GOLD STANDARD
you are
the gold standard
best
touchstone
asked for a handout
you chopped
my head off
split
the atom
stole
several body parts
oh my staccato life subject
to this debt slavery
roll over credit
what was now
roll over
play dead
or actually die
all for a few scrappy
coins in the offing
kind of
smaller
than atoms
and me
under such pressure to
edit down
this poem
get it in tune, right tone
sufficiently complicit
in every single way
FROM KENDRICK LAMAR
strange perspective
you get
married
to a robot
watching the gangsta
rapper winning
the big award
tattooed arm, backwards cap
thanking God
the great promoter
(looking up as he does so
this shredder of
convention)
and me and robot gossiping
about the whole thing
kind of laughing (much
robot ha ha
tears in her eyes emoji
laughter) paused
for a moment
while she downloads
acquaints herself with
the entire history
of rap lyrics, hip
hop music
converts this poem
in a flash to the style
of Eminem and
then Kendrick Lamar
so a feeling for poetry
perhaps because
I named her
Sappho
we still for the Nobel Prize
for Eminem
joining TS Eliot
and JM Coetzee
the speech and
lecture in Stockholm
from Kendrick Lamar
ANOMALY
Oh I am
broke-ass
Professor
sadly
I am
outstanding odd anomaly
total oxymoron
and
from whatever angle
you do look at it:
contradiction
in terms
for what can
scholars of human truth
do in this
madness milieu
how hope to negotiate
all collapsed intellectual
context
toxic
dystopia-bound
environment
where we must
identify ourselves transparently
as beyond reason
above truth
flying the flag that we all fly
ultimate of everything
FIRST STRIKE
aliens havs taken control
of Parow library
they are using their plasma
weapons to take out
all the poetry
classic novels and
books of philosophy
there were
not so many
but all are now gone
this alien high command
circling the northern suburbs
in their mothership
are openly
celebrating as
a titanic victory
the human race needs
to be even more unread
dull unimaginative
and stupid
to become the compliant
servants and slaves
the great
alien think tanks
are convinced we can be
PUT DOWN
Put down
your candy crush game
(would so
like your candy
to crush)
but first a word from
our advertisers
if you went professional
option you would get
premier service and not have
to worry about anything
meanwhile in the simulation
that is the poem
we are either particles
or waves or
both or neither
so let me crush your candy
whatsover
catch you me
cheating on the two
slit experiment
by the time the last line enjambs
many many alternate universes
(eat your heart out
Michelle Yeoh)
up and running, teeming
with our joint energies
MONETIZE
monetize
demonize
I am
writing a new thesaurus
looking for
a common denominator
even as you
wait in the shadows
crumbling
to dust
once wondering but
now given your answer
as to
how it is
all going to
end
poems 2 die for