems 2 die for