Sophistry (For the War Effort)
It would take a leap of faith the length of the Euphrates
And the Grand Canyon combined.
It would take a regression to early stages of development.
And a deep reluctance to think,
To accept this.
Straight-faced they deliver their lines, well rehearsed.
Straight from their saintly hearts
They pour out their grief for the victims, the oppressed,
The downtrodden, the gassed, the dead.
I don’t accept this.
Deaf to the voices of millions, tuned in to the business of war,
They quietly agree contracts.
Death in the name of freedom sounds the rallying cry:
We can hammer them into love
For our emancipation.
Bleeding-heart conservatives declare their outrage
At atrocities committed
On the sands above these Fields; at the cruelty dished out
By shadows using fear (paid for
In dollars and pounds).
So now it’s time for a merger, a hostile takeover.
A stripping of assets.
Personnel had to go in this public downsizing,
While the CEO and his coterie
Cried freedom.
Powermurderoil
So. Now there’s a Humanitarian Aid contingency plan.
Let’s rip the skin off the bastards; the younger the better.
And then soothe them with balm.
Like that girl.
On that road.
In Vietnam.
Just Me, You and the Striplight
Stilted talk,
Behind glasses.
Filled with both our poisons to anaesthetise ourselves
From each other.
Flickering light, wavering nerves on ice
Begging understanding across the kitchen table at
Hazy 2a.m.
Bloodshot avoided eye contact,
Blinklight frays the nerves.
Jarred emotion,
Empty glasses.
Raw rejection filled with poison alienates ourselves
From ourselves.
Flickering light undermines the best
Of intentions, intermittently strobing us,
Demanding our response.
Sourness emits from the bottle.
Bitterness taints the words.
And talk we do,
Through prisms
Of betrayals, disappointments, unfulfilled demands
Of each other.
Flickering light throws shadow into relief
And shades of meaning become more than they were;
Demanding some response.
A grudging realisation.
And then the light goes out.
Outsiders
From the backstreet into the grimy entrance,
To sign a false name in the book. Any name.
A quickstep into joylessness, from dark into half-light
Where the floor sticks to your shoes.
Threat hangs vaguely, non-specific,
Something hovers.
Though I’ve never seen it here, I’ve sensed it.
Everything’s downbeat bar the beat.
The place seems barely functional in this light.
Filled with depressed misfits, thugs, thieves (and us!)
Here we drink without joy.
A place so sexless, unerotic
(Unless transactive).
At least I’ve heard it’s here, on offer.
Atomised groups locked in mortal dialogue,
Important and petty alike; intense both.
A foray into deep meaning, of a submerged existence;
Conspiratorial mumblings.
Jukebox mingles with murmur-static,
Undermining
The drone of life’s stasis.
But is that how it really is?
If most are beat, few are beaten, despite all
Appearances to the contrary; there’s a spark here.
Unrecognised elsewhere, maybe.
Detritus
An empty glass standing
On a table full
Of junk.
No photographs or anything
To remind you of
Anything,
Just detritus from days,
Weeks, months
And years.
The glass stands empty,
The bottle half full.
The table overflows.
Living Among Fragments
Living among Fragments,
Moving within shadows;
Not sightless, though not quite seeing.
A silhouette among silhouettes
Making out outlines
While anxiety neurosis makes inroads
To the fragility of trying to be.
Walking on rice paper
Leaving no trace.
Or walking on water with no trace to make.
Big noises make the least impression.
Sometimes.
Sightless in Gaza (2003)
What hope the next generations?
What hope is there for all of us
When life is rendered
So devoid of meaning
That a ten-year-old girl
Can have her sight shot out
In the middle of a lesson?
And the gunmen shrug their shoulders
The West stands by without concern
As if the countless deaths of innocents
The ceaseless struggles
Are so insignificant
That a ten-year-old boy
Can have his life shot out
For throwing stones at tanks.
And the killers claim self-defence.
A small girl, realising her fate, breaks down
Hysterical, inconsolable in her terror,
Her uncomprehending grief.
She is guilty as charged
Of being what she is
And had her life shot up
For precisely that
While the bulldozers circle town.
Her name is Huda, if you want to know.
Not that those who shot her
Could care a shot
If she lives or dies
Or goes to hell
With her light shot out
And nothing left but grief
While the West looks the other way.
Mirrors
You’re a bubbling mass, a boiling frenzy of hatred. You hardly know what it is you despise, its focus has been lost in such a maelstrom of seething emotion. From id to eternity you have almost lost control of the rampaging, destructive emotions that rage barely beneath the surface, half contained, constantly straining to be unleashed. Held in check (just), all this undermining negativity threatens to overwhelm you or at least expose you before the civilized world in the harsh glare of your pathological state. Do you yearn to be free of those impulses? Do you long to break free of their grasp? Do you want to eject them or are they too deep-rooted, too habitual? A primary ego-feeling like this is restricted by, and in turn restricts, your abilities – and otherwise – to connect, to make connections, to make contact. Unless negative. In this you are comfortable. Connection remains elusive until the visceral, red-faced, eye-bulging rage rips through the surface and roars without control at the object of real, palpable hatred. Rage rules uncontested. And so it goes.
Dogmoments
Snap. And that’s it. Where it comes from I’ll never know.
In a mere second. Just like that;
Swing into a storm of slavering, seething fury
Over nothing. It’s a dogmoment.
Remember him? That’s how he did it. Right in your face.
An inch from your face.
Howling, uncontrollable.
And the baton is carried on. Or perhaps the yoke is borne.
No! Not just like him. Not just like that.
Hiding behind that is no longer an option
Or acceptable.
Now it’s me.
Like a genetic defect.
Sketch from Bristol Bridge 1
Upright standing wooden block,
Cables threading downwards
Plucked to within an inch of themselves.
Let’s rock
Let’s groove
Let’s wind up.
And Down
Sketch from Bristol Bridge 2
Harbour lights, shimmering in water,
Green against murky brown.
Boats float on serene grunge
While red and yellow lights dance.
Elongated strip lights look tranquil reflected in water.
Sultry
Red eyes in a red dress,
Bag, bulging, hangs from slim shoulder,
Adds to the charisma,
Sultry, pouting, mouth and attitude –
You’re beguiling tonight.
(I remember it like it was just now.
This makes it harder)
I watch you as you stand, waiting,
Not interacting,
Involved in thoughts
That I imbue with eroticism
And superimpose on you my own
Desires.
Meta
Crackling like a mind on amphetamines
And rushing headlong into disjointed thoughts,
I scribble whatever comes to mind.
A deep-rooted desire to capture an essence
Overtakes any sensibilities of form, subsumes any notion of metre or rhythm.
Yet it creates a rhythm all of its own, one that I like
Because it drives itself.
Naive maybe, but dynamic also in its own insistence.
So it is. So it is.
Is this a meta-poem?
I hope so, that’d make me clever.