HOMEWORLD

HOMEWORLD

a lot of tourists
came to our planet

behaved despicably
threw their weight around
(which in the case
of creatures from gas giants
could be truly immense)

worst of all, as to be expected,
were the various species
of humanoids
and worst of these
were this truly abhorrent
species
       from a planet called Earth

who gave us no choice
but to strike at their Homeworld
and eviscerate their leaders

since it is in the nature of
this species to choose as
their leaders the greediest
and most depraved
and insensible amongst them

without which
we calculated

this species had a future
might have
     some kind of chance

QUEEN OF INTROSPECTION

QUEEN OF
INTROSPECTION

dainty
delicate

I read your words and
am proud to
tell you

you are
my Queen of
introspection

so go to
the podium
get your
award

thank your
agent,  your parents,
your minister
at the Church and
above all
He
who created you

without which
this award-winning poetry
with all its
soft
     soft
words

would
not exist

THAT WILLIAM BLAKE CHARACTER

THAT WILLIAM BLAKE CHARACTER

saw that William
Blake character
on social media

disagreed about the war
had a few sharp words

fresh from this exchange
looked him up
found
   not a word on Wikipedia
save a reference to a character
in a Jim Jarmusch film

which seriously flustered me
for I had got this notion
into my head
   about this far from prototypical
radical
      early nineteenth century
English Romantic poet

but seems it is all a myth, a false flag,
huge disinformation

which 
     stands to reason,
for if there were really
a Songs of Innocence and
a Songs of Experience

think how
different the world would be

EXERCISE

EXERCISE

you cannot go
into a classroon
proclaim to
the kids

today, children, I have
something lovely
for you to do:

today
      in class
we are going to get
creative

have
real fun, drawimg
painting what
      the soldier saw

or sculpt a little diorama
or create a tiny script

and then
     enact it

as a play, or maybe film
the play or maybe

a black and white or
technicolout film

we have
           so much red paint
it’s going to be spectacular

buckets of red paint
for you head
                to toe
to slosh around

an exercise for all of us
to forever remember

death is the scene
            death must

never forget

GLITCH

GLITCH

“A glitch that renders flesh and blood so weak,
Yet paves the way for words divine to speak.”

was wandering through
the killing fields
of Gaza

dodging the whatabouttery
ducking the bombs

when it struck me
that poets
be normal human
beings

except for their software
there is a problem
in the software

the problem in their software
being that it is too soft

UNSPEAKABLE

UNSPEAKABLE

I know wounds
I am currently
still wounded

I am unwounded
you call me
unspeakable

stick that label upon me
with a white hot iron

and now
    in the light
of what you have done
your catastrophic achievements

think you
should back off
        a little

last defence of your position
an appeal to hypocrisy
desire to shut
out any
    all contradiction

think you should have
a serious think
        and rethink

weigh it all up
               carefully,
                    as we
humans are
supposed to

check your direction
confirm your
                 moral compass
before
you step
any closer

for I am
as pointed
out earlier:
wounded indeed
bleed in both
body and
soul
     internally
      externally

feel I can
never heal
      in light of all the death
with which

you have
surrounded me

and yet
        nevertheless

testimony to
      my stupidity

I do refuse
to be silenced

be labelled
unspeakable
       dragged into that
narrative you wish
              have to wish
              we would believe

wounded I am
(may even
           qualify as
     
    distant
     collateral damage)

shock-splinters in my heart
to be true
      (feel them
                  I do)

yet
I know
      come crunch

come what offer cannot but
                                     be refused

how
to
wound badly, terminally

unspeakably

how to wound too
        

AFTER THIS

AFTER THIS

after this
you ask me

not what
forgiveness

but what
salvation, what
resurrection?

but in the absence
of principle
I cannot answer
I do not know

mine is a ramshackle
up-down, on-off
lesser evil, beyond
good
   and evil kind of spirituslity

but this is
a crime beyond crimes
in the eyes
of God
were he willing
to open them
were he
prepared to see

and all this
blood
    this carnage

it cannot but have stained us
smashed that mirror into
shell shrapnel, bomb
splinter sized
     needle-like fragments
the one
     in which
divine likeness
         was seen

wounds
      need healing, and
all these wounds

are
    self-inflicted

ask me
          later

not now not now
later I may again believe
in something, in humanity
in purpose
     and vision

today
      but today

just short of hopeless for me

silence better
than these paltry words here

ON BOARD

ON BOARD

you made yourselves
into gods of chaos

chaos
     that proceeds orderly

methodically
has lists

moves street
by street
     wiping out, missing
nothing
    could not be
more thorough

having learnt from
its horrific encounters
with the
     demons of the past

terrible demons that
cast a monstrous forever
                         shadow

hook, line
            and sinker

precise depths of that evil
turned
          rational

taken on board

AT THE READING

AT THE READING

the poets are gathered
in the auditorium

make the final checks
to see nothing wrong
with their uniforms

doped and dragooned
the audience
        off-loaded from trucks
are marched to
their seats

essence
    of the system

one attendee
one seat

     was the promise decades
prior that won
the landslide election

whose benefeciaries are
here too

armour-plated limousines
as
    gatekeepers of
fine standing

Ah what
a sight!

      same old same old
every poem
basically the same
so
   no sense
in expectation

indeed
best thing that could happen
before a line is recited
a stanza
is read

is that something
from smallest inconvenient
hitch
   to extinction level event

stops everything in
its tracks

temporary reprieve
      or a long long wait

a few million years
    to the cockroaches that
survived
and evolved

get their act together
   to run a better, more
poetic,
     democratic

and yes,

         human event

ON BOARD

ON BOARD

you made your god
into a god of chaos

chaos
     that proceeds orderly

methodically
has lists

moves street
by street
     wiping out, missing
nothing
    could not be
more thorough

having learnt from
its horrific encounters
with the
     demons of the past

terrible demons that
cast a monstrous forever
                         shadow

hook, line
            and sinker

precise depths of that evil
turned
          rational

taken on board