DREAM SEQUENCE
In a place of darkness
that could not be
more exact
or complete
I dream.
of you
as you were, as
you are now
my creature of
light, creature of dawm
magnificent as always
in life and
here
now in my vision
even in this
realm where all
is meant to end
told to expire
there
is something
about my love
will never die
MERCUROCHROME
we left some
skin on the roads
our middle name
should be
mercurochrome
dripping pink to
tell the world
how
rubber failed us
and aphsalt turns
to grindstone
at even
less than high speed
but what is it
they chase, these bikers,
their dangerous
immortality?
I wonder to myself
abstracted from all
sense of peril
as the road narrows
in tune to the
bursts of accelerated
shifting perspective
riding a Kawa Ninja
does not
of itself make
me a Samurai
nor is it the
Nietzschean definition
of living
dangerously
just an
exercise in edge and
sense of finest balance
a dance you see
with the roar of high
compression
engine
as you get as low as
you can in terms
of centre
of gravity
molecule-thick distance between
outer edge and
blade itself
DRIVING DOWN TO CAPE TOWN
driving down
to Cape Town to
honour your invitation
need to fill my veins
with the fuel
of liquid stoicism
fifty years since
we last laid eyes
on each other
fear a
single touch from you
and I might disintegrate
recalling that moment
where in your bedroom
I declined
the sharing of the bed
and whatever
consequent pleasure
thinking this meaning so
much less
so much less
for you
and now
me heading South
realizing
in light of
this current sweet
invitation
how hopelessly wrong
I must have been
OVERSHOOT
the board
is a blur
they are playing
at lightning speed
my eyes cannot
track the pieces
let alone
my mind
make
sense of the moves
need to
slow this down
to a crawl considerably
right now it is
the red-
hot embodiment of
the brain’s
capacity to
chess overshoot
CRISP
the Sun
not yet crisp
have we
Aztec priests
to thank
for this?
crisp
is what the snow
in deep space
believes
itself to be
no
Sun
of any ilk
to bring
some
raging warmth
soften that reality
to what fits sweetly
within our range
whilst
we hold tenure
of
this place
PIECES
to be
or not to be
they will
not tell you
what could be
good move
never
mind best move
not a whisper
even a
glimpse or
hint
Knight, Queen, Knight
Pawn
kept under wraps
kept to themselves
just waiting for you to
hit the pitfall, move
without
seeing
odds so long against
pulling a Kasparov Carlsen
Fischer worthy gem
out of the hat
magic rabbit
of a combination
plan
(if that
be the word) not
as solid
as it seems, something
outside all
that you schemed walking
in through sudden
doorway
unpredicted
unobserved
asking you how
you going to get
out of this catastrophe
needing
strategy, fluidity,
flexability
your
calculations so
wooden
in Hamlet were chess
this would be the question
ANTHONY
every which way
you were
a better human
being than me
found time to
send me
a birthday message
was planning for me
to fly from
Manchester
spend time with
you on
Manhattan island
celebrating New York
and that house where you
lived where
everything happened.
(wherever you were
everything
seemed to
happen)
Professor Emeritus (seriously
outranking me) out
there in
Kentucky
postcoloniality, ecology,
the political
landscape of
the South African novel
so kind
to me and I let our friendship
drift our connection
dither
and now looks like
whatever it means eight
years ago
you slipped off
the radar
I know what I fear it
might mean
one of the best
no longer
around
that laugh, that kindness
no longer here
NEVER SO MUCH
she never so much
as gave me a glance
in the philosophy class
the entire year
reading Huckleberry Finn
to shut out
the ultimate boredom
of every lecture
(surely it
begs all
sorts of questions
a philosopher so dull
he kills
philosophy itself)
but don’t worry
not going to bore you
I have flashed
forward
fifty
and here I am
again wondering
how I killed it all
when
she just
wanted love
needed me
to love her
dreaming the says it all dream
flowing out of our
sudden
unexpected
perhaps final
exchange of messages
in
which
she picks me up
in her old beige
Datsun
taking me
somewhere special our
final
trip together
and My God! this little
ancient car
of yore has
been Star-Trek supercharged
roars out onto
De Waal Drive heading
away from the University
somewhere
she will
not say
and now
to cap it all
this car has reclining black leather bucket seats
into which by
the G force
I am instantly
backwards thrown
last but
no way least
the old manual stick has gone
replaced by
mighty
automatic transmission
and
most strange big neon red
numbers on a strip with
gear selection
or
ultimate speed
clear and
conspicuous demarcations
the last of which
the one burning into
my brain
is 72
a big fat red 72
as if be
sign of
some significance
of my 72nd birthday
but I’m cool
the dream is cool
beyond
cool
and here dawn and day’s
reality quietly
ends it
poems 2 die for