From ‘Daybook’

a dead queen a red king
an orange polis crash
where is the high style
o poet the republic requires
& where the Polish heroes
& can the heroic be general
communal asks the engorged
populace we we we we
we don’t need another hero
discharge justice charge the world
a place making

                     *

disenthrone the reigning X
suffer the little children
to vote me emperor
of nothing | ice cream
liking Ike was something
in another century saluting
the queen, that Gloriana hight
a call a courtier made
an old trumpet trampled
recalcitrant natives
who shall defy what
Gloriana’s desire decrees
who shall descry her mercies

                     *

the plane trees’ green assault
or splendour, everything not
destroyed, not destruction,
diss, doxx, was it for this,
for whom, experimental
versus avant-garde, musicians
sound it out, a string quartet
with no violins, no violence despite
attack, decay, pizzicato
grandiflora, between peonies
and ranunculus she said
peonies, between a red
and a blue adjusting is obscene
in wartime sd the painter
going to his studio to adjust
a red to a blue

                     *

cataloguing stupidity
stupid, perennial, this
year a what year, heavy
rains, get used to it, new skies,
old clouds, project your feeling
on the sky, watch it
move, shifter, morphology
eluding a bounding
line, where is justice
suddenly you understand
revenge a sweet sweet taste

                     *

plunge a tongue
into the heart | knife
kiss | perspectival this
o can you not feel
what another feels   |   no
said the hard philosopher
+ do not even try
to think yourself
a bat much less a plant
hello hello old fern
hello you fucking idiot

                     *

spondee afternoon a double
heavy tread when mornings
bring an aversion to morning
or to returning to ‘thought’
or is it ‘affect’ where’s the brio
of Catullus the serenity
of Horace the ferocity
of Baraka the electricity
of Plath O O O find
your poemhole plug it
keep it open as you can
a broad beach laved by tides