BUTTONED

BUTTONED

slippery slope
one Hell of
a logical fallacy

not sure I buy that
he said as
poles reversed
and all
went vertigo

over a bad word
and the terrible, Earth-
shattering damage — go
figure! — it cannot
be allowed
to do

but she is erudite, and
in the New Yorker, no less,
she has
made her case

but elegance is an achievement
will not stand
up to deconstruction

your cracks and crevices
are there
for the taking

rhetorical figures interrogated
made to stand on their heads

and here you are
touting the danger
of weapons of mass destruction
but throwing
your own little not so
weak hand grenade
into the mix
thing that democracy, humanity
can well do without adding
to their wounds, their woes
at this particular juncture

useful idioting yourself with
stylistic flourish so spectacular
finding yourself
(yet again) on these pages
grown
synonym
for suspect

nice little diversion from
the calamity to the very
concept and
its understanding, of
civilization

with every blind moment of
pure slaughter via
two thousand pound bomb

testament to
our world, new
reality no
sooner than lips
first got buttoned up

REGARDING MS SMITH

REGARDING MS SMITH

you sailed up to me
read me a chapter
to alter
my thoughts
about narrative
change the narrative

I smiled
genuinely appreciative
of your considerable acumen in
respect of your art

whilst
     as poet, rooted in
my practice
a practice so ancient
you might
deem it instinctive

and so
    I let rip, felt the syllables
possess  me
catch he, take her
spirit her away

across some horizon to
who can say what location

how she travelled: rode, danced
walked, ran
    I don’t frankly care

ZADIE INSISTS

ZADIE INSISTS

Zadie insists
here lie
weapons of
mass destruction

vehicles
of terror

but I check my words
for the monstrous
genocidal
do not
seem to find them

no sign of bacilli,
nothing that
seriously Geiger counters

no anthrax
lurking
between the lines

no plague about
the launch itself
between the lines

no Bond PPK Walther
with screw-on silencer

unless
      I am misguided
mistaken

and you see it, feel it,
smell it, taste it
hear it
all here

planning some small,
strictly limited, quiet
(and quite nonsensical
operation)

to eliminate some person
or persons

in the cause
of poetic self-interest

or the more entirely
delusional inclination

towards
         liberating you all

whole of humanity

ZADIE (3)

ZADIE (3)

Oh Zadie
your words
hurt me

I was wandering
along the periphery
eating an onion
gifted me
by Roland Barthes

when
I overhead a word
that hit me with
all its 50 megatons

and so, I had no option,
but to
    take it to heart

which
    would have killed me
had not realised,
it was
not
   actually a bullet
and only like a bomb
by virtue
of
   analogy
a prime (should I say
“primed”) example of
metaphoric
thinking

and I rose
to go on
my way

fight again another day

but then another bullet
hit me, though
you may say
I just walked into
                        it

but luckily, was
a recent arrival, via
plucky trade

a miracle, God be praised!,
and I was saved

its manufacture British

Oh Zadie your
barrage, blast, MG-42 spray

so totally
nailed my argument.