GALAXY
Ah, yes, Professor,
that Gutenberg Galaxy!
first only one Church;
and now
everywhere a church
far as the eye can see
a billion church communities
religion
is booming
Jesus is booming, dividing
and subdividing
splendidly proliferating
first there was one text
now there are many texts
once many
texts, many libraries
but now, when it
comes to libraries
business is
on
a downturn
we are down
to our last one
IN THE GREAT LIBRARY OF MOSHAWANE
sometimes I wake up
in the great library of Moshawane
and suddenly ir has become
all the great libraries
in the history of the world
the place is so quiet
has a charmed silence
and I think of she
who kept the library of
Alexandria
until they burned her
books and priceless scrolls
books so easy to burn
to take your anger
out on
to torch to suppress any
inconvenient thoughts, words,
expression of ideas
that do not fit the mould
that we are better
off losingthe circle of all we love
and know
needing to be
drawn
smaller, smaller
than any fabulous circle
until of a size
no bigger
than a noose
and here I am telling you
what it is the books are saying
talking to each other
in this charmed silence
feeling to
humble to speak
waking up in a library
of dream
GAZEBO
I built myself gazebo
step by step
in my mind
hoping that it might be
pretty much the ideal
place to write Nature poetry,
Japanese tanka, and haiku
can close my eyes
feel centred, grounded
and put
pen to paper
shut out, if but for a moment,
the world of worry, serious debt,
huge obligation
alone except for
things I host
with a yen to explore
things curiously ambivalent,
hybrid-seeming, here
from the dawn
of time, perhaps,
but currently sharing
this address corporeal
in
manner internal
could be of our world,
most secretly so, or
genuinely alien, of home-
world extraterrestrial
creatures in size ever-
shifting, unphased by
change of shape
wholesale genetic
adjustment
and spatial orientation
like this exquisite, verdegris
dragonfly with
what looks like
neon
under-lighting
buzzing around my head in
size and demeanour
flitting across the
breadth of
every spectrum, between
tiny, metallic waspy thing
and
titanium-alloyed killer
drone
but
this my gazebo
this my throne.
FURTHER
it is amazing
what pressure pushes
a sapling through the soil
think I read a poem
about that once
furthermore,
it”s amazing, history tells us
how slowly, when the poets are
gathered to watch,
the leaves fall
and how they blaze
drifting downwards
less earth
in their nature
more air, and fire,
history tells us too
all you need to know
about mythology
and meaning of tree
how trees weep, bow, fling
out there arms in joy
or gather, in deepest irony,
to watch us
at our darkest
knowing how, in sacred
fable
we once fell
observe us, the chemistry
of rebirth
locked into
their sap fall further, much further
STONE’S THROW AWAY
I think there is a moment
of pure clarity
but then it goes
then everything goes
never having experienced
any such clarity, indeed
anything pure
I am at a loss
to extend you an image
provide a metaphor
but
time draining away
like someone of something
nicked
its artery
that moment of clarity
of deep and complete
change in perception
must be near
if not at hand
but a stone’s throw away
CLOUDS
the clouds, who
whilst they
have hidden so much,
equally so
have seen it all
everything before
came scudding my way
to whistleblow their truth
that evolution in
human favours the rich
and rotten
the denizens of
deep comfort zone who
will live
and die (but so yes-but,
and grudging absolute end of the day delay
on mortality) passing on
their inheritance
to generation the next
producing this fine stock
out of
which we might dream
of the future utopia
no, as the clouds did indeed
take pains to explain,
evolution does not
sieve, does in
no way strain
strip cream from dross
amongst what does
rise to the top
evolution is not a miner
up in the Yukon
for gold hard a-panning
no evolution just looks and laughs
wondering what its
mutations might mean
DISTANCE
There will always be
some distance between us
because we arenot the same person
and gender-different, and
race-different too
and other minor, pin-point
differences
to different to
mention
need to take them all
into consideration, subject
to close-
careful evaluation
lest we be led to conclude
upon way too superficial analysis
no two creatures in the galaxy,
let alone our smallish
Goldilocks planet could ever be more similar; less short of same ,
WHATEVER
it is all
whatever
light
and shadow
you could write a poem
close your eyes
and die
find the God-particle that
explains eveything all those conundrums
solved, no more questions
to ask
just do the Maths
or have coitus with one
of us to put
you in the frame of mind
you
in spiritual communion
with the Universe
and suddenly nothingness
is not the shock horror you let yourself
be led into
making it out to be
SERIOUSLY
This is poem
it is allowed
I give you
explicit permission
to believe whatever you like
can choose to believe
everything
something, nothing,
something and nothing
no big eternal truth
nor any huge perfidious
lie
being told here
no cover ups, whistleblows,
reinterpretations of history
one way
or another creation of mythology,
dabbling in fantasy
letting ideology speak
as if it has every right
to be heard
and
taken seriously.
DE IRA DEI
there is much anger
in the weather
much outright hostility that
the sky wishes
to vent
but not
the sky alone
for the sea is rising
flailing away with new found
muscularity
and the power beneath
of the molten hot core
of the Earth itself
can melt human
steel in microseconds
completely evaporate
beginning to stir, as we
catch its displeasure with
every quickening
seismic
notice that
there will be
extreme steps
poems 2 die for