FRESH FRUIT

FRESH FRUIT

On the farm
I wonder

about the ideology
of a tree

the entire tree:
roots, leaves, branches

cannot
escape asking myself
what haiku currently
courses
   through the flowers

Of course
    this is (dear reader, I
do recognise) a
category
   mistake
of the first order, and will
no doubt, none too late,
be brought
   to my attention amidst
much
  wild snarling

and thus forgive me
my contextualizing in a poem
how much theory
pervades
        everything (truly
it is in
its nature
    to be an invasive species)

and Fall and Autumn and
all those mellow feelings
much
   written about

some ode or other
      that leaf to dead leaf
is
  remembered

all the wherefores and whys
as to how
  this system getting greener
came
   not just
    to be but
into conscious being

ruthless and polite both
stuck in a rut this day whilst
supposed
    of infinite variety

and my voice
     estranged, coming back

to me alien

as if
   freshly arrived, in awe of
all capacity to
shift the
      word of perspective

see things differently.
   

SILLY ME

SILLY ME

silly me
how silly could
I be!

all the ills
of the world
I do allow
to make
me
sickly

so please
do not simply
condemn

if in this
fall
   from grace
I do

maybe
vomit up the odd
poem
    or two

perhaps
quite hideous

possibly
outright
               sublime

silly not to factor
all that is genius into
the chaos
          of big picture

EMILY SYNDROME

EMILY SYNDROME

stuck some poems
in a folder
    ready for revision
(Oh,
     happy day!)

left them not
so long but
long
   longer than
intended

albeit without Sun
or air or
indeed watering
at all

so imagine my delight shock
and horror that
day of
   days, moment
of reopening

when found the little bastards
to have thrived
and multiplied, some

even grown in size
to embrace the gamut
from
     split little
atom through to
       Pandora of expanding universe

poem growing up
prophetic,
apocalyptic
      
            whispering, screeching
to the Universe

their
    primal truth as mirror
and
testimony (dear
reader)

to all
   expanding size

PENMAN

PENMAN

saw those old school
photos yet once more

(was looking for something
relevant
and they just
fell down)

so angelic that face and
mop of blonde curls

would seem to have
“grows up to become
cruel spree-killer
written
     all over him”

so easy to strip, lock and
load an automatic weapon
after careful study
(nose buried
         in that manual)

so much harder a labour
filling basket after basket
with failute, screwed
up paper

battling the odds
to pen a poem

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.