SAYO NARABA

SAYO NARABA

let me leave
to find a
new world

those who
wish to follow
can follow

forget, unlearn,
learn again

still in my memory
echoes of what was before
in the Sengoku Jidai
the war of Empire

how much consciousness
atomized at
Nagasaki

and would the Universe
care to recycle

let my
atoms blow
and if the consciousness go
or follow

it is no
great tragedy, kabuki
dance or
mime-show

I told you I loved you
and meant it, that
is enough for
one life

wrong to ask, to
expect more

SUPERNOVA

in the end every Empire
goes supernova

shrinks
to a Death Star

has a
last, fatal run
at absolute power

LEAVES FALL

leaves fall
like Empires

except
they do not cling
to what they were, where
they are, what
they know
as fierce as limpets

the law of Nature, rule
if gravity
this the city teaches
it is how it masters, measures
controls
I myself have

a smidgen of
that learning, an incomplete
picture that now
the gallery is
closing
is being
taken out
the frame

and yes,
whilst we are
in this realm of
analogy we must

add how
it is
that trees topple
but not
never (meaning
hardly ever)
of their own accord

THE EMPEROR LAUGHS

the Emperor laughs
over his wives’ failure
to poison

wall, no wall,
structure so
big it can
be seen from
the Moon
finds it all so looney tune, such a
great joke

whose punchline is (much
laughter again)
the World
will never change

MADE IN SHEFFIELD

MADE IN SHEFFIELD

I suppose I

can cut myself a
smile if
BREXIT wins

shout “bonjour gendarme!”
even if it gets me
into shit (merde)
with the beefeater boys
who guard the palaces
with halberds
and fallacies

being the few in
the streets on the beaches
out to defend us
(if by us I mean
the old and the new and
the insanely about
to be nouveau riche)

not sharp
those halberds, not
sharp at all
(for show they may be
hasn’t been
a sharp halberd
in this
vicinity since
the battle of Towton)

so looking for something sharp
in a land of fusty bluntness
I suppose I can
rustle up a
razor from a place
of crowd massacre formerly
known as Sheffield

use a razor for my smile
one they forged and stamped there
before
taking a walk through
our true Victorian history
down past
old Peterloo).

OVID

OVID

turgid
as the Tiber, that
callow one
ushered you into
Imperial exile

wanted to cage you
train you

straighten every
unruly line

but we in our century postmodern
untouched by
any scandal of
Imperial manufacture

are duly reminded
think
you fine

WITTGENSTEIN’S ISLAND

Wittgenstein set
sail for an island

not a magical island, of
Prospero poetry
but a drab, gray winter
space

island of ordinary philosophy
that he would come
to diagnose, treat
find the remedy
for all its
juridical woes
blues
of its Empire

and all our issues
come down to the rules
of the game, or
host of games, games
within games
Chinese boxing to infinity

and every level, layer
not what it seems

yet perfectly logical
in all it sets out to be

Stormy Weather sweeping in
will those words
find their clarity
resolve all
differences in inflection,
infractions of meaning

as war does, must do
to assert
lost certainty.

Wittgenstein
setting out
for his island

may
well make his mark, then
never return.

FALLEN

so much singing
in a place
fallen from grace

clinging (though now
hidden rock in
that psyche)
to idea of
lost Empire, of
siege
never lifted

history never been
so could never disappear

EMPIRE

I envy your Empire

spend so much time —
have spent my
whole life
looking over your fence

at your sumptuous orchard
your resplendent pavilions
and pagodas

and beyond them,
the camps.

ABOUT SPARTACUS

hey Roman
(ecce Romanus)
I read your script

the one you
chiseled into me
(or rather
your slaves did)

with all its verbs and nouns
declensions, conjugations
and not a
single word
about Spartacus