BOILING

Tags

Nazi, poem, poem poetry political moral, poetry, power, Universe

BOILING

the soup
boiling

people alive
(the great Khan
has not heard that story
about slowly
raising the temperature

watching the frog
broil at
sixes and
sevens)

those who accept power
for what it is, and it
never is
just what it is
(ask my
friend Caligula)
will laugh, shrug their shoulders say,
“let him stew
in his own juices; he
got what he deserved”

and her case
infinitely worse
thinking
of her fate
the darkest pleasure
came pouring

oh how things slide!
one morning “hostile environment”
the next we are all off
to watch the gladiators
“ashes
and dust at the new
Colosseum new
Circus Maximus”

a sword goes in, a trident
finds its target
you wake from
the nightmare

but the horror of
who and wear you are
is a Russian doll, is a
infinite set
of Chinese boxes

first light, crack
of dawn and they wake you:
work detail: so much work to do
enterprise to inflict on
these walking skeletons, ghoulish faces

living dead who need
to be buried

ashes and dust
the problem is never
solved, there is no golden solution

just more and
more
our species trying so hard to
be the perfect
death
machine

our blue Earth
making its

little point
for every every star
out there, every
comprehending eye in
every spiral galaxy

the chemical elements combining
dividing contesting clashing

so much
there
to digest

spinning
in and
out
of perfect control

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LOCKDOWN

sleep held me
under tight lockdown

the silent mind
cannot
go crazy
this it might have
whispered
but
I did not hear

unable to wander
make my journey

the sea
mirror calm, but
nothing mirrored here

MAENAD

MAENAD

unless Dionysus,
whose creature
keeps me shackled,
release me

I will remain here
as much as prisoner
as his unwitting disciple
whose dark body
heaves, whose voice
rants, raves
so bitterly unrequited

NEVER DREAMT

no more
chaos from you
Mr Butterfly

on this
day of liberation
she has you
me
pinned, penned

your only flights
flights of metaphor
if you
had time to think,
space to move

battering your cage
your nose
pressed up
against the glass
she
has zoo-reptiled you

like those unfortunate creatures
plucked from tropical lands
you saw
enclosed, withheld,
contained in
a cubicle with a view

which, tragically, comically,
as a child you never dreamt…

JOINTLY FLAVOURED

MUFTI, PUFTI

The Grand Mufti declared
“there shalt be no
more
crude rhymes and
obscene puns”

and there I was
singing “mufti, tufti, pufti”
(and worse)
as they dragged me off
to execution.

OUR LAST

I love
how you nuance the
day to day
I would follow
you here to, had I
your way with
words

but nothing, pray, on
this fascist dictator
ascending the throne
and standing alone

when, in his
supremacy of power, this
sweet poem of
yours

could be
our last.

NO STRINGS ATTACHED

since Lennon sang the Walrus
someone has been
pulling the
strings
(not plucking, not
strumming) has
drummed us
into where
we are
now

nowhere men in
nowhere land
our kaleidoscope eyes
looking back at us
from inside
the TV

FOR EVERY MISGUIDED SOPHIE SCHOLL

Oh the students have
voted
expressed their
free will

to kill some words: too
poisonous or
precious

same
game,
same every year, I fear
ten wise and wonderful
textbook Nazis

for every
misguided Sophie Scholl.

WARMING EFFECT

It’s a
pity

ESCOM cannot
switch off the Sun

a succinct getting-to-the-root-
of-it move that would
increase our dependence

since no one
wants to sit waiting
an entire Ice Age
no chance
for a selfie, no
hope for
sexual distraction,

and no mitigating effect of
usual radio or TV brain-
softening soap opera
managing at least (like
propaganda) to
conjure up
fiction with
warming effect