DO SHEEP?
do sheep dream
of electric androids?
last night I dreamt
of the temple
of the high abbatoir
scouting out which
I circumvented the butchery
in the dark, dense forest
perfect place (as
opposed to a desert) for
such slaughter
to be hidden
place
where two and two
make five
or will do if
they tell you it does
NO SWEAT
I smell
of sweat
smell of death
a smell
to savour
sweat
laced with death
raw odour
needing a tad more
of your perfume
and spice on my skin
and so this alchemy
whose secret
barely hidden
opens itself
to scrutiny
lead
turned to platinum
gold
to glazing
crystal to
diamond
water
to steam
and star blazing
fissile energy
force of
such
fusion
stuff of that
industry
to thing that you are
which
that old skald, old troubadour
Saxon
Norman Viking
Celt
within me
can sing of hesitantly, imperfectly,
the superabundance you require
so
much long gone
all its
revelation
lending itself
to
all
that
is rival, separate
Other
distant in time
faithfully elsewhere
whilst
I smell of sweat, do
speak here
of death
and other transformation.
****
THE REST
Verb
is alchemy
the rest
litany
as with big bang
making
some big
once-in-a-universal-lifetime statement
ever –
unfolding text.
INHERIT THE EARTH
day blaring rock
cool jazz
night universally
reserved for
rhythm and blues
and would that
not be old Orpheus
picking, plucking at strings?
master of the fretboard can
make Rickenbackers roar
Tele-Stratocasters sing
so that all
beauty-smitten stay
for the duration
trapped
in that chord-sequence
.
and she
whose memory so jars me
following me
from the underworld but
how faithlessly
I turned
.
so arrogant to assume
that time
my be conquered, distance
a thing
to laugh at
freeze – framed, an
ice
sculpture
Aphrodite’s Adonis as
disaster made plain
HIP HOP VERSION
killing me softly
(hip hop version)
at the fish
restaurant
me there early
before officially open
the waitrons sweeping
cleaning shifting
tables
and me wondering whether
mussels or calamari
to be part of my order
and if tarrifs are going to
feed true revolutionary vibe
(Slavoj. Zizek on my
phone interviewed by
left channel
decrying
capitalist subjectivities
and off
the press acronym
for
fuckable grandfathers)
and friendship with
Fred Jameson whom I once
hosted in Durban
where
he did order prawns
and went up
to the Drakensberg to
imbibe
the rock paintings
away from
cognitive mapping bugbears
true bane of our age
and
so killing me softly
that night I stayed over
my death was the softest
probably cannot blame you
so much wonder
there refused
what graciously on offer
unbelievably rejected
and
at the heart of all loss
and conceivably lost moments
that tyrant
of this life
in the calling of time
killing me softly
sometimes the sampling
can change
song itself
RIPPLE
something living
in the heart
of a stone
or ar least we
might say
can’t rule it out
something to be sure
in there
waiting
to live, come to life
for a very long time
from time to time
almost a thought hosted
almost a moment
of birth
of stone consciouness
wondering its world
thinking
for itself
throw selfsame stone
that it skims the surface
of the lake
splash of wet stone
as stone and
water
create fresh parabolas leaving lovely patterns
ripples
within ripples
and
at that very moment
whatever joy you
share with the stone
ripples in you
ripples
in you
do not tell me you do
not
sense the feeling
you would not
want to swear to this
would you?
CEMETERY ROAD
“may not mean to/
but they do”
I’ve read that
this be the Larkin poem
by any metric
it’s a real shocker
give it its due
painfully spot on
must have
begun somewhere
with Adam and Eve
tragic trace elements
springing out
of the big
bang
catastrophic for
the happiness of our species
wherever they
happen to
eke
out their existence
East, West
North, South
of the Continental shelf
and so me
not yet teenage
about to be whisked, nay,
catapulted to Africa
and apartheid
South Africa
at that
far from this little British
cul-de-sac
joy there in the sweet
English place of
pastoral they
call
a pastoral
where my father dutifully
taught me how
to ride
a bicycle
along the tiny tarmac roads
that slither like
snake trails
(not
weave their way)
between the graves
not much interest in my
life this broken life
scheduled to crack somewherw
along the line
pre-
programned like watch with
Mother, heartache,
failure
sex sharp and sweet/bittersweet
vanilla, spiced, chocolate,
salted caranel
melting pot and
set
to repeat but
not quite
liks clockwork
before which
(and before
post cigarette or
thin after mints)
my father’s little dream
of upping
roots, defining
his Empire somehow not
translating
finding purchase, believers,
means of manufacture
will not
let this poem end as
dead at
point blank range
as (fuck him!)
