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
MAINSTREAM NARRATIVE
(for the students)
the great locomotive
steamed out of the station
built up
momentum
determined to cross
from
ocean to
ocean
but
ran out of track
and crashed
unable to
hold up that weight
on its cardboard wheels
ZADIE (3)
Oh Zadie
your words
hurt me
I was wandering
along the periphery
eating an onion
gifted me
by Roland Barthes
when
I overhead a word
that hit me with
all its 50 megatons
and so, I had no option,
but to
take it to heart
which
would have killed me
had not realised,
it was
not
actually a bullet
and only like a bomb
by virtue
of
analogy
a prime (should I say
“primed”) example of
metaphoric
thinking
and I rose
to go on
my way
fight again another day
but then another bullet
hit me, though
you may say
I just walked into
it
but luckily, was
a recent arrival, via
plucky trade
a miracle, God be praised!,
and I was saved
its manufacture British
Oh Zadie your
barrage, blast, MG-42 spray
so totally
nailed my argument.
poems 2 die for