TRUTH RUTH

read your
truth in
the tabloid

shocked at
your lack of
depth

that skin deep
is so
very deep
for you

(deeper than
in any tabloid
ever)

IN MEMORIAM

when truth
died
they had a
State funeral

everyone came out to mourn

it would have been
such a moving occasion
had they not

forgotten the name
of the deceased

FUNNY HYPOCRISY

Here’s a
funny thing

funny
as can be

they will never
decriminalize the truth

criminalize
hypocrisy.

PINPRICKS

those suns
are pinpricks

the star ones
massive only when
we sensed distance

and what distance
enough to swallow
all words and thoughts
even, especially
the
crazy true ones

SQUIGGLE-N-SCRAWL

watch the pen
squiggle its way across the paper

there may well
be something if not
Earth-shattering
in that scrawl

at least enough to
put a Cardinal in a
state of despair
as those little
words tear a
hole (not yet
a singularity) through
his cosmology

INTEGRITY

I can speak
here glibly
of rebirth
and transcendence

whilst you nod your head
in tacit agreement forgetting
the question of
who or
what I am and
my sincerity

or whether they are all
no longer at issue, a matter
for history to
say
whether my skull looks
sharp or dull and
the mouth
still swears integrity.

STAR METAL

Star metal
and so much death
at your expense

I watched the Marikana video then
slipped off home on foot
the shopping centre parking
lot deserted, just floodlights, neon
signage and
a few brash (Sirius? Centauri?) stars to
take my breath away for a moment in rare
recognition of their wonder
but as I reached the gate
I stared but
a moment to long
across the road at
two slim figures in
the shadows
creatures of the periphery
avatars of all
demolished beauty
one moving fast
as a shark through calm
night waters until
within speech, recognition
range of temptation

and there was the line
clear as
fire

across which might cross or
elect not to

and there the law
the
self-righteous law
whose dream is
prevention

whose currency death.

WHAT THE WRITER SAID TO THE POLITICIAN

WHAT THE WRITER SAID
TO THE POLITICIAN

I got one
head

and some faces

more than
you but
none

as convincing

SEND ME A MESSAGE

SEND ME A MESSAGE

 Send me
a message
after I am
long gone
even though
the odds are
it won’t ever
reach me
 
let me
know you
and the human race
are alive and well
not ash, blown
hither and
thither in
the storm winds
of nuclear winter.

Excerpt From: Garside, Damian. “Zero Gravity.” Xlibris, 2014-02-10. iBooks.
This material may be protected by copyright.

BENEATH THE TREES

BENEATH THE TREES

 
in the black velvet of Soviet night
in the velvet of universal void
 
Anna Akhmatova
 
Night night
little one
 
let sleep
steal upon you.
 
Tonight
the great adversary”
“has found his way
out of
the innermost box
 
in the days that follow the
hair, the claws, the
fangs will grow
names will be carved
into rock-hard granite, into
wood of bedpost
 
there will be
no ghostly afterimages
lingering in the mirror
 
what had been scattered
will be gathered
 
find its way into depths of dissolving forest
(where the darkness of
words
proves impossible).
 
Night night
little one
 
let sleep catch you in
this last, unhaunted moment
 
and should you fall
 
fall freely
 
the floor, the
ceiling
 
yielding
as if
 
they (or you)
were just light
in a camera

shadows,
images
 
as if they were
nothing but words, written on paper.

Excerpt From: Garside, Damian. “Zero Gravity.” Xlibris, 2014-02-10. iBooks.
This material may be protected by copyright.