CHRISTO

Tags

art, CHRISTO, conceptual art, poem, poetry, wrapping

CHRISTO

It’s raining triangles
let’s soften them

SURPRISE me!
let’s wrap the world up
as if it were a present
never before opened

can
wrap this poem
wrap me too

Mummy me beautifully
with shining white bandage

and those places of history
let them
speak differently

trussed up thus, the Reichstag
seems sentient; could never burn

look at how different
from one angle those smothered features

look angelic
from another like something
just walked out of the morgue

you
remove surface
liberate
inner form

for better
or for worse

for art’s purpose
forcing me
to think conceptually
for once in my life

dodging the
unwrapped
snow, hail, rain

SURPRISE me

FINE AND DANDY

Tags

Ark, Biblical, meaning, Noah, poem, Poet, poetic, poetry, value

FINE AND DANDY

Amongst all
things fine
and dandy
that come
in handy

no place for
poetry
no space
on the Ark

no luxury berth
for anything
that does not
put food on
the table

speak the
iron wisdom
of incontrovertible fact

and so I watched
the Ark set sail
as the rain
began falling

beautiful rain, such
huge luscious drops

never to see
such rain
in my lifetime

nor
when the words came

have anyone
to tell.

EXPIRY DATE

Tags

art, Ending, poem, poetry, time, Value and meaning, writing

EXPIRY DATE

poem has reached
its expiry date

all under this
batch number
have nothing
longer to say

words are
slipping and
falling
the structure is
losing its
nuclear bonds
its electro-magnetic energy

soon, well
past its sell-by
it will just
be empty
numbers
and figures

strings of dead code
that refuse to
reveal
what I
had wasted my life
crafting to say

LIBERO

Tags

Beauty, Consciousness, Creation, death, Fibonacci, Freedom, Humanity, Italy, liberation, Mathematics, meaning, Metaphor, metapoetic, perspective, philosophical, poem, poetry, postmodern, ROME, writing

LIBERO

drunk on the promise of liberation
I crafted this poem whose very premise,
if you would permit me to explain,
does to
this very topic
appertain

insofar as it proposes, argues,
steadfastly maintains,
that words
be the clay
out of which all
was made

not as complete fiat but
slowly, slowly: process
of trial
and error

the code pre-established, all
the systems set in place

(this
as sure as
triangles
are
triangular,
spirals
are spirals)

all done and dusted
tried and trusted
written into the
acid of
our DNA

and so
I salute you
creatures
of truth and beauty

and fib you not
Senor Fibonacci

loving the light in
your fair land with
its paramount city

leaving your own
carefully calculated
indelible impression

and
here is the very book
in which it is written
(the one we
contest, always argue over)

so much
blood in the
sand
of that arena

why is it
that beauty must
always contend with death

again
I hold up my
net
and trident

(or sword: for
pen
best metaphor,
best metonym)

so much
marble and gold
begging the eye
to look upward
redefine perspective, dream
of long-last freedom

drunk
on those
dreams
of
a future
on promise
of liberation

under which
eternal pressure
I do write
this poem

trying to
tie up
loose ends
get
opposites
to meet

square
all circles

such ironic that libero
the word I shamefacedly stole
is actually your own

TOAD

Tags

art, Beauty, poem, Poet, poetry, transformation

TOAD

I am toad
beyond middle-
aged

living
tiny butterfly time

oh the glamour of
these day-glow creatures
my eyes too
slow to follow
as they
flit, cajole,
conjoin,
gambol

gamble on
beauty rather
than strength or
speed

and so
in praise and honour
of these true creatures of transformation

I give a thick dull parp
a frothy burp

pour out my
heart

in toady
affection

WHEN LIFE WRITES

Tags

art, Jules, Kill Bill, Life, poem, poetry, Pulp Fiction, screenplay, scriptwriting, Tarantino, True Romance, writing

WHEN LIFE WRITES

when life writes scripts it’s hardly Tarantino
Jules pulls the trigger before even
a word gets out

as for Ms Kiddo, are you kidding me,
whatchance did she have
of endearing herself to
a ten-thousand year old
Kung Fu master
who dies
because of a fishbone
in his throat
not poison in his soup

and as far Vincenzo Coccotti
his boy Drexel and
Major Landa

why are they so
enamoured of their
own little evil
worst pantomimes

why not
just cut to the chase
let nothing
drag out

we have such
little lives whose time
we dare not
waste

the Devil dribbling with
each syllable, so
forked the
deadly lightning
in that tongue

CLOWN AT THE CROSSROADS

Tags

art, clown, crossroads, Music, poem, poem poetry political moral, poetry, Robert Johnson

CLOWN AT THE CROSSROADS

clown at the crossroads
(no Robert Johnson devil)

did I say crossroads?
I meant fork
in the road

clown said

take the left hand path
the left hand path

it’s sadder
and more lonely

more infinitely true
for artistic perspective
which road

I took
too

there being no
joy in comedy

but awesome and
terrible
the
revelation of life

revelation
of life

RAW

Tags

art, empathy, Humanity, poem, poem poetry political moral, Reader

RAW

you were dancing
gracefully

singing
sweetly

but you
had not suffered
and so

fell short on
humanity
short on
empathy

and so
whilst you
touched my heart

you did not
tear it raw

THROUGH

Tags

art, calligraphy, graffiti, poem, poetry, writing

THROUGH

I painted my poem
on a wall

more like Japanese calligraphy
than New York graffiti

soon they
will paint over it

perhaps
knock the wall down
(this
if
there is
regime change)

if the words
did their business

the metaphor
got through

FOURTH WALL

Tags

art, fourth wall, poem, poem poetry political moral, poetry, postmodernism

FOURTH WALL

that fourth wall
is cardboard

it is
reinforced concrete,
sharpened bamboo,
papier-mâché

it is the toughest, softest,
most porous, most impenetrable
substance known to man

it is
impossible to cross
so easy

to break
through

the barrier to end all barriers
a whim, a curtain, a game