Tag Archives: student protests

MAINSTREAM NARRATIVE

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

POLICE BE

POLICE BE

police be
a reality

peace
uphold
the vanity

steamroll through
happy metaphor
such as
carnival
of Peace

cracking heads
breaking ribs
the like it when
you go
     crunchy
(much prefer
to smooth)

came in ranks
came in files
along
   the flanks

a navy blue line
many navy blue lines
that
   in storming
the stairs

fell
  out of step, became
Mongol horde
become
throwback
sheriff and
all those deputies
Bob Marley missed

rowdy, bouncy,
sad that
     there have
to be prisoners

their mission, God-given,
all about nipping whatsoever
with
  measure
of violence
in the bud

OUTSIDE YOUR TEMPLE

OUTSIDE YOUR TEMPLE

that line from Robbie Williams
about talking to God
floating
   through my brain

woke up
and suddenly found I had
strayed into your
encampment

masquerading as sort-of
poet, philosopher,
lover of Zen
and all bladed weapons

watching you agog
amazed: every
action small
and large, every word
both long
and short
a telling truth to power

something about
the semiotics here, though,
a red, red flag
to tormented souls

skewered by the fatal ironies
of such massive, cosmic,
toxic contradictions

their Empire
a prison
from which they
cannot, dare not,
refuse to
        don’t know
haven’t the faintest idea
how to escape

this dream world best
world
   worst of
        all possible worlds

****
and here
  is a figure too, West Coast
Italian in
robe soiled and tattered
barefoot, perhaps

those feet
not having seen water since
the Pope kissed those toes

crosses in
   front of me, of
pure
holy squalor our
most iconic figure

a figure
     so joyous

hard not
to hazard a guess as
to who he
      just has to be

****

the police are here
in riot gear
they

have their
orders

they

beg
   to differ

what happens from hereon
in

is scripted

like a victim selection
bombing program

it was authored by machine

CORDOBA

CORDOBA

I was in medieval Cordoba
at the height of its power
and its prestige,

when I found myself, perhaps
having blinked too hard,
in Paris May ’68 and
then in
Times Square New York
sometime yesterday
or maybe tomorrow

watching an Empire slowly
grind itself down to powder

whilst somewhere in these
crowds a Holy prophet and
Christ incarnation
is quietly, deliberately,
avoiding the vanity that
feasts upon
supreme spectacle
       (Naomi’s false idol)

searching for what was
lost, destroyed,
that it be found, healed,
restored,
      re-established in
single searing moment
of absolute connection

meanwhile
   in a playhouse in the centre
of Philadelphia, an outraged
Dionysus plots
King Pentheus’s demise

his worshippers find themselves
swept up by a force
beyond the power
of resistance
awake to the reality
of a primal, divine
revenge
    soaked in the blood of
their rapture,

egged on by the god to cross
the presumed defining linit
of humanity itself m.

Signs and wonders:
we so desperate that they
submit
to our systems
     not rupture the fabric
of meaning itself

WHY?

WHY?

why beat the shit
out of them?

surely
with your massive
military industrial complex

your have
more refined, tech-
savvy solutions

or because
since universities began
in medieval Arabia
and Europe must
you go dark
ages on them
besiege these encampments
like you are Temujin’s
horde

ransacking for forage
throwing defenders
down the battlements
all to
    show and
tell lesson them
how Plato’s children
and great grandchildren
should scholastically behave

FOR THE RECORD

FOR THE RECORD

won’t pretend
to be on the right
side of history

too old now
to make a diffetence
or for anyone
to care
whose side I’m on

for the record,
I support your protests
for justice, freedom and
against this
horrendous
suffering inflicted
on human beings; love
your expression
of humanity

this for the record but
realize my old world
the world
    that assaults you, maligns
you

is now
beyond the pale;
has outlived its purpose
(did it serve
any purpose?)
has outstayed its welcone

so when
   (act of mercy) wheel me
over a cliff down
into the ocean in
my wheelchair
best bundle up this old
dead corrupt world
with me
wheel it over as well

PANIC LITE

PANIC LITE.

moral panic
Janet!

something in your pants
something wriggling
in your panties

threatening every
aspect of your identity

have to go
airtight, watertight
totally clamp down

if no one can
breathe
   how do you hope
to
however can
you expect to

guide the world
to the light
(nothing we fear
more than your light)

****

moral
panic, Janet!

let’s not forget
those who began it