labi siffre - into the light

we’re all war poets now

"it is a failure of diplomacy", the analysts say
to camera
but the killers display increasing enthusiasm
clearly they detect success and paint
with definitions more vibrant than those used
by the authoritative faces whose job it is
to soften the blows for us on our sofas

meanwhile i report to the editor on the meaning
of life from the outside
of automatic sliding doors to cancer ward
buildings in various parts of the burning city
my mobile prosthesis disappointingly distant
from the life
support systems inside, i stand among the pyjama’d
and slippered in dressing gowns, the walking dying

(why should we pay for their self-inflicted
self-indulgence) braving the critics and the cold
the plume of their breath making love to the smoke
from their cigarettes
one here with a glowing pipe bowl and bloodied
neck bandage; not at all shamefaced

these terminals admit negotiations between reason
and addiction are as ever mere photo opportunities
for faked gravitas displays and platitudes
of peace, regret and concern

so close to death these cancered are stronger than
the rest of us. we weasel and deny logical
conclusions that blaze like the sun roaring
solar winds of song uplifting singing
DEATH IS THE DRUG

and though serial killers on MTV extolling
the addictive romance of slaughter is (at present)
an unlikely prime time feature
in the world outside without pop up ads
it's a permanent, bloody, hit

marketing

they don't sell junk food
by promoting healthy eating

and they don't sell weapons
by promoting peace

virulent we need you 2b

so, another two useful and effective men dead
J. K. Galbraith and Joash Woodrow
while the “self-serving parasites
with power” list grows

‘twas ever thus
will ever be; and me?

i’ll concentrate on these two Js and hope
many such will infect us; reassured to find
there’s more beneficial bacteria in the world
than the other kind

supermarket

today at the harbour a woman killed
a man she thought was hers -
but how do you know that? 
i know 'cos i made her -
with an ice cream cone in one hand and
letters to post in the other i, passing by,
saw her walking with a shotgun in hers -
is that in the way inadequates can’t
take the universe as is and have to
create one of their own -
and not being from the savage lands
of Afghanistan or America put two and
two together and made my mark
with a naïve X

planation -
nation? which
plan for a nation
what is yours any
chance it would work
to the benefit of who (whom)(whose) -

it was then
that she taught me the lesson -
by default of course, not
by design and by viewing
these effects and causes and or
ganising them into a design i make
art? -
confronting the woman
with the baby in the space buggy
she raised the gun and fired
bam!
into the man with the shopping bags
who was standing with the woman
whose hands had fused
to the shiny handles
of the pram -
is this the way to get fathers
involved? a pram as a phallic
extension in the way that
a porche or ferrari is
no cure for your
insufficiency -
and the man slammed
on his back to the ground
and his head cracked on antique
cobbles and his chest
was red and ragged -
and was it oddly beautiful
like an exploded star
like the heart of an idea
bursting into existence -

it was then
that i knew everything
i’d ever needed
was available
the coveted hoard
laid out
at hand
at a price i could afford -
at a price i would afford
no matter what -

and the woman and her baby overdubbed
a duet -
are you a muso?
isn’t everyone? -
screaming and gasping and sobbing and again
screaming and gasping and sobbing and again
as the woman
with the shotgun let it slip
from her grip
and the officer
kicked it away and shouted
something i didn’t hear -
but he was angry i
could tell.
he wasn't angry he
wasn't even there
you created this don't
you remember? -
mid the siren sounds converging
and the silent sound of a host
of camera phones

and i and my ice-cream cone
and my letters to post backed away -
stuck stick stock stuka stake stack
and anyway it isn't about
inadequates
they're beautiful that's all
can't you see that -

‘n i turned my toes, my soles, my heels,
my thighs, my knees, my hips, my lips,
my dick, my guts, my nuts, my lungs,
my arms, my brain, my name, my life,
my darkness and light, my heart and
sight, to you my love, to you -

is this romantic or sentimental
cause i hate sentimentality
anyway you decide
i gotta go

a state of the nation call for heroes

my fellow americans, who are also seniors,
nothing is required except compliance
though the choice of course is yours but
do you deny that your living
that which you inflict
upon needy fellow citizens indeed
on a nation fiscally embattled is
less than god’s desiring

don’t you see how sacrifice is blessed
and selflessness rewarded gloriously
in the after and so, embrace the stance
of martyrdom of sainthood cast aside   
this elder life you cling to at our cost
this offensive drain
on others’ opportunities to excel

in good conscience if not for those of us
hard pressed to govern then at least
for the sake of faith, belief and spirituality
abstain from medical interventions go
not into that good night but calmly
go, pass on, pass over, pass away
for the sake of the children
into that glorious white light

the good guys

i have a monkey on a string
he does not sing and he does not grin
he chatters out of nervousness and rage
he bears his teeth in a threatening
i rewrite his life with lies i call hisstoricling
no matter what
he cannot win

i have a monkey on a string
he climbs so high almost reaches
my chin and when he reaches to the top
i let him drop no matter that he wants
to stay i rest assured I rule his day

i have a monkey on a string
last night he tried to kill me
with a safety pin
i took the poker from the fire
and with a flourish
ended him
entire

blood ‘n bandages

i hate to say goodbye it hurts me so;
is that perhaps the reason why i
rarely say hello

infant guilt still de rigueur

“my children”, she said, “did bad things
in previous lives” (already i wanted to hit her –
hard) and that, she surmised, is why god
killed them
with a tsunami
(had there been fair weather
would it’ve used an army?) the mounties
always get etcetera

light died severing the body
from the joke
without a question your average
maggot is stumped and clearly
you don’t have to be earning
five servings a day - be born and bred
in the fed world - be hip to rap or
Shostakovich - dine with the queen
and know which fork is seemly -
be neocon liberal snowed
or limo’d to be intellectually rank; nor
mally you just have to be human

