Month: September 2021

To tell the truth to power

To tell the truth to power
Is to go under a steamroller
To tell the truth to power
Is to be a tree trunk in sawmill

Power has that dirty laugh
That fools enjoy
Power has an ocean of rusted keys
thrown away

Powers idea of judgement
Is a secret train ride through a wood
Powers idea of judgement
Looks like an inferno for truth

Friends

Sometimes
We are friends who are not friends
Sometimes we are friends
Who are friends

It’s a sign of maturity
like a well fitted stair carpet

That friends pass each other by on
I’m your friend today
I’m not your friend today
but non-the-less

Our missing feet are in a museum case of friendship together
And make up a strange
Four footed animal
That palaeontologists didn’t expect
To find in bed with them

We have one heart between us, made of broken bits
And two other halves that can’t agree

Or – two halves of hearts grafted together
And a lot of broken bits
Like wood shavings and lead grains
From a pencil sharpener

We have formed a chassis
Of friendship
And love Is a fish in a fishing net
Trying to drive the car

Poems are not films

Poems are not like films
They are the rare flowers
Seen in urban cinematography
The bodies of butterflies with plucked wings
Thrown into the sewer wind
Of the cutting room floor

editing a film frame by frame
You stop the sequence of stills
And zoom into a dark corner by a dustbin
There’s one of the little blighters, quick
Edit it out

If you waited to make a film from poems
You would keep a Hollywood studio
Working overtime
You would need a Nazi factory full of slaves working overtime
In a pyramid epic
And still your film would look like
The tracks of a yeti disappearing into the snowdrift

I scratch the surface of death

I scratch the surface of death
– Like a painted window
Looking for the past passing behind it
The past has gone

Success comes
When the body deteriorates
Or
The body deteriorates
When success comes

I have tunnelled thru life
Like a torpedo through the sea
I up-periscope
The target is me

The window shop dummy

The window shop dummy
Is out
It is moving thru the crowds
In oxford street
It is looking for work
In Harrods maybe
It has nowhere
At the moment
To sleep

The window shop dummy
Has been set free
Straight out of storage
Into the street
Stitched up
For a shop lifting

It could not speak
Or admit guilt
Or It would have been out in a week
But it lost its head
It’s arms, its feet

Satellites afraid
Follow it about
Into one end of the tube system
and out the other end

Followed all day
Spied on all night
The window shop dummy
Turns a deathly white

The window shop dummy
Is not wearing clothes
It shakes and it shivers
Where ever it goes
Into Nero’s
For a coffee and snack
No dummies allowed
It has to go back

It jumps from a bridge
On a day – warm and sunny
No one tries to save it
Because it’s only a dummy

Individualized

You were
A – dividual
Before
You were
An individual
Before you
Had
A foundation
To be
An individual
On

You
Individualized
Before
You were
Dividualized
An undivided
In dual ized
Individual

What would
An individual do
In a dividual world
Undivided
By the
Foundation
Ready made
Full of brown sauce
An un pollinated
Milky opal ized
Individual

Chess

You really
Really
Have to be focused
It’s no use
Planning
An escapade
Against
Your opponent
Without
Keeping an eye on
Hiz moves

You really
Have to focus
On the whole thing
You have to
Open
The two halves
Of your brain

One for your moves
One for his

Really
If you are not
watching
Your other half
You will
Defeat
Yourself

I’m always
Bad at chess
Like
When it comes
To love
I lose focus
I am
A disintegrated
Player
Whose head
Doesn’t move
When his heart
Races ahead

The wooden laughter
Of puppets
From the Window
Like the sound
Of a Wood saw
The day
Is already
A Washout
With rain
Dripping
From the maple leaves

And my back aches
From exercise
And a poor
Sleep position

When wooden laughter
Cuts through the window
from outside
With narcissistic
Emptiness

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