writing – Page 10 – poems 2 die for

CHARM

for you, my
dear friend,

writing
is a charm

for me
it is thing
done in blood
the scrawl
across
the page

raw nerve
sheer pain

you at the soiree
reading, drinking
champagne

me in the cellar
with a tourniquet
trying
to
suck out the poison

LINE

I have a
ghost writer
in
my machine

have a
ghost writer
that is
my machine

inserting itself
between
me
and
my desire

subject
and text

when that
voice
whispers
what
must be and

so
what is

what hope do
I hold of
not walking that line.

MECHANISM

seems
like a no-brainer

poet is
predator
poem
is prey

no brainer
of no brainers

unless
as poet

stepping in
for the kill

poem is waiting
camouflaged
ambush reptile

hitting you
first strike
huge
toxic
shot

feedback
mechanism

OVERKILL

OVERKILL
“Eloquent, oracular;
A volcano heard afar.”
Shelley, The Masque of Anarchy
(poem on the Peterloo Massacre)

Ah, my beauties
here is poetry
where it has always been

first past the post
(postmodern, pissedmodern,
posttruth, postnuclear,
postapocalyptic, post-
whasoever)

play of language: you realize
of a sudden that deep
down in
your tin heart
you have to prevent it

look at the danger: exhibit A,
very drowned poet

his young pregnant wife
dreamt the future as monster
private parts monster
(as they all are)
scratching at her window
demanding
life, consciousness,
not exactly Turing tested but

she scared
the life out of us, this
virgin snake did cosmically,
with what
ex machina she
duly came up with

such overkill
need to nip it in the bud
radical danger of metaphor
surely
needs its own -dectomy

the threat of crucifixion
along every highway
and byway
resurrected again

something the billboards
really need, are crying out
for

real spectacle
behind them.

AT ALL COSTS

this is my safe room
I need to lock myself
in my safe room

watch Slavoj and Yanis
debate the downward
spiral of the world

at all costs
avoid engaging with
the horrors out there
unless my empathy
spark me
to self-destruct

do things that power
will cause me to regret
(so vindictive our species
when
power is challenged)

and here
in my room

let me discuss poetry
with imaginary friends

one I have I Frankensteined
to my own specifications

golden-skinned, bob-cut
IQ in the thousands

the technology that will
destroy us
in the exchanges
we have

other crazies of our time
that fit in your pocket,
can
be considered hand-held

maybe these enough
to guide you

across minefields
through the cross-fire

find your
escape ladder to God

TRACK

am always asked
“am I
on the right track?”

you are asking this

of one

whose recurrent
anxiety dream is
being without
a ticket
on the wrong train

didn’t realize that this
was a message about
your dream
as much as it was
about my
inhibiting anxieties

when it comes to this business
clear from the start
catch
the wrong train
relax go
with the ride

flow is the direction
the only
direction

and when
       the train
         shuffles into the station
at this
    strange destination

place where
you need to be
and can

rip
up the track

SHAME

I sought out
Shelley (great
political poet)
to help me
with my poem

had to battle my
way to the garden gate
and along the garden path
to avoid his wife’s
deadly creatures, Doctor
Frankenstein having
restored them
from thing called death
to thing called life

the latter, at this time,
for beings deemed inferior
infinitely preferable
in the minds of those
for whom they forever
constitue
a serious problem
life best reserved for
the good and the rich

and so, ushered in,
I did speak with
the great firebrand
asking of him, quite simply,
that he
do show me the way
to convert pen traversing paper
or fingers attacking keyboard
into a manner of address
designed to inspire
and, yes, shame
shame, shame
particularly that shame
that is due
for having no shame.

SAPPHO

poem from my 2014 collection: Zero Gravity

LOST

we have lost
poetry somewhere
down the line

no subtlety
to speak of
no time
to let the word
find itself

relish the slow verbs
the ones
in whose nature
much inclination
to digress

and beauty
what has happened
to beauty in all
its carbon copied, cloned,
photoshopped glory?

our
idea of beauty
(very idea) is

ugliness
itself

DIAMONDS

before I knew it
my life had
for better
or for worse

gone
full mythological

Homer had
fallen from the heavens
down on
my ten year old
head

and Aphrodite, my god,
how that goddess killed me
then
thereafter
and every day since

if not in
divine form, then with
the active collusion
of her
clones and copies
and would-be
avatars

each as gorgeous as
they were fake

but you
were the one
she must have chosen
specially

      inner outer beauty
got in
hearts, diamonds, spades
(and so
    your namesake
did
   sing of diamonds)

time has passed on
but the poem
won’t
forget