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
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
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
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
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
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
BED SIT
sit with me
in the darkness everywhere
bombs are falling
seems that they
are in unlimited supply
what we
were put on the planet for:
to think, make bombs
and die
CITIES
somehow
the walls of cities
invite brutality
Golden Horde being
not the only case in point
trebuchet
mortar
submarine-launched
cruise missiles
a thousand years forward
in war technology
a billion lifetimes in
moral consciousness back
HYPOCRALPSE NOW
loving the smell
of white phosphorous
in the morning
will he still love
you if you script
all this a la Apocalypse Now?
will he promise you
sign of sanction and
spiritual favout
that is
yet another
overwhelming victory
or is he taxing your faith
testing your strategic patience
by making this
a possible new
battle of Stalingrad,
advances only in inches
forward or
underground
stop start
stop start
pity when it comes to
kill ratios even if
targeted and
supremely intentional
collateral damage figures
(including toddlers, infants
women and pensioners)
cannot
be allowed to
seriously count
but there is no Kurtz and ghere
is no river
no Dantesque journey
through the circles
of Hell
which makes no sense in a wotld
where it has become
impossible to differentiate between
our
angels and demons
gods and devils
where everything and
everyone have their unique insane
totally
clueless plan
to deal with the shadow of
all evil
by massacring everybody
since
we can no longer
be saved
cannot
save ourselves
UK OK (not so very)
still solid
(courtesy of Victorian
architecture)
crazy high aquaducts
(now exactly what
do they do?)
university I went to
down main road manchester
freshly
returned from
south africa
settler colonial
(apartheid to
god knows who else
and me
and you)
but on that diet of dismal
how stuff going to grow properly?
how stuff going to flourish
when for best moral fibre
getting
force-fed gloom
red, white, blue
flag should be slate grey and
colour
most exploitative
see your politicians now
scared at the thought
people
might
have their
own ideas
university down oxford street
(or was it road?)
taught me something
about the
economic of F and K
(plaque proclaims
them
the previous tenants)
anarchy
OK OK strawberries
spoiled, by
this time
was
the late 70s
ust rattle your cheap jewellery here
and I’ll
imagine
in falsetto
less than happily singing along
poems 2 die for