OR SO YOU BELIEVE


OR SO YOU BELIEVE

déshabillé
(or so you believe)

whereas I would say
too much is divulged
subtext is showing

paradigm so exposed
to the ruination of your reputation

need a cover up
    heads to
spin

though my own stock-
in-trade be
scarcely golden

seems like you may just
have rushed too pre-
cipitously into
some bad
media alchemy

and now
    are looking high and low
under every bombed structure
for each
   and every collateral

making such a racket to
deflect our eyes
       from the hypocrisy

the place
reduced to a desert
carnage
      beyond words

sad that what might have
served poetry
   bent out of shape to
sustain
   the war industry

defend
     death’s exceptionally

make the case for a rapture
thing so sickly sweet

will
   annihilate the need for
theology
        morality, humanity

basic kindness and love
the species professed to hold dear

TAIPAN

TAIPAN

I do hope
these feeble offerings

meet expectations
blend in with perceptions

fit the ruling algorithm
work wonders in the wash
with
    every colonial.mindset
under the Sun,
the skin-cancer Sun
likely to play havoc
with the
shade of our species

need to hit this one
not just out
of the park
but across the entire outback
(mustn’t
  come boomeranging back
in any size shape or form)

or return
    with that sour vomit reflux
that you
people antipodean
have just way too
many synonyms for

and so
      as you see by my references
and appendix certification

I have not only
chosen wisely and well
but have measured every
word, graphene,
syllable using
      precise laser alignment
and most exact
of micrometers

have filtered via pipette
to withhold any residue

what is left
      should be
immune to distaste,
inoculated against deep scrutiny

unless somewhere in
the nature of the whole toxic
chemistry
    produced a venom more
troublesome than
that of
   the inland taipan itself
.

GUITAR

GUITAR

my telephone beeps
it does
not speak

it tells me
her message is here
was
   holding my breath

but now
I can breathe

this is what she wrote
fingers that once
tippy-
toed now

dancing across
the keyboard
         express
delivery

heart to
      heart

(would those nimble
fingers were
here

plucking my strings
                   playing me like
a rock guitar)

DARK SIDE

DARK SIDE

“You have no idea
of the power of the
dark side.” Star Wars,
Episode V  The Empire
Strikes Back.”

Garside
dark side

my sleek black
serpentine muse
surfacing with a list
of devilish assignations
from
   deep beneath the pithead

me paying in blood for
these limited skills (can
barely call
them art)

but today a difference:
wraps me up, hauls
me off
   takes me deep
down in that elevator
sheer
   demon deep

leveling out there
whar she blows

other uses for these fingers
back-up dexterities

learn to
probe shadow, uncouple
                           shackles

take on board so much
blistering anger raging
irreverence
       
raving               raging
words
           ruins
runes
spreading  chaos
across the page
.
stooping to levels
below the unthinkable

damned
to write horrors, delights,
infinite beyond
the gurgling sounds
a throat might make, doomed
damned
         blessed

infinitely so
for all time
     

DUD

DUD

I sent you
my poetry

my book
         
           of
failures

every single poem
a failure in significance
coming nowhere
near saying
what
     I set out to say

wanted
to achieve

everypoem
a dud
     by a mile, by
a hair’s breadth

thinking of your hair
all your
     hair not

too
coy here

every poem a mission
a reach

question asked
      connection begged

exquisitely
            sometimes here perhaps

where not
accomplishment entirely.

FIRE

FIRE

hardly poetry
in motion

I slip and fall face-first
the ball dribbling away from me

the goal at my mercy
the very gods of association
football
    begging me
to score

before that over
the bar
past the post, every
shot off
target

something askew
with my sinews
what
   it just has to be

one day I shall write this
as if it were just
bad
   dream
not painful reality

drafting like a maniac
on my mobile phone

I may just
out of nowhere
    bring into being
a cannonball
of a poem

artifact smooth and deadly
with that force that
be the product of
mass and
acceleration

crack open any
defence readers
might prepare

(ultimate answer to
so many misfires)

RAW

RAW

poem
is chimera

its own system
supernova

is basic and fundamental
sinulation of the real

is Hamlet staring at a mirror
shocked at how
it looks back at him

as species
of the real

is that reality you
wished you had, wished you were
best and worst
in its class
for supreme transcendence

also for all that
otherwise there in
the down and dirty

the flesh of things so
succint when earthy and raw

LONG NIGHT

LONG NIGHT

let me walk you through
the length of  a night
the breadth of a poem

sorry if you so surely Shelley
about the nature of rhyme

miss a beat, grimace
flutter as the lines stutter
not Homer blind but
pretty much a
stick-shuffling cripple

trying to make it through
short days
long nights

when you so cookie-cutter
about everything
dial in delivery
         everything on the menu
from hot to
G spot

long night love afterglow
basking in luxury

let me
    cuddle my pen

dishing you
        this trash