drdamiang

[drdamiang]

ISFAHAN

"The world always decides"

Kingdom of Heaven (dir:

Ridley Scott)

It is hard

to see

the past

through

all the

smoke, mustard and

nerve gas

death mirrored from

mirror to

mirror

same old

lies and deceit

again and again

unless a door opens

and then another

rooms nested

within rooms, infinite regression

a theme in boxes

and dolls

but with you, Tabanda,

a door opened

and looking back

now I am at last able

to reconnect,

reconstruct through

all the disinformation

and outright lies

what was it Rumi, Omar

Khatami wrote

about beauty?

Surely, Tabanda when

they wrote their lines

they had you in mind.

The Sin

of Empire

born into a fading self-

important brutal Empire

close to camps and

fortresses founded

by Rome

(taught us

everything)

forgive me

for my ignorance

not realizing how deep

these assumptions

of superiority really go

how it is here

in the semantics, structured

in the very syntax

and you sitting in the classroom

smiling imbibing my

attempts to

teach instil my

mother tongue

so what if I told you

I have never travelled

to Isfahan

your lately bombed,

beautiful city

city whose name

is such a pleasure

for the mouth to speak

****

I am disappearing

off radar

see stars floating

across the sky

and my memory if you

my so-called impossibly demanding

jaw-droppingly beautiful

student from Isfahan

everything here

you can translate into Farsi

Persian time

cannot be said to be

a short system of time

I think of your war

your million dead

not a statistic, each

a remembered martyr

the Libra medallion about

your neck

glinting for a moment

in the hard

English sunshine

in the Fitzgerald translation

(his own reworking)

Sultan's turret

caught in a noose of light

[drdamiang]

ZEUS DOWNED

the plan was

to slip under radar

flying in from Olympus

to punish us exactly,

strafe us with

lightning

it was nevertheless the fate

of this mighty son of Cronos

that

we saw him heading here

calculated

all the vectors

and simply shot him down

and so we

laughed it off, his

high and mighty books embargo

laughed at his divine calculus

of good

and evil, as all

his algorithms swept

into action

all his talk of

balance of power, mutually

assured annihilation,

of (the hypocrite) ban on

deity mortal cohabitation

so much threat to

their perfect celestial divine

level

and a

pwardly mobile

ambitious deadly spawn

a clamoring army

of hybrids, mixes

and

fearsome blends

variations on

the theme of demigod

[drdamiang]

THE LINGERING

the sadness

of never knowing you

the real you

always looking

from the outside

seeing the people

you are close to

and this

I show you now

is that image of you

I hold onto, keep

in my heart

Oh if

I could just relive

that captured moment

feel once more

feel once more

those small, exquisite, endearing joys

that deep, sublime, long-

lasting,

lingering pain

[drdamiang]

DANCING WITH THE BRIDE OF FRANKENSTEIN

was heading due west

when the wheel

started to splinter, come

away in my hand

seemed like a vortex out there

demonic triangle

portal pulling me in

ghost ships

flying dutchmen following

me into

that gorgeous abyss

(sphere of the zombie, land

of the dead)

where, to be fair, I would find

locale most congenial

to consort

with Frankenstein's creature's

bride

the two of us in true tango,

monstering out first midnight together

drone

of supreme dissonance

about to

switch off my brain

and yet how

we spin

across the floor

illusion of

free movement

delusion of light speed

whilst

eyes still locked inward

split, almost dismembered

the limbs

scrabbling for somewhere

treading

ice water dragged across

the spectrum, shuttled forward

back like

a ball in ping pong between

what we are told

are complete hyperbolic poles

and now for

our videofest, hook up

for the podcast

think up

some catastrophic leveling

skimming like a

cruise missile, like

an angel of abomination

targeting

all hearts if

we have them

as I repent all

my falsehoods, so

shamefully having lied to you

to preserve my power

keep

my inverted commas innocence

not a deus ex machina

but brutal blade of a guillotine

falls and released

it is

just

the end of the poem

[drdamiang]

CASCADE

sometime I don't know when

feels beyond anywhere

where cosmic logic demands

we should meet again

let us

live the moment on it's own terms

forget the past

forget all that crazy quantum stuff

about parallel universes

alternate histories

not even how it might

have been had we

got things right

where

with beautiful timing

a right word was said

the rest

thereafter just

cascade

after cascade

[drdamiang]

LOOKING FOR OUR OWN BUKOWSKI

we rule

the world in rugby

so why should we not

rule the world, the Continent,

the galaxy

with our Bukowski's

was

the premise of a reality show

and now I am hurtling

in a van

fresh from the airport

looking to find our own Bukowski

combing the bars, scouring

the shebeens looking

for a soul out there in

as yet ungentrified Cape Town

able to

distil door and

alcohol into poetry

to drive us rhapsodic

with his laconic drawl

will we find him?

will we find him?

trying to get

hype-machine into

top gear to

drum up a hype machine

inflect those all

so precious ratings

thinking of the format

as we drive

thinking of every

future episode

pots of gold at the end

of this wholly contrived

quite

amazing rainbow

can see

those lips moving in

my mind's-eye camera

as we chat even now

[drdamiang]