Larkin’s does
hard to
top him for
negative inspiration
MR ORANGE MAN
you told the soldiers
to stand up straight
lose weight
know
who’s the boss
stream
in single file
loaded
and locked
off
to the gym
need
to look beautiful
get into
shape, stay
trim
for all those enemies
without, and within,
especially within
told them
to fight the good
fight
love
the sight
of blood
(neither forgiveness
nor redemption
international law, code
of honour, Geneva
Convention)
all rules
of engagement, out
the window, thrown
into question
to clap
for their Emperor, save
his approval ratings
to which god-given
command they
did not
respond
such poker-faced
warriors
they will not
last long
(too much
internal enemy
still
nestling
within them)
DEMOLITION JOB REVISITED
breaking rocks off-shore
out on a flat precipice
in the Atlantic
have
written that poem
wrote it
years sgo
am coming to grips
with what it is like
to feel
alnost broken
but now
roll the film back
yet further
recorded history
years of
home video
the Sun this day
brilliant beyond brilliant
as horrible
an irony
as it is to say
my Mother’s voice
am overhearing
telling someone eager
to listen
they knew what
this place was like
they knew what they
were coming to
did they not know
what to expect
front page
back page
centrefold spread
Greek chorus
gossip horror
the shock
the shame
character assassination
and they
or rather he the husband
having Army training
explosives, sabotage
blowing up
things behind Nazi lines
now
out there consorting
with the men of shadow, figures
in the night
feared
shape – shifters
blowing up pylons
disrupted the sacred electricity supply
and me
that night all night
hearing the Indian Ocean waves roaring in to
crash on the shores of False Bay
so much Sun here, Sun
Sun
Sun for everybody
this man and his
accomplices
attempting to take
this Sun
away
this
brilliant Sun
of white and golden beach sand
horrible to say
****
sixty years
and we have crossed them
in a heartbeat
so much of that time
faintly remembered
not even
taught in schools
(sad that
somehow we
have so relegated history)
but now
a different narrative,
a whole different narrative
a whole different way
of thinking of ourselves, this place
and how
we came here
stifled, imprisoned,
imposed our colonial mindsets
stuck our future in tiny cells
on an island in Table Bay
for long
bitter decades fearing
no hope of solution, no path
to a liberation
that migh
allow redemption
a moment of memory
viewed
with
a self-
forgiveness
graced by the acceptance
of the perspective of great change
****
and here we are
my dear, absurdly conversing
in the light of all those years
democracy waiting
in the wings, or rather
on an inhospitable island
time
become its true essence
as pure
duration
imprisoned consciouness
until
it was not
you born
in the year of its ending
of the release
salvation
far
from its memory, vague
on its history
of the swirling eddies and currents that
despite every counter-
possibility produced
a dawn, a new
day
and now
history has done
a demolition, removed
those back-then voices
that spoke with such
blind conviction,
presumed authority
as
it slowly, inexorably
whittled me away
ground me
pulverized me
all
that could not be ship-shaped
grist to that mill
cut
down to size
****
But hey, not so fast!, hold
those horses
hang on
if not a New York minute
then a
Cape Town moment
but across
land and ocean
the old monster
has
found lease of life, more
hideous incarnation
the drive to inflict the worst
of which we are possible
on fellows
of our species
as they, we
did back then
would have done to you
(and now this voice
those voices
who do
they belong to, what
are they saying?)
someday
truth and beauty, long
liberated
going to here abide
AGAIN
if the Universes
fancies itself
to be
a simulation
who
am I to disagree?
decry the fiction
abhor that our reality
should
present itself a sheer
illusion
two-dimensional hologram
mapped out into three
upon which
all our projections be
fully encoded
but
if this be so
then why
so much brutality, pain
and suffering
and why
when the last sun dies
signalling the arrival
of ultimate
ending
do I have to
word for word live
out
the reset
follow the script
from the star-
forged formation
of my molecules
through birth
to death and
what
sleep extends?
poems 2 die for