‘n clear as dew on the lip
of a dormouse i’m not; thus, sympathy for
but never with (best change that
from rigueur to rigor); knee high to being
recently freed from limbo by papal decree
fashion, victims of the world unite
you have nothing to lose
but your right to a lethal injection

tragedy? my arse!

so goodbye george best

as far as i'm concerned

your life was a success

[but also read this by Johann Hari in the New Statesman]

they said my son shot himself fatally

^{(twice)
(in the head)}

some bad you can’t make better
some wrongs you can’t make light
some things can’t be forgiven
many things won’t ever be alright

some days will last for ever
some pain will never end
sometimes no one can make amends

sometimes it’s death in venice
sometimes in pontypridd
sometimes it’s death in ways
you can’t believe

he! he!

the dead would laugh
were they not dead
but they are
so they don’t

the living laugh
out of fear
a defensive mechanism
we’re told better
to laugh than to kill

i knew a man who died
from laughter butt
first he killed
several of those who
had found him funny

the rest cut him
into blood ‘n text; people
have a wicked sense
of humour

last night a useful person died

goodbye
G.McG

love

from
me

bee

he spells himself then crosses out
half the letters and starts again

"it isn't right" he says aloud “it sounds
correct but it looks funny”

he transposes
the first and last letters

changes the upper to lower case
an "i" for a "y"

an "e" for an "a" and he does this on
and on and on for the rest of his life

back and forth and forth and back
and never gets it right

when the water wept

the world away we found
our roots upended

eyes awash ‘n holding
our breaths we stopped being
offended wove our fingers
to bridge the distance be
tween art and life apart

it sings

now with blood ‘n water drained
the dead commuting anony
mous in crowded graves
sexless and ageless again
we swim the shallows

easy

finding at our finger tips
our weapons; normality
beckons we wait in the
seconds between
remembrance and disregard

here

with little work we’ll grasp the
situation; familiarity breeds no
scare and clean there is we
know but where

and so on and so forth

yesterday
harried from pillar to post
by partners, lovers, business,
relatives, fear and technicalities
i forgot to phone G, sick and weak
and dying in his hospital bed

that’s how easy it is to forget
the soon to be dead no sweat i do it
everyday like i have for most of the
days of a life; “that’s different” it
says here, “that’s not the same
“yes it is” i say, “oh yes it is"

major minus – minor plus

monday February 28th:

To London to see G, a friend once a lover, who yesterday phoned from his hospital bed to say he had only a few days to live.

Though born and bred there, my rare visits from the rural to London make me feel like a country hick, out of place, not knowing what to do.

I’m that way visiting the dying, which I’ve had to do a few times, and more of course as I get older. I make sure to hold a hand. Sometimes it helps, though whether the soon to be dead or the soon to be bereaved I’m never sure. This time I try to find out how far the dying friend wants to go. Not far it seems. G has always studiously avoided “deep” conversation with me.

We joke about a few shared adventures, several of the restaurant kind: the woman who whined in an upper class accent that there was only fish on the menu, at which G from our table shouted, “that’s because it’s a fucking fish restaurant!!!” . And that scene in the HH featuring the head waiter backing away from the chef who was threatening him with a meat cleaver, while the greek chorus, we lunching customers, continued eyes downcast, cutlery poised, silent with our meals, British indeed.

I touch on dénouements and how there aren’t any, only accommodations; touch too on whether G has told his son about this imminent loss. He hasn’t. The gay father and the straight son estranged. My enquiry unwelcome. I wonder whether the son is mentioned in the will, whether a mention would be welcomed, and whether the lack of a mention would be damaging or comforting confirmation.

G says the doctor’s update is two more days. Feeling awkward and sad I mumble something foolish like, “well, you never know”. Foolish because G has made it clear, "the sooner the better". He’s tired and makes signals that it’s time for me to leave. We kiss. Dismissed, I leave him with J, his partner of forty one years.

In the car going home to mine, of forty years, I consider how this has been another failed attempt to handle the death-bed thing and realise I’m getting used to failing in that regard; which is in itself some kind of progress

get over it

i have no sympathy
for the dead

it’s an excuse
a copout, still

what can you expect
from self-indulgent

folk who’d let
themselves go

to that extent
no

i have no
sympathy

for the dead

baaaa!

so it’s creeping up on me
all the time   i know that
but it don’t obsess me

sheep think "grass" not
"wolves" til on a shifting
breeze they smell ‘em

stealthing up   i think
my life in love 'n sex
'n verse 'n food 'n booze

'n when i hear that cutting
blade a-swishing through
the underbrush my head

goes up my eyes go wide
i sniff the wind 'n hope i’m
not the one who gets it this
time when we run