KINDERGARTEN

sirens in the kindergarten

not for lunch

but as everything

beginning with

the letter B

is about to attack

some chuckle-face

throwing himself at Miss

asking good-naturedly

how do you spell "conventional"

how you write:

with the one

true God on our side, it is

with sadness and

profound regret

I have

just given the order

pressed the button

for nuclear attack

Miss,

face ashen,

wondering what, if anything,

will ever written again

[drdamiang]

GUITAR

my telephone beeps

it does

not speak

it tells me

her message is here

was

holding my breath

but now

I can breathe

this is what she wrote

fingers that once

tippy-

toed now

dancing across

the keyboard

express

delivery

heart to

heart

(would those nimble

fingers were

here

plucking my strings

playing me like

a rock guitar)

[drdamiang]

HONEY

do not presume

to tell me

what

is forbidden

is the sky

forbidden?

the sea

the Sun

you

yourself

forbidden?

are all the things

in your book

of prescriptions

ultimately forbidden

what of honey

is that too,

forbidden

bees may sting

but the make it freely

as is the case

with honey, your honey

it is the sting

itself that makes it what it is

defines it as honey

and so please

before you

close the gates

shut

the hive

lay the mines

string the wire

as a matter of gentility do

tell me what is forbidden

point to

what is forbidden

in all this honey

that I might discover

taste

and judge

decide for myself

[drdamiang]

EDGE

only a love descent

could be that beautiful

unless we consider

the melodies of death

whose

melancholic timbre

haunting finality

succinct

completion

all things considered

give

it the edge

[drdamiang]

TEAPOT

below

everybody's radar

a fabulous world

bunkering

at the bottom

of your

white rabbit hole

and

after a divinity of

fine tea in the

arms of such company

time to reset

boot up

swipe

delete any virus

inconvenient program

waiting for

the bus of old age

who on Earth is

going to believe your story

the jury out

on whether the bus has

been missed, is late,

can

be said to exist

that debate

still raging, if ever

so quietly,

the luxury of it all

every tea set fully furnished,

expertly laundered

no future as monolithic

on the horizon, on

any horizon, as that

presents us as star child

not wishing to moonshine you

Cheshire Cat or Caterpillar you

you my dear girl

captured in this selfie

under the hat you

borrowed from

that mad

fellow

nothing in your sharp mind

going to change the heavy

metals in

his system to

gold

who single-

handedly threw

tea pot into unknown

postal district

this saucer into whole

new big bang aggrendisment

lurking in

galaxy not up

to us

to speak about

[drdamiang]

DARK SIDE

"You have no idea

of the power of the

dark side." Star Wars,

Episode V The Empire

Strikes Back."

Garside

dark side

my sleek black

serpentine muse

surfacing with a list

of devilish assignations

from

deep beneath the pithead

me paying in blood for

these limited skills (can

barely call

them art)

but today a difference:

wraps me up, hauls

me off

takes me deep

down in that elevator

sheer

demon deep

leveling out there

whar she blows

other uses for these fingers

back-up dexterities

learn to

probe shadow, uncouple

shackles

take on board so much

blistering anger raging

irreverence

raving raging

words

ruins

runes

spreading chaos

across the page

.

stooping to levels

below the unthinkable

damned

to write horrors, delights,

infinite beyond

the gurgling sounds

a throat might make, doomed

damned

blessed

infinitely so

for all time

[drdamiang]

BOTH (AND YET NEITHER)

treading water

in Carrie cobalt blue

Manolo Blahniks

(for

the job

of survival

to be up to

salvation

you

going to need a great shoe)

Oh the horror of whirlpool

then abyss

singularity (following)

dark dorsals

beneath the

surface

everything death iconic

spiralling

out of control

and who

is

master of Charybdis

who does not

bear

the power to

slake all before him?

angels in a fitting room

once wings are

right

sized

upon hearing your cries

cannot help

but hurl

themselves Esrthward

reckon with Poseidon

as reach

beyond light speed

wax full

deus ex machina

[drdamiang]

BACK TO BACK

here we find

an island of lost love

typical

single palm tree

distinctly cartoonish

two in fact

back to back

this is yours

that is mine

we no longer really

express concern or

curiosity

even think

of swimming the distance

after decades

of messages in bottles

seductive gestures, crude

gesticulations,

blowing kisses

waving

at each other

hoping

and praying

in our heads it has all

become too distant, we

are too far away

for anything

in our

former expressions of

stubborn desire

to make

a difference

,

[drdamiang]

SO MUCH BETTER FOR IT

When the great

god Emperors

go juggernaut

it will

ss always

be poetry

that suffers

and there we see Ovid

the pornogrpher

banned from Rome

languishing in exile

the great Julisn

city of Augustus

now so much better for it.

[drdamiang]

DUET

am hear

to learn; listen

know

my

history

be

sweetly transported

these minds encompassing

everything

voices like

encyclopedias

from Custer to Agincourt to

Hastings to the Stones

all the way back

to eleventh

century Japan

and me

thinking I knew it all

knew

ever so much

and there at that court

ruled by these poetic ladies

cannot

but think

would have been

in my element

reading

her body's calligraphy

drowning in

her incense

learning every nuance

code semiotic of

pillow

and screen

mastering those rules as

my imagination candle lit

by

this quite

precious fabric melody

of voices

perfect duet

Tom

and Dominic

(Dominic and Tom)