REVIVAL

Tags

death, philosophical, poem, poetry, wordplay, writing

REVIVAL

they tried
to revive
the philosopher

but he was
too cold

there was, once they
had removed the packaging,

no dotted line along which
to fold
or cut,
for that matter
if he needed surgery

for looking out
through the window
of this perspective

no one could tell
what he would need
for full reparation

whether a canto or a stanza
or just two
lines
might give him
enough life-
blood inspiration to
Lazarus rise

resume
teaching all
the empiricist and
rationalist stuff

impossible
to reconcile

BIRTHDAY POEM

Tags

Birth, death, poem, poetry, Rebirth, renewal, Scorpio

BIRTHDAY POEM

the Sun glaring
through a hole
in the bedroom curtains

it’s early morning
so naturally, everything looking
to the East

I need words though
am desperate for words

to describe what I am seeing for you
or to create a mantra

same-old, same-old
will just not
cut it today
on your birthday

I flail around in my tired old way
driven to write, to find
perfect thing
to say
for the sake of friendship, legendary friendship

fall back on the
old mythologies paradoxically of rebirth and
renewal
today in this sign of Scorpio
sign of death and
yes, resurrection

but
renewal will do
yes renewal and fresh, re-born energy
would be such a blessing

for you
on your birthday
this special November day

MAN AT THE BOTTOM OF THR SWIMMING POOL

Tags

death, love, mythology, philosophical, poem, poetry, religion, spiritual

MAN AT THE BOTTOM OF
THE SWIMMING POOL

“Before the taking
of a toast and tea”
TS Eliot

So I
had tea
with the
man
at
the bottom
of the
swimming pool

we played
chess together

tried to
figure out
a puzzle

re-watched
2001: A Space
Odyssey
together

exchanged
passwords

then saved, lifted
up out of
the water
(drowning was
clearly not
meant for
me)

was pulled
to safety

it’s strange when
I try

to put
all the pieces
together

construct a
linear narrative

scrambled as the semes are
across great divides, across
the cosmic circles
of space
and time

then
I just laugh

for when it comes
to bottoms
of swimming pools
and higher
realms

what could be
more funny, more beautifully
comically absurd?

who
said the spiritual
could never be surreal?

(He aforementioned
of the bottom of
the swimming pool

calling me
from the kitchen

again
time
for tea

SCARCELY AUDIBLE

Tags

afterlife, death, poem, poetry, spiritual, writing

SCARCELY AUDIBLE

I died
and found myself
in a vast auditorium

a debate was raging
between, such as I could gather
since the voices were scarcely audible
someone arguing for
the moratality of the soul
and someone that consciousness
was not real
just a kind of false mirror
a epiphenomonon rooted
in our biology

and so
wondering how long the
debate might last, and who
was the more likely winner
I figured this
must be location transitional
a kind of way station
place to
take time out
put me head in my arms try
to catch winks surreptitious

but

do

the dead
sleep

do the dead sleep?

Meanwhile it appeared someone
was trying to
get hold of me
my phone was ringing (yes.
I did have a
phone

and tattoos written
in Hebrew and Latin and
Sanskrit and Arabic

were
appearing
all over my body

whether
good thing or bad thing
I leave it to you to tell

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.