AND GOATS

Tags

poem, poem poetry political moral, poetry, satire

AND GOATS

some are so
very sage

in all
their ways

others
more solidly
pumpkin, complete
butternut or
lesser
root vegetable

hard to
hear the logic
in what they
say

way
they talk now
so much of it
much of it

FEEDBACK

Tags

communication, Desire, dialogue, poem, poetry, power

FEEDBACK

I’ll give you
feedback
a whole haystack
of feedback

I’ll give
you wailing wall
of watchtower
feedback

I break the bars
of your
secret self-
imprisonment

bring down
your smug Jericho
of all
you have
ever

assumed
about me

every truth you
have clung to
about yourself

THE NARCISSIST SPEAKS

Tags

Corona, covid-19, narcissism, poem, poetry, power, Trump

THE NARCISSIST SPEAKS

the narcissist speaks:
I am so
God-grateful for
the power
that gives me
so many, many
mirrors

to look good in
thing is, there are so many,
at a time like this
even I
can be so magnanimous
as to
sacrifice some
lose
a few

SEALED

Tags

poem, poem poetry political moral, poetry, satire

SEALED

as always, the danger
for him
boiled down
to other people

barbed wire
proved useless
to stop death
in its tracks when
it could lurk in
every breath

even the finest fishnet
could not hold back
these invisible
avatars of chaos
agents of complete
economic
and biological destruction

and so
he went for deeper, tighter,
more constrained closure

less chance of
anything surmounting this barrier
being fatally overlooked
slipping past his control

when he
died they
sent his body for testing

thinking it unlikely
that it could
have been
the virus

him and his body
so perfectly isolated, insulated
protected

it was the
closest thing imaginable
to being hermetically sealed

HOUSE WARMING

Tags

Evil, good, Humanity, poem, poetry, satire

HOUSE WARMING

some brought booze
some brought napalm

every culture, creed,
persuasion, orientation

the good
and the evil

all had
a good time

and I
watching as the light faded
as night settled in

how their faces, bodies looked
in the growing gloom
silhouetted against the ferocious
barbecue fires

the shades
and textures

shifting,
shuffling

living
their dreams

really
or in fiction

and speaking on behalf
of the species here gathered

I asked for
insertions, contributions, memoirs,
appendices

from any
accredited or
self-styled

acrobat
of spheres

juggler
of ideas

wondering
how many verses left
to sing in this love song

until
bottles are
empty

food flesh all gone

and not even a harmonica
to wail away
blues-
style

for the world is a hard place
and we live for each day

tomorrow, much ash and
little great recall

MASK

Tags

corona virus, covid-19, identity, mask, poem, poem poetry political moral, poetry, psychological, self

MASK

need a mask
to cover
my other mask

a mask to
stop the virus
over the mask
to hide my
true self

but maybe
that
mask of
false self
has more than
one layer

and maybe
beneath all
those layers

yet
further masks

to think
it got a teeny tiny
virus to
strip every mask off
peel them
all away

until
I am left
in
state of
Nature

just
mask
I was born with

TOO

Tags

corona virus, covid-19, poem, poem poetry political moral, poetry, silence, Truth

TOO

pin drops
can you hear it
of course
you can hear it

the penny
drops
too

sounds seismic, the shockwave
telling you

at the moment of
penned up thought, strict isolation

how deep the dependence
need for
closeness, connection

soon the realization will spread,
soon at the mercy of
every human contagion

knowing that
of all things that the
virus is
here to test

here to
demand

the hardest by far
is the truth
the truth

WORD FROM MY FATHER

Tags

Difference, division, father, Humanity, love, poem, poetry, reconciliation, redemption, Unity

WORD FROM MY FATHER

before this is over
let us have
tales of courage, tales
of hope and
tales of redemption

I see so many
basic mistakes
lost opportunities,

and yet, as a species,
we are still here
talking to each other across
divides that seemed
they could last forever

learning
what is precious

before
it is too late

it is
almost too late

AS IT SHOULD BE

Tags

feminism, Language, poem, poem poetry political moral, poetry, post-structuralist, postmodern, power, psychological

AS IT SHOULD BE

tell it straight
tell it slant

tell it
as it is
tell it
how it should be

depending, naturally,
on your disposition
depending, of course, on
the power
at your command
strength
of your hand

and so
we are down to subtext
at periscope depth
darling dear with
her
finger on the button

sending a torpedo
faster then
any email
smack on the nose, exactly
amidships, punctured below
the bow line

here’s your answer
cross-haired direct
from the horse’s mouth

and out they pour
frantic in lifeboats, jacketed and
dingied
as
ungainly as
regular people
as
confused as
mixed metaphor (the kind
that don’t work but
they can
industrially blend

to the nice consistency of ketchup
or mayonnaise, stuff
for any dining table

place where
etiquette is absolution
just down
the hatch with food
and shut
all talk of revolution

my darling dear
who hear it everyday that
same old same old
get to hear it
feel it
in every strained sinew
in every
book and
crevice of
your designer-built body

world as it is
told as it is

but cannot
always be

not
as it should be

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