WHAT CAN POETRY DO?

Tags

existence, Humanity, identity, meaning, Metaphysical, philosophical, poem, poetry, The ocean, the sea, Water

WHAT CAN POETRY DO?

I asked the sea
to speak
(always thundering
nobody listening)

some theological type
told me need
to be more porous
let the
briny wisdom
flow through
me

take me back to
that salt time when the
ocean was our all, was
out complete being

I asked the sea to speak
speak quietly right
in my ear
or, alternatively, so
mountain loudly it
drowns out
the noise, this noise

what stops you
from hearing me

stops me
from hearing you

wave upon wave
freak giant to
the barest ripple

when we share this
special time, this
moment

what can poetry do?

SPRING

Tags

Humanity, poem, poem poetry political moral, poetry, Revolutionary, vital, writing

SPRING
“Can kill one, two, or a
hundred roses” Lula

they lay down
thick concrete

play around
in Nazi uniforms

for them everything
is a kind
of masquerade

the facade they
have erected
speaks the language
of Spring
(which they
took to
the Mengele
Institute
had
doctored
surgically
altered

now the language
of Spring like
all language
plays
stringed puppet
only
ventriloquizes)

but Spring is
a seed that

blossoms tough
as steel

exerts a pressure
from below greater
than a volcano

all in the name of life,
beauty,
that in
humanity

cannot be totally, finally,
absolutely suppressed

needs to be felt, smelled, touched,
tasted, embraced, seen

else
what

do we mean?

AND YET

Tags

death, Humanity, meaning, philosophical, poem, poetry, time, Universe

AND YET

it’s a sleep
I won’t wake up from

and yet I do
I always do

since the beginning
of the Universe
since
before

the beginning
(time and
consciousness
so
connected
so at odds)

I have never
overslept

never known anything other
than the absurdity of now

the chances of
which

so absolutely ridiculous

billions to
one against

I think I’ll just sleep on it;
waking up is death

PREDATOR

Tags

human, Humanity, Nature, panther, poem, poetry, predator, Reader, shark, Snake

PREDATOR

water streaming through my gills
bringing the life-giving oxygen

I power my way forward
body so streamlined it is pure vector

dorsal, pelvic, pectoral
gigantic fins to stabilize
as I torpedo towards you
through the water
you being human
this being
no fair fight, supreme
mismatch

Oh yes, when I die
let me reborn in some
size or shape of deadly predator

hunting you down hopeless, hapless human
locked onto the smell of your blood

yes black as night and cruelly beautiful
my eyes blaze like emeralds
lit from within
my claws to catch and hold, dagger
canines to do the coup
de gras with

or slither like lightning turned into muscle
each drop of my venom there, in theory,
to wipe out an army

more than enough
to deal with you

who so
foolishly, artlessly,
entered into my target territory
whose heart
I have on heat desk

my speed
coiled up for
all such

devastating encounters

and yet
in your eyes I see recognition
absurd realization you
know me from somewhere

but I have have long forgotten you
reader, or the
wish beautifully realized

expressed
in this poem

having forgotten what it is like
to have been
human

my poetry now a matter of
rhythm and execution;
timing and kill

LIKE NOBODY’S BUSINESS

Tags

2001, A Space Odyssey, Consciousness, cosmic, death, future, Moon, Nietzsche, poem, poetry, Space

LIKE NOBODY’S BUSINESS

If was in the future
far into the future

I was giving a lecture
on The Moon

talking of the great symbols
of our collective cosmic consciousness

whilst you sat there
steeped in thoughts of death,
thinking of an ancient film

set on this very Moon
where Nietzschean superman
taps into alien presence, alien energies
is lifted out of sad species nihilism

but I
never having seen this film
kept spouting away

something
about the low gravity of this place

time here, I suppose,
moving slightly faster

ideas bouncing around
like nobody’s business

and our blue-brown
on its last legs sickly planet
at least with an
atmosphere however toxic
that might be

how long for that to remain
at the heart of these symbols, be
the fount of all our meanings

this barren, naked Moon
chaste female goddess
queen of
all unconscious mystery

enough
of a home for me.

BITS

Tags

Alien, cannibalism, Desire, Humanity, hunger, identity, loneliness, love, poem, poetry, science fiction, transformation, Twist in the tail, Universe, woman

BITS

So long on
the planet

have begun to

think
like the planet

look
like the planet

mountains of alien
thrusting up
through my
flesh as
new landscape
takes place

which brings me to
my humanity, species
that needs company

and thought of
my hunger, my loneliness

whether I need partner
for love or
just
to
chop into bits.

OF THAT RECIPE

Tags

death, Humanity, poem, poetry, Rebirth, Universe

OF THAT RECIPE

chatted
to a star

star told me
they would
soon claim me

take control of
“the dust
that you are”

and from that dust
new life forged

but none of
that sad, flawed, speak-to-
the-stars
stuff

no more
of that recipe
the cosmos
not
having any

FIT

Tags

Alien, erotic, female, love, male, philosophical, poem, Poet, poetry, poststructuralist, science fiction, sexual symbolism, touch, Twist in the tail, Universe, wordplay

FIT

there is an alien species
swarming in my bed

their queen
whispering sweet
alien nothings
in my ear

telling me that
we are
made for each
other

her wings
are enough to carry me

and that, in spite
of the tricky
linguistic differences

we are
a perfect fit

PALACE OF SLEEP

Tags

afterlife, Creation, Creativity, death, Dream, Keats, Poe, poem, Poet, poetry, Rebirth, writing

take me to the Palace of Sleep
where the air is hashish-heavy
as thick with dark autumnal cloud
as anything written
by Poe or Keats

sky dragging itself across
as if stuck somewhere
and out to test the winds

but let me
sink into that darkness
night so perfect, it is the null equation,

there
where words are absorbed, lines, phrases
disintegrate, are so carefully dismantled
scattered like leaves
on a river, like momentary
phosphorescence on the ocean

no dream here, at least
none that
is remembered,
only the blending of
currents, change,
reconfiguration

she said that I reminded her of Keats once
this before she got married
but after we
were lovers

perfect sleep in her arms then
no thought of
darkness, any kind of
renewal, rebirth, re-
definition of self

as figure who writes
not figure who loves

the gates to every Palace
secretly open
unbeknownst to me
at that
most lost of lost moments

REBIRTH

Tags

poem, poetry, Universe

REBIRTH

the poem
is a shell

the poem
is just
a husk

it is
an afterbirth

something living
was here

something reading
finds rebirth