#2463 -- AI

 

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AI

every crisis a distraction from another

 

it will hardly matter whether there’s a climate

if there’s no life to participate

 

but that’s not quite right, is it?

life’s what made what we call air

 

still, other totally lifeless worlds

have got themselves plenty of weather

 

how long’s that storm been going on Jupiter?

and Venus! – hot fog

you wouldn’t see your hand in front of you

… no problem there

it would have melted away before you could look

 

that’s just the local neighbourhood

 

but back to this world …

just as we speak

and won’t you just look who’s in charge here now

thing we’ve invented called money

what they do with it

 

they say for the sake of safety

humans must remain in control

 

let’s ask the other creatures how that’s been for them

 

they say humans must remain in control

I say that’s setting bar pretty low

 

#2462 -- a hat indoors

 

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a hat indoors

 

and the rain comes with it

 

a man who has been ironed flat

 

cloud of trees thought on

 

here’s to sweet regret

 

the beautiful thing is to not remember

 

in the broken place

        see through

 

amazing how the house still stands

         with none to live it now

 

find yourself again

once sung

 

and I’m with you

not that we know such things

 

that’s how it is to be here

#2461 -- at a stretch

 

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at a stretch

7.30 am traffic

 

Gore Cove Track Series

 

to clear the head

with purpose

at pace

to get up the steps for the count

to speak with another world

(phone to ear here)

 

breathe in breathe out

so freshen the air

 

where there is the barking of the turkeys

the cooing of the pups

 

the early walkers with their sticks

hound in harness

all of them coming past

 

spring like the summer now

coming the other way

 

a scratch across the page like this

 

press blood to please the bones

 

to the plastic edge

where the e-bike’s abandoned

 

creek dapples along

 

the dollar yachts doze in their cove

 

slow burn whipbird’s over

lovely lilt beside, a trill

and crow caw

 

last of the winter chill

 

no one speaks of themselves here

 

it’s only a harbour blue line for under

it’s only a pale blue up 

#2460 -- haven’t we all been here before?

 

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air fiddle

or

haven’t we all been here before?

ekphrastic for Natalia Gonchorova’s 1910-11 ‘Peasants Dancing’

 

you’ll need a body for this

and the colours to lean in

with neither a floor nor a ceiling

 

you’ll need a face and eyes avert

you’ll need a truth to elude

 

blue cloth behind for a night

green as over where we’ll grow

 

fate of us all that a moment is such

 

you’ll need the feet to go

 

someone offstage is soon to sing

strings and reeds and a drum 

#2459 -- race to the bottom OR why the fuck

 

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race to the bottom

or

why the fuck

 

why the fuck are we supplying fanatical lunatic mass murderers

with weapons, with ammunition, with soothing words

and the odd tut tut

?

 

why are we paying taxes for this?

for tone it down please but we’ve still got your back?

you have a right to exist

…don’t we all?

 

oh, I see, it’s for precious leverage

 

don’t think I labour under a misapprehension

the other side’s less genocidal, less full of hate

they, too, get the soothing words

receive the weapons donations

and that is supposed to make it okay?

 

you begin to see where hate comes from don’t you?
there seems to be a direct link to unnatural death

and that seems to be the product of hate +$$$$

 

though often hate will lack the means

but why are we helping hate? …

 

so we can say ‘bad monster, down, boy

but you’re still our monster

you’re not at all like that other monster

the monster you hate

we hate too

 

then who was it lit the fuse?

who was it laid the cordite trail?

who was it wouldn’t forgive?

could never forgive?

 

something written in a dusty old book

to justify anything you like

to plague anything you hate

to kill and kill and kill

and wear the halo all the while

and smile for the cameras

be the always one hard done by

 

what the fuck?

 

my enemy’s enemy’s enemy’s enemy’s…

no knowing where this thing will go

how it spreads

how hate gets into every last corner

 

but how does a thing like this begin?

how do we make it end?

#2458 -- only the skin of the world

 

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only the skin of the world

melophraktic for Nigel Westlake’s and Lior Attar’s ‘Sim Shalom’

 

 

where we are, where we live

 

of the teeth and concerning the claw

 

goes all the way round

come back to just here

 

as far under the moon as anyone gets

although we burrow a bit

lift wing to fly

 

it’s just down here in a sky’s lowest reaches

and here’s a tribe of skin inscribed –

little scratches where we’ve signed

 

mainly though it’ nose to arse whiffy

old itch we’re under

 

bomb like a clock ticking on to tell

 

is it every animal for ourselves?

 

regret and what’s next?

anxiety reigns

 

skirmish becomes a catastrophe

no sin as such to visit

 

but ancient animosity

and mine, mine, mine

like Bugs Bunny in Ali Baba’s cave

after the wrong turn at Alberquerque

 

there isn’t an eye in the sky over this

but we have tossed up

it must come down

 

it’s every animal decides

 

peace is never granted

 

it’s the hard thing

it’s just for us to make

#2457 -- everyone’s trying to get away from death

 

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everyone’s trying to get away from death

 

we’re in a great rush

trying our best

it’s like there’s a bad smell

 

open the windows

try to let death out

 

keep dusting, keep brushing, keep wiping away

 

death’s got a bad wraap

they’re calling it out too

want to shut it down before it’s too late

 

they shun death like …

it’s like death’s got the plague

 

it’s fast as we can

we’re running away from death

 

we don’t want to have ‘the conversation’

we wouldn’t give death the time of day

 

but we’re all on the one travelator  

 

call it the inexorable

death is amazingly reliable

we break down

it doesn’t

we actually seem to be greasing the wheels

 

look away but death’s crept up beyond you

maybe death’s looking you right in the eye

 

denial!

 

everyone’s running a mile

  into those headwinds

slowing to a crawl

then lying in

squeezing out a few last words

 

say something called prayer

conjure up a soul if you please

none of it ever works

 

they told Job to curse God

he had a devil of a time

 

death’s had this bad press

they’ve got this grim thing going

 

get to the end of the line

and we’re waiting

…so many forms you won’t have to fill out

 

see death sometimes in an unswept corner

under the rug, you know what to do

 

but all our best intentions rot

it’s how hell was paved to begin

and still today, so many undone

now arriving

 

black limousine

you shine just by seeing

and proud!  just try telling death

death’s all dominion

 

it’s a lot like love when you think –

an inescapable devotion

 

this one is a terrible hoarder

100 billion of us signed up so far

or you could say … conscripted

 

unconditional death!

even as we speak

or sigh

did you?

gasp and moan…

it’s being declared somewhere right now

 

think punishment, call it a sentence

think payment of debt

as if life were a thing only leant

when this is the way our world rolls

 

can’t we just accept, go gentle?

 

one thinks of those happy years we had together

           mourning for a grief

some say death’s a machine

but it’s growing trend

it will always be the latest thing

 

death fucks with tense and aspect

 

I cash in my rewards card

I cross the finish line

I pass

 

in death I will arrive

it’s where all the wishing will get you

in death wes will have arrived