NEVERTHELESS

Tags

existential, poem, poetry, postmodern, writing

NEVERTHELESS

no redemption
only resolution

the deus ex machina
needs a good lube and grease

nevertheless
however non-linear, self-
reflexive and ultimately inconsequential
I do keep writing

let words pour (or drip)
across (and down) the page
writing not
life’s greatest horror
(how could it be?)

though the entire exercise
so much less suffused with
anything remotely resembling joy
than real physical
and, of course,
metaphysical pain

SNAP

Tags

BREXIT, British, poem, poem poetry political moral, poetry, satire

SNAP

Brexit: there’s a snap
to that word
sound
like a neck breaking
on the gallows

because he’s a
traitor who did not
vote the way you
were demanding

and, let’s face it,
rope is a lot less
fuss than
sending into exile
causing drain
of the tax base
(less
to
cut

less in the
pool to
be
passed around)

IN AN ALTERNATE UNIVERSE

Tags

alternate history, existence, happiness, identity, loneliness, loss, love, meaning, poem, poetry, The Man in the High Castle

IN AN ALTERNATE UNIVERSE

my lover in an alternate
universe
(whom
I have never met)

is reading to me
from an alternate version of
Man in the High Castle

I lie on my back
at peace with the world
unaware of what
true democracy or
a completely loveless life can be

I think about hoping that he
is smart enough to be loving and kind
having no idea how
abject a thing loneliness can be

but whatever the universe you
are lucky, unlucky enough
to find this version
of yourself in
truth is, from resurgent Nazism
there is now
no escape

the dark idea of purity (our worst
political concept) already infiltrating
freely seeping through
for where is the person
without that part of them in them
that truly needs an Emperor, edict of
a Fuhrer
wants death camps for neighbours
they racially despise

it is only a matter of time before
we find ourselves frogmarched and swastikaed

this world or
another

evil always
resurrects

never truly dies

they reading a text in their universe
no doubt different from the
film of the book I am
watching (alone) in mine

MANFESTO

Tags

art, Mike Tyson, poem, poem poetry political moral, poetry, political manifesto, satire, violence

MANIFESTO

I am
the Mike Tyson
of poetry

my words
punch you
in the mouth

and
then instantly
you forget every
stupid point
in your
political manifesto

especially the ones that relate
to the control of art

DROWNED

Tags

poem, poem poetry political moral, poetry, satire

DROWNED

you misspoke
we all
misspoke

but now
are woke

now
we know

typo in the writ
when we
listened
to it

sky (with Sun
and cloud) is
not up
but down
(say it
out loud)

and what is night
with Moon and star, galaxy
that, galaxy this
black hole
all-swallowing at
the centre

what could it be
but abyss

deepest ocean
most and
least profound

do not
repeat

do not
think it

all who
do so

lost, presumed
drowned

JACK

Tags

Britain, Jack Merritt, poem, poem poetry political moral, poetry, satire

JACK

there are those
infinitely more
selfless, generous
than I could
ever be

no vicious government
could ever gaslight us
to read them
differently

impugn to them motives
sucked up out
of the foetid air to
match those gnarled and twisted
shapes that
will have to pass for souls

and so they puppet you
use you, ventriloquize you
carry you
as their personal
crucified Jesus to
call

for Crusade once more

HILLSBOROUGH

Tags

Britain, British, class, divisions, football, Hillsborough, Law, Liverpool, poem, poem poetry political moral, poetry, satire

HILLSBOROUGH

not a murderer
neither guilty of
manslaughter

the only charge
they could catch him on
was being
an idiot
(presuming they
would want to
catch him)

but he
was their idiot, of the
uniformed and robed and bewigged
idiocy that must
always be
defended

for if that defence crumbles
even gives an inch
they everything collapses
the bottom rises up
to suffocate, crush the
top up
against their walls
of concrete

and we can’t
have that
no we can’t
have that

NEWS TO ME

Tags

Horror, media, poem, poetry, satire, The Ring

NEWS TO ME

you say the news
is there
to tell
you things

which sounds OK
is well
and good

unless the news
is there to
stop all
the horrors of
the world
climbing through
your TV screen
like that wet,
vengeful,
Japanese ghost-
girl in
“The Ring”

TWINS

Tags

Britain, British, Colonialism, GERMAN, History, Imperialism, John Donne, poem, poetry, WW1

TWINS

wanted to cite John Donne
on the matter of circumference

poet of the sharp and
acute angle, relationship
equilateral

how was it possible that
he could not have foreseen
a world painted pink
by his tiny Kingdom?

so green those fields the bards, the soldier
poets would have it

and yet the envy of
history

far
greater green

my grandfather in sniper sights
but (thank God) for just
too brief
a moment

those cunning, miss-
nothing eyes
that brain
full to the brim with Hegel, Heine,
Goethe and Nietzsche

we
so equal in this
incredible as it might seem

me and my nemesis
cut from same cloth, almost
(yes, indeed Dr Donne)
perfect
killer twins

TSUNAMI

Tags

poem, poem poetry political moral, poetry

TSUNAMI

Tsunami is
supreme tirade

the ocean
seismic
in its rage

whilst me here outside my
turning circle, sphere
of expertise

can’t even spell
“Revelation”
(spell for toffee
for the toffee they give kids
when scapegoats
get burned)

so how can I, dare I,
proclaim anything
commit myself to cause
of humanity any
way wholeheartedly?

critique huge human masters
when so
out on a limb
when so
hopelessly other?

so much water required to
wash that difference away
before I can
be called
by name

countenanced
as brother