SAINTS
I lie at peace
and I lie
barefaced
exaggerate everything
make stuff up
the devil in me
determined to
at least
a bit different, sow
doubt, make interesting
for they are saints
you know and pledged
to servepredictable the truth
(and so cliched) we
hear and hear
and hear
again and again and
again from
heavenly them.
AND SO
and so
now you cyborg
genetically tweaked
old school meets new
with the tech
on view
brain by meccano
chip
under your skin
so enhanced as
you laser-look around
safety
your motto:
scan the ocean for
streamlined shape, cutting-
edge fin
sonar to shape-
image (be safe be better
than
be sorrow)
or reset
parameters, spectrum
shift a twist
on paradigm
here’s the download
for aesthetic
take it all in
this
night phosphorescence
through a range of filters,
can filter
virtually anything
input
beyond what you
trained
to believe
TEKERE
they let us out for
a few minutes a day
let us stretch our legs
get us
to run around
let off some steam
go wild, let it
all hang
out
as they say in the taal
in that wonderfully apt
phrase:
“gaan tekere”
and, as creatures of chaos,
entropic to the core,
crazy
is the place to which
we need to go
and not to the library
where we would have to
be pent up
and sit and read
everything vaguely vagabond
laced up just like
it were
a usual Church Sunday
and our teacher Ms Blake
(formerly Ms Erasmus)
who speaks the taal
but also teaches English
could finally shrug
her shoulders and admit defeat
every day fresh
books removed, the shelves
less replete
the library a
lost dream of hers
failing, dying
around her very feet
even
her namesake would
throw down his
spear
concede
defeat that crazy
wayward soul no
longer caged
in print to
prowl around
do some tigering
for ideas
too dangerous to
rock
the boat
that keeps us afloat
speak of a freedom
not as
a relaxing of the machine
we all
gears and sockets and springs
playing our part in
even
what gets chewed and gnarled have no text
to cite no words
to speak
only the glorious nothing
death mythology
of automatic capability
and thirty-round magazine
going apeshit civilized
total tekere with
such a thing
(true death joy
a book
is no substitute for
no book
could ever bring)
a few minutes between
the maths, life lessons
and accountancy
they let
us run around, imagine
and scream
SPECIAL
a bit exotic
nothing special
nothing we would
for its insight and presience
for how it moved us all
the whole of humanity
have to send out
in timecapsules
to every other galaxy
every other Sun
which stars and planets
never got a whiff
never got a mention
not a single image
in any of your poems
all
of your poetry
which is not what
hhe fat-brained corporate
commisar and sponsor
for your brand said
when extolling your creativity
as they launched the last
dodgy rocker with
your logo on it
from a former nuclear
missile base
the Earth no longer
habitable for
the human race
AND ALL THAT I THOUGHT
when I was little
infinitely younger
than I am now
and did not know
the word
“emigration”
was gullible Brit boy
to the core
had read the comics
knew all
our history
how dark treacle toffee
is the taste
of treason
and before that
the Yorkists were
bad, bad, people
banner of the Sun
and white,
white rose red rose Lancastrian
on my school blazer pocket
red
rose Lancastrian
in the History plays too
Oh yes, in the second war civil
so cavalier to fight
with jewelled rapier
and so very dashing in
long beautiful
curling hair
supporting the right of Kings
to be God’s chosen idiots
that guy Cromwell
farmer, turned warrior,
turned chopping block
butcher
by purest means
and in this so reluctant an
avatar of necessary revolution
his death leaving a
direction not taken
austere, egalitarian
not quite Milton’s
version as
poetic Protestant dream
but I protest too much
we all protest too much
try to level up and
they fear we bringing down
and now
flood tide in revelation
about this
Empire of exploitation
economy of inhumanity
so baffled
shame and guilt dawning
driving us out
of our wits remembering the
bonfire night vendetta V
taste of those
treacle sweets
.
story told of heroic standing alone
. for freedom, share in
a future for all mankind
not the ring
the absolute ring
it once had for me
DE IRA DEI
there is much anger
in the weather
much outright hostility that
the sky wishes
to vent
but not
the sky alone
for the sea is rising
flailing away with new found
muscularity
and the power beneath
of the molten hot core
of the Earth itself
can melt human
steel in microseconds
completely evaporate
beginning to stir, as we
catch its displeasure with
every quickening
seismic
notice that
there will be
extreme steps
ANTS
enough of your antics
you
so-called politicians
most partisan of people
let the ants decide
the future of our planet
so many many
more of them
and one
creature
one vote
is that not what
democracy is supposed
to be
all about
the thing elites fear, historically
from Plato to
Nero and Caligula
and every
evil regime of brothers
no ants they got a matriarchy
and I’m sure their Queen
will be cool
with whatever saves
the day
averts the death of
our shared
blue
planet
(Janet)
before it goes like Venus
goes like Mars
atmosphere like
black lagoon
or none at all
full rocky horror
so no more fiddling
identity cards, restricted polls
delimitation, boundaries,
every
outright illegal attempt
to gerrymander the system
give the ants the vote
give it to
every creature
can’t
do worse than we
have done
no time for legal
linguistic quibbles
time we
turned partisan
into
“partisant”
(show this world, this Universe
what this species
is all about
narcissistically thought
to be
a Divine image)
MARS HAS FALLEN
Mars has fallen
the missiles stand erect
casting lomg shadows
firing position
buf they have been like this
for well over a hundred years
if I had the art
then I could paint them
you might bet the picture
would be
pretty severe
but I am prole
what do I know
so are
we all
what
do we know
Mars has fallen
the machine is broken
all is entropy
final state between
the have
and the have not
nothing gets sown
so there are no parables
just the explosions that will come
that they cannot stop
the pressure built up
simple, obvious physics
I would have said if I knew
such
basic things
but I am prole, must always
flounder in darkness, taste
bitter ash
the storm gathering
the storm we are told
is pure propaganda
the deepest
of lies
but Mars has fallen
we can feel it, smell
if
energy has gone, lifeblood
is drained
someone has
done all the sums
it is the end of the line
THAT IS NOT A
that is not a Rene Magritte
pipe or no pipe
that is not he
this is not
a Rene Magritte either
but this, this,
is THE Rene Magritte
supplement, complement,
signifier, signified,
index
icon
the essence before and after
existence
of the man so surreal he makes
mincemeat of
your preconceptions
sitting at table with Dali, Miro,
de Chirico, Man Ray
and Jean-Paul Sartre
me dropping all those names:
only way they
would let me
into the restaurant
not to mention this
their poem
BRUTAL FRUITLOOP
not here to
argue with you
having distinguished yourself
as the very personification
of poetry
that institutional medallion
blazing on your
chest like a second Sun
so take and digest that
with your kiddies’
fluorescent cereal
being in the exact spot
your heart
should be
and that is where I
shall leave matters
so much of what I might
have said,
wanted to say, in need of being
presented for sacrifice
to the great
god ellipsis (or should
that, O Sun deity)
be the
god eclipsis?
got my lines tangled, my
words in a bind seemingly tongue-
tied but arms free to pull
and notch and
loose a Parthian shot
dissing your models and icons
and heroes of the worked
word like Campbell and
Livingstone as a unhappy pair
of dead beat wusses
poems 2 die for