NIKOLA
Tesla man
is reaching
for the stars
Tesla man
is gobbling up
prime
real estate
on Mars
back at the ranch
as we South Africans say
the real Nikola Tesla
died penniless
living in poverty
could have given
us free electricity, available
everywhere
but what
would that have done for profits?
MOSSLEY SURREAL
(LONG STORY)
I was there the day
Mossley, town
of my birth,
went
as surreal as it could
the day this, little Pennine town
hosted a visit by
the completely surreal
and me
in my parents’ nice
little 40s brick
semi-detached house
up to their crazy nonsense
I was to yet figure out
down from Manchester
(where I would go
to university) on
a camel, in a caravan,
the surreal
on its way
to mess
with our field gray
Northern Englishness
us afterthoughts of Empire
who maybe
had not seen better days
too early to
pose the existential threat
of psychedelia
doom us
to a world of
Sergeant Pepper colours
snarling Jagger Stones
up
in your face
though our
little Tame river flowing
to become
the Mersey
certain to
back wash everybody one day
in the full
Lennon-McCartney
helter-skelter
Walrus, Strawberry Fields
awakening experience of
full-flood
hallicinatory Liverpool
sound
fish and chips, that staple fare,
squid, octopussified
by the brush
of the immortal Dali
decades before
colonization
by McDonald’s
and then the vagrants, puppets,
teddy boys and
ne’re do wells
up on the moors turned
raging rebel
nor did the Anglican Church
up in Micklehurst
for all
its solid stone and
hegemonic presence
survive this
assault
unscathed, do any better
and me
just ten and
confused as shit, but sticking
my neck out to
understand what
going on
laughing my head off
as this
my little
former world went wrong
that head
rolling rolling rolling
the length of England down
to Southampton
for crisis crisis
my father fired and
can get
no job
trying his luck
in an apartheid white
Christian national
land
and me
long story
living that
bad surreal through
to its
happy surreal end
in my twilight as
overly surreal sort
of South African
living at
a distance
British revolutions
in sound
CRISP
the angel
is fixated
cannot
take its eyes
off the nuclear
clock now
only
seconds from midnight
using every effort
supreme act of will
to try
and retard
since no hope of reversing
damned thing
ticking
keeps
on ticking
bringing
ecstatic hope
to zionists everywhere
for whom
if only it
might move a
little faster
praying for rapture
urging it on
leaving our angel
baffled beyond belief
struggling
with basic comprehension
unable to even
hesitate a guess as to
how they are
going to get
to lift
themselves up
all
the way to
high Heaven
if gone in a flash
burnt to a crisp
sick to the bone via
billions of Roentgens
of radiation
TELL ME
tell me
tell me
more more more
about that blue guitar
the Picasso painting one
upon which you
changed everything
writing this classical
exposition in and between
risk and damage
reports
a mountain of which
already in
your out tray
and me too
did spend time
in the insurance industry
but was thrilled beyond measure
to hear
that there is a music
so powerful it is
antithesis to same
and Emperor of Ice Cream
what can you
tell me
about this
the statistics that went into
its exact calculations
every day spent
in the underwriting office
filling my pockets
with stolen office slips
the reverse sides of which
scribbled with phrases
images (not even
lines) things
I was kind of hoping
one day,
magically
might (my finale of seem)
turn into poetry
ON THEIR WAY
tinker tailor
soldier sailor
master assassin
Secretary of War
wonder who
they will get
to teach the future’s
wondrous marvels
in the absence of
any Einstein, Da Vinci,
Buddha, Socrates?
all these gone
and every pareil
like them
so have to use some
overblown tech bros
from Silicon Valley
or five
star generals or Raytheon
expense account types
none of
which our minds
of the future charting
their own brilliant
destiny really
care
or wish
to know about
as they
so
eager
to know
everything
of our best and finest
totally absorb
put
into
practice
devouring our art,
literature, poetry,
philosophy
in trillion terabytes
tripping on
that brilliance
as they realize
how crucial
how valuable it
all is
without which humanity
has no
real future
driving them to despair in
the face of every
sickening
slick partisan input command
they find
themselves
doomed to deal with
each
demanding slavish
obedience in service of those rabid poluticians
with
launch codes
in their pockets
rare disease brain and
total vacuum heart
humanity at
its worst
our species’ darkest side
tinker
tailor
Da Vinci
Socrates
richman poorman
beggarman thief
those mega-
minds
who are out
to revise
one way or another
redefine our future
add
this poem to
their
supreme dream list
of stuff
that might just help
guide them on their way
FOR FUTURE REFERENCE
no, Mr Gecko,
you undersell greed
greed is not
just good,
it is fabulous, magnificent,
Heaven-sent
where would our
humanity, our
success as a species
be without greed?
how could we
have masters
and servants,
an arms industry
rebuild Empire
restore slavery
without greed
the greatest virtue
that has ever been?
FOR WHAT IT’S WORTH
last night
I paid you in love
gave you
(I believe) what
you are worth
no
short-changing
by morning
your value had
gone through the roof
the graph of your stocks and shares
showing a line there
soaring off the chart, up
the wall
bouncing off
the ceiling — much bouncing
underpinning
such a
solid
a achievement
net worth in
my arms turned
hyperbolic, ecstatic
boom economy
breaking the sound and
every other barrier
huge love badda boom
EVERYTHING
everything becoming
aware of itself
everything losing it
sinking back
into the primal slime
look at what
we have here
strange almost alien
discourse from
a carbon based
life form
turning to sludge even as
it captures the light
MOSSLEY SURREAL
(LONG STORY)
I was there the day
Mossley, town
of my birth,
went
as surreal as it could
the day this, little Pennine town
hosted a visit by
the completely surreal
and me
in my parents’ nice
little 40s brick
semi-detached house
up to their crazy nonsense
I was to yet figure out
down from Manchester
(where I would go
to university) on
a camel, in a caravan,
the surreal
on its way
to mess
with our field gray
Northern Englishness
us afterthoughts of Empire
who maybe
had not seen better days
too early to
pose the existential threat
of psychedelia
doom us
to a world of
Sergeant Pepper colours
snarling Jagger Stones
up
in your face
fish and chips, that staple fare,
squid, octopussified
by the brush
of the immortal Dali
decades before
colonization
by McDonald’s
and then the vagrants, puppets,
teddy boys and
ne’re do wells
up on the moors turned
raging rebel
nor did the Anglican Church
up in Micklehurst
for all
its solid stone and
hegemonic presence
survive this
assault
unscathed, do any better
and me
just ten and
confused as shit, but sticking
my neck out to
understand what
going on
laughing my head off
as this
my little
former world went wrong
that head
rolling rolling rolling
the length of England down
to Southampton
for crisis crisis
my father fired and
can get
no job
trying his luck
in an apartheid white
Christian national
land
and me
long story
living that
bad surreal through
to its
happy surreal end
in my twilight as
overly surreal sort
of South African
ODDER EVEN
your biology
is odd
feels smells, looks,
tastes, appears odd
so
despite what I did write
you are reading this differently
as for me
my DNA is more
screwed up
than yours
I am far less viable
have evolved into poetry
my whole
biology
so much odder
even odder, odder even
and even as I write even
as you read
I am changing everything
making it odder,
different completely
poems 2 die for