Tag Archives: writing

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.

AT ALL COSTS

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

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

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.

LOST

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