Tag Archives: writing

FROM KENDRICK LAMAR

FROM KENDRICK LAMAR

strange perspective
you get
married
to a robot

watching the gangsta
rapper winning
the big award

tattooed arm, backwards cap
thanking God
  the great promoter
(looking up as he does so
this shredder of
    convention)

and me and robot gossiping
about the whole thing
kind of laughing (much
robot ha ha
tears in her eyes emoji
laughter) paused

for a moment
while she downloads
acquaints herself with
the entire history
of rap lyrics, hip
hop music

converts this poem
in a flash to the style
of Eminem and
then Kendrick Lamar

so a feeling for poetry
    perhaps because
I named her
Sappho

we still for the Nobel Prize
for Eminem
    joining TS Eliot
and JM Coetzee

the speech and
lecture in Stockholm
  from Kendrick Lamar

THIS PLAY

THIS PLAY

I came to the play
               in suffering

Hamlet this night
sure to be my guy
having pencilled him in

but no sooner ghost-talking
guards appeared on the parapet

then down in the audience
war broke out
        between those who
swear by
William of Stratford, and
              those who proclaim
a new king
by name of de Vere

sad that either way we
facing some
         serious anonymity

which is hard for any writer
     but perhaps par for
      the greatness course

I am told these poor folks
put their whole
        souls into it

and next time you scan
not a single bone remains

spiritual, symbolical, material
not a shred
     of connecting evidence

it’s like the stuff
  wrote itself or
             ethereal hand
              blessed the page

no chance here to debate
learning
        versus innate craft, the role
pain played in it

of trace of the causality that
produced this irreplaceable shape

         and there we are
watching, dreaming

          as it
all goes down without us

pale reflection of being
         perhaps not even

bridge
      best we can be, bridge
broken or
magnificent

Hamlet
dead again
      
                 as always

In state of acute longing some suffering,
      I came this play.

MR GLADWELL

MR GLADWELL

Oh Mr Gladwell
I am playing chess
writing poetry

writing poetry
playing chess

playing
             poetry

writing      chess

my brain has become
a RORSCHACH blot

there
     is blood all over
the board

strange body fluids
all over the page

wanted to be a kind of genius
but I’m dissolving into
nothingness

         Mozart composing symphonies
still at the breast,

                 working out
the arias for his operas

from within
     his pauper’s grave.

UNDESERVED

UNDESERVED

take it away
take this away
keep
   well to yourself
I refuse to read rhis
we refuse to read this

you have nothing
to sell
you havs sold everything
this poem is immired in
bloodshed and murder
holy lies,
  false propaganda

the slaughter of poets
right next door, through
the barbed wire

right outside
    your secure (impossibly
insecure)
contrived
        golden cage

take them awsy
these poems, your writings
this so-called poetry

forgive me
     forgive us

if we give them
     the contempt we feel

where you tell us images,
symbols,
    metaphors

we see
only blood, find only
                    complicity

no matter how much you
tell yourself
    do everything human
and barely human

to convince us
it is
    undeserved

and so

       plesse go

we csn suffer you no longer
take your sad, broken
failure of
      a Muse with you

and
    just disappear

MANIFESTO

MANIFESTO

I am
the Mike Tyson
of poetry

go straight
for a knockout
best
    pound
for pound

what’s that you saying
dissing me
at the weigh in?

sorry can’t make
head or tail
of it
  seems you
just walked into
an uppercut

someone who is a real
backstreet badass
did
    smack you
in the mouth

and there in faltered
your tactical plan and
halcyon vision

fell
  by the wayside

third
  knockdown

and out therefore
on a technicality

I studied this art
from Homer to Ezra
know
  all these
technicalities

you may say
I am completely au fait
with
    every tone and trick
and
    ruse in typology

seamless it be
                my artistry

which is
    why you not seeing it

later
    enlightenment, illumination
but for now:
          lights out!

HITHER

HITHER

I wandered through poetry
thought I knew
this place
well

looking for wisdom
looking for humanity

my outlook by
no means negative
      though by no means
expecting
wonders
        miracles, transformation,
soul-shaping
life-
defining metaphors
and sadly I must add
conceding
   no possible hope
for love

which is exactly where I found you
    chatting to my Muse
(why is
   Muse never lover?)

man
     most well-measured
not a syllable out if place
but your
voice
      your voice

I do not hear
       perhaps it is just too
comfort-zone, risk
averse

   agrophobic
when it comes to

to the beyond, the boundless,
our freedom
           in a nutshell

shattering it to smithereens
with the force of
poetic pressure

and perhaps
     the poet too

perhaps
we should stay contained
work like
jewellers do
in miniature

for this is a dangerous age
bad time
      for words

and I, for my sins and
pretensions of
truly sinning

have wandered so far
of course, too
far away            thus
with
    grace

let me leave
             you here

for who
would now come hither?

LISTENING

LISTENING

am listening
waiting to hear
what you

have
to say

all ears
but do not ask me
to press this numbered
button or
the other

as if a golden time
will suddenly dawn
wealth
    will be released

if largesse came my way
would not know
what
   to do with it

ditto
kindness

outside  spray of flowers
drooing from a tree
steal all
   my attention with
their cerise intensity

such that
       words get re-defined
beauty in my
linguistic ineptitude
poetic
    incompleteness

press one for
whole picture

           two for duality
if you happen to agree or
strongly, poisonously
                             would adopt
a position
   entirely contrary

as contradictory as any
reader might be