REVISED

REVISED

saw Adonis and Aphrodite
at the Heavy Metal ballet

watching barriers collapse
boundaries stretch

saw sheet metal fluted
rolled exquisitely sheer

the weight of those chords tempered with
grace, fluency
of style

and Adonis and Aphrodite
if not riveted in love
at least
holding hands

the truth of their narrative
so handsomely revised

the
years so softly silvering them,
their conquest of time

CURVED (TOGETHER)

CURVED (TOGETHER)

chaos dawned
fractals like schools
of forever spawning fish
did
abound

and with them
as summoned

Aphrodite
that absolute beauty
born of monstrosity

was born
(if birth is a word that at all
befits
her genesis)

time stretching
space stretching stretching together as
interlaced reality

everything stretching to
accomodate
run
with that pattern

and with Aphrodite
the universe really curved. with but
a single goddess glance
stone, rock,
sand
came alive, sure antithesis
to Medusa

she and me riding that wave tracking
that curved ball

roving
through left field (the grass
grown too tall for baseball)

moving all the
time
desire and its object
gold and
base metal chasing each other
ad infinitum Achilles
and tortoise
mortal and
divine
sacred and profane moving together
forever (unless
I get my relativity wrong)

STING

STING

The Master told her
a page
is like a lover
waiting to
be touched

demanding
to be explored

at which
point she frowned
not
  fot the first time

reminding him, with
due respect
       as his student
with
    so much
   to learn

that the words on
some pages
are satirical, no
nonsense

cut
  to the bone

carry a sting
sharply pointed, venomous,
touch
   them at
your peril

not big
on that
love-touch thing

OUT THERE

OUT THERE

we sat around
the campfire

talking about
the evil out there

and anomalous
interstellar comets
that may well
be mother ships

such moments
the ontogenesis of
so much philosophy

the words out of which
much of our celestial framework
were once born
.
but the infant
in each of us sat there
growing ever
more terrified

the evil in our tales
quietly encroaching
creeping closer

drawing us
for comfort
closer
   to the fire

until, ultimately
amongst the embers themselves

if we
are meant to burn
be
   reduced to ask

prevailing logic
determines
         best do it ourselves

we sat by the camp fire
long nights to talk through

FINALLY

FINALLY

the ground is calling
blind creatures of the soil
need me
I sense that
cloying feeling

and me — sad inevitability —
headed in that general direction

soon to satisfy
(in intimate fashion)
all those tiny
desires for connection

there
down in
the vertigo

imagining our
small, precious
time together

my time to revel
in close acquaintance that
is different, radically other

a change from all those
macro forces trying their
utmost to shape, define,
dominate me
            as was the case from
first breath
was to
take

farewell to these forces
finally

DEEP

DEEP

escalator
went up

     up
   up
up

forward
reverse

it’s axiomatic
elevator went
down

down down down

skipping circles
of good

ploughing
through axes of evil

down through
every cellar, basement,
bunker
ever built

through the deepest
mine of all
on the
golden
Witwatersrand reef

deeper than a anything
that ever went
China Syndrome

deep and
deeper still

never to bottom out

ARROWS

ARROWS

I have arrows

gold, steel, lead,
silver

one for the Earth
one for the Sun
for the Moon

one
   for the abyss

have such faith
that all three arrows
once in range
will Saint
Sebastian
my target

all
notched, in the groove,
tailor made to
be lethal

every arrow a question
every arrow
an answer

Apollo
knows

it is what it is
they are what they are

challenge to
              your sacred
armour