writing – Page 8 – poems 2 die for

STILL SPEAKS

dead inside
but a voice still speaks

leaks out stuff
dribbles
of delight

you might
laugh at, work with,

see
how hard it is
for things
to crystallize

one perfect line per
every
waste
basket life

RIGHT MIND

A DAMN

always
in a rush to
publish

sometimes I leave typos
all over the page

sometimea my
typos
themselves
have typos

sometimes I wonder
when I write

where the Hell
is the poetry
where
is that thing
the poem

not in the world
and apparently
not
on the page

maybe
I should go look
for it

maybe we
should all go
look for it

try to figure out
what the Hell
has happened to it

go
find Dante
he
being the
expert in
such matters

hear it
from hia own mouth
hear it from
all those
voices

the blessed
and the damned

how
small poetry has got
allowed
itself
to get

barred from Heaven
closed off
from Hell
lost
all its real estate
kicked
off its land

nothing big left
to talk about
nobody listening
no
imagination
inspiration

so just shovel that shit put
it
out there
have to
put it there regardless

put it out there
fast and
furious
wrap, drench
the world in it
before it dies
entirely

no time
to worry about
this and that
the dream
of certainty
delusions
of perfection

the time
for care
and concern
has all but
vanished
is long-
time gone

no worry about typos
lack of rhyth, rhyme
missed meaning
what
does not
scan

no one
gives a fig

no one gives a damn

OF THE FITTEST

I like the way
you shot this scene

but what
does it mean
what does
it mean?

why this blocking, these
camera angles, this framing?

what does your cinematography
do for, what is it
doing to my poem?

so much you have to
surrender to reach
a wider audience

sacrifice gleefully, even
ecstatically,
for
your art
to
survive

AT LONG RANGE

poem
is
inside out

just
so happens to be

when you
frame it
in a certain way
it’s going
to start to appear
most upside-down

but
wearing this poem
out of range, at
long distance

hard for you
to see the target let
alone loose
a shot at all

and spooky Wolfgang
Pauli being
in the audience
actually, in the
very front row
plumb in the centre

not going to help
your echo location
in size
shape or
form

what with all those
quantum entanglements
and collapsed
wave-fronts

every
moment of delivery
makes me think then
dream of
standing before you
in an alternate universe

where without the
uncertainty of your
mode of
analysis, manner
of reception

there is no point
to this game at all
I

TO SHAKESPEARE’S WOODS

(MORE) FOOL YOU

may
seem like
think me
the fool

but
it just
a ruse

got so
much danger
about me
got to
travel incognito

or shapeshift
too and fro
back
and forward

in the blink
of am eye

one second you
canoodling
with tje Queen
of Cups;

the next
King of Swords
got sabre swishing
an imch from
your eye

but no fear
no worries, not
here
to let you die

when can do
deepet damage
deploy
more potent powers

ride
like death across your
inner landscape

unhinging all those
towers that

so
need to fall

for the good of us all
Sun card, Star card
and the
World

hete in choir
arcana of consensus

ASTRAY

WHICH IT DOES

thought I would
become the kind
of poet

who owns
a coffee shop
sits quietly
drinking milky
cappucino after
milky cappucino

observing the customers
penning interminable odes
tiny haiku

seeming, to the casual observer,
part of the furniture,
at one with the decor
thing
of the arts
with aristocratic veneer

not viciously satirical
exponent of anarchism
defender of Gaza
taking on
all comers as
if the world depends
on it
which it does

I have developed a cottage
industry
revolutionary practice
out of this mistaken identity

JUST

poem is a
thing

one does not just
should not just
staple
together

wind, rain
solar flare
whatever the weather

whether enjambment
can just run
away with it
rhyme
superimpose itself
or superposition you
wave and
molecule in
relation to its pattern

breath blow
like electricity flowing
out
of a jug

magnetic pole, spin
see it be pulled and pushed
hither and thither

mussed up like
coiffure suddenly exposed
to what
storm can do

making it worse, much worse,
and thereby
intriguing reading

touching your chimes as
it wafts through your pagoda

appearing
out of nowhere, inviting
itself for
main course

settling down
prepared for sacrifice
ready
to give its all

pretty much
holding forth
holding the fort

conforming
to the topography
of your tiny plate
at your gigantic table