1, poem, poetry, – Page 2 – poems 2 die for

RNA

I know it was you two
what done it

the whole of Manchester University scandalized
at Bambi’s
University Challenge by your deep
absurdist principles
devotion to the anarchic joke

trial run
for the rewriting, sheer
bolshevik revolution
at the heart
of British comedy

saw
yourselves as the Gogo
and Didi of
Thatcher’s eighties

Viv walking through
a wall by
way of introduction

cavorting with Fry and
Thompson and all
that Oxbridge
royalty
being young
would

never again
be like
this never quite
be the same

now I know, yes I know, (everybody exactly knows)
you were the two
at the heart
of it

you are the
crazy two who did it

putting
two and two

together

this
girl I fancied, met at
the club for postgraduate
swearing
this guy Rik such
an absolute scream.

DELIGHT

just
muddying along
scribbling a
poem or two

heading nowhere
wondering if it be possible
to forget to breathe

and if I do forget
will my body remind me

watching stand up comics
on YouTube: Steven Wright,
Iliza Shlesinger, Emily
Catalano

good job I am a poet
surrounded by
white space
don’t think I could do
the crowd work, make
clucking sounds
nail those
paradoxical one-
liners

stand on a stage knowing
how easy it would be
to devastatingly bomb

I said that
I’m a poet but
the jury still
out on
that one

sneak it
onto my CV but
know it’s no job description

unlike comedian
where
the acid test
is obvious, immediate

there is
a clearer sense of archetype
function, purpose, and

yes, delight

(can
breathe in/breathe out now)

DISJUNCTION

We were anomalous
we were
unique

have love,
affection, ever
known such disjunction?

I say “we”, but it is
stretching it to use
the first person
pronoun

best we should avoid
even thinking of
subjective camera,
intimate
points of view entirely

just tell this always broken
fractured love story that isn’t
as it is
linear, non-linear
open or
closed ending, absurdist
tragi-comedy

as it simply was, or even better,
as it never could be.

SMALL

So you wanted to continue
to Mercator project?

keep Africa down
to a tenth of its size

just that
you lost the vote 164-1
even
the Cleveland Browns
never lost that bad
(can’t score
a single point
in the NFL)

but having given us
size justice
why not
carry on
why
suddenly stop

North South
East West

up
down
right; left

when you talking a globe in space
doesn’t make any sense

so fair’s fair; give us
our turn

our moment up there
our day
in
the Sun

turned upside down
the map will be novel, the
map will
be fun

Cape Town at
the very pinnacle

Toronto, Moscow,
Manchester

and yes,
Washington

somewhere down below
no doubt
working on
some really special, for
the ages spin.

SAFE TO SAY

I could write
a million poems about you

but who would want
to read them?
who
would care?

not even the patron saint
of lost causes
has time for this
brand of hopeless reiteration

no one in their right mind
will bear with me
when I tell them
everything about you
to which
I gave insane meaning
upon which I place such
crazed value

want to know
what supposed, expected love
crippled me
love that is just
a cruel gaslit
shadow
of itself

and the delirium in which
I felt so close but then
wasn’t but
maybe
was in retrospect,
in the final analysis

a ghost of a hope
a chimera

and yet
over the years

we still talking
reminding, remembering

looking back from
incredible distance, lives
that went
totally separate ways

and now at long last
the peace
the silence

closure I am sure, I suppose
far as I can tell,
seems safe to say

could have written
a million poems about you

most, all
of them

closing exactly
this same way.

CHESS CHOCOLATE

Played chess with the pieces
made out of
white and
dark chocolate

found myself totally salivating
during the entire game

hammering down on
my clock
to bring the match
to its
denouement

even though
it was to be the last game
in our lifelong rivalry

so desperate
to devour
the pieces

since I
could never
devour you.

HISTORY LESSON (JET JET BLACK)

we wuz having our
obligatory history lesson
back in ’69 at the
old Settlers’ High School
Bellville in the Cape

Mr Meiring doing his thing
to explain the Coloured people
without reference to
miscegenation,
in a racially divided,
apartheid
South Africa, that
most taboo of words

and me and Marilyn,
the Jewish beauty I was
already
kind of love with
were giving him a right liberal
dose of critical stick
for
with all due respect, if
you believe that
you will believe anything

and
long before we knew
anything
about this theory

long before
we heard (if we ever did)
of superposition, probability,
twin-slit experiments
and
quantum field wave
front collapse

generating (and this the
crazy, crazy
beyond
Mick Jagger, kaleidoscope,
psychadelic Alice in Wonderland,
genuine orthodoxy) multiple
universes
constantly splitting off
from each other

and
quantum theory going
science fiction on us, wouldn’t
you believe it

we saw
the history of our future in
every conceivable variation

saw
the Springboks lose in 95
Bafana triumph
in 2010

saw the two planes a week ago
clip the roof

of the stadium
saw a future where
half the class
had married black

saw an alternate past
where
the dinosaurs never copped it

and me and Marilyn, even
Meiring in our
lovely brash
T-Rexness, no worries
there whether
our wonderful scaled skin were
gorgeous emerald
or crimson, (king
crimson) pearl white,
caramel or jet
jet black(she's a, rainbow, we all rainbows

the world is
how we wish it, just
a matter of mentality)

Changed it a little

HISTORY LESSON (JET JET BLACK)

we wuz having our
obligatory history lesson
back in ’69 at the
old Settlers’ High School
Bellville in the Cape

Mr Meiring doing his thing
to explain the Coloured people
without reference to
miscegenation,
in a racially divided,
apartheid
South Africa, that
most taboo of words

and me and Marilyn,
the Jewish beauty I was
already
kind of love with
were giving him a right liberal
dose of critical stick
for
with all due respect, if
you believe that
you will believe anything

and
long before we knew
anything
about this theory

long before
we heard (if we ever did)
of superposition, probability,
twin-slit experiments
and
quantum field wave
front collapse

generating (and this the
crazy, crazy
beyond
Mick Jagger, kaleidoscope,
psychadelic Alice in Wonderland,
genuine orthodoxy) multiple
universes
constantly splitting off
from each other

and
quantum theory going
science fiction on us, wouldn’t
you believe it

we saw
the history of our future in
every conceivable variation

saw
the Springboks lose in 95
Bafana triumph
in 2010

saw the two planes a week ago
clip the roof

of the stadium
saw a future where
half the class
had married black

saw an alternate past
where
the dinosaurs never copped it

PIECES

the pieces
never lie

they never fail
in their mission

so
let me contemplate
inhaling fog
gorging on smoke

not under the precise
thought contraints of
chess
clock time

whether
two squares, one square
whether to advance
the d or
e
pawn

alternate universes
hanging on my choice
life
or death
for them, spinning
out of contol

and in that discarded,
broken universe
where we
never met
never spoke

no victor, vanwuished,
joy or
sorrow

just other pieces, pawns,
Kings, Queens
following their
scripts to
a T

wonderful games, though
I never get to hear of them.

HOME

Thank you
members of Congress
for helping us achieve
what you were
voted in for
what we all so much
wanted to see

you have done your duty
helped us create the great
America we hitherto
could only dream of

a state so
safe and secure, which
could not be more decisive,
powerful protected

we cherish your devotion
without you we would
have been
unable to
achieve this

an armoured convoy
of militarized police
will do the honour
of escorting you home.