poem poetry – Page 14 – poems 2 die for

DARK READER

have to be careful
take things
in my stride

scribble at night
penlight, under the covers

and then
should I have something
keep it
under wraps

ghastly if even a word
could find its way
into the wrong hands

the kind of hands
versed in torturous
analysis
iron hard, having trained
for years
in the art
of dark reading

HARBOUR

I am at the harbour
looking for
thinking about, well,
harmony

but people believe
I see the world so differently
for me any kind of harmony
is going
to be difficult to achieve

in the quayside cafe I sit
watching the ships arrive
watch
them leave

in my coffee tiny things
appear to be swimming
as small
as ants, or even smaller
like atoms
or electrons

if I stir my tea the wrong way
suddenly it will become
the coffee
I should have
ordered in the first place

the coffee you believe
yoy saw me drinking
but a moment ago

and there we shall be back
in Duncan Dock Cape Town
April 64

and the mail liner passenger ship
that brought me
having just berthed divulging
my parents younger sister
and tiny (but not
molecule-small) two-
year
old brother

me never having been born
or not narrowly having
drowned in
the ship’s first class
pool
me thinking I could swim
me thinking

myself capable of anything
a whole wide workd and
brave
new land
to conquer (young
British boy
do we not
always conquer?)

and so I push off in
the deep end

make a few strokes
and go under

time enough for chat
with God

a terrifying few seconds with him
chance for him to explain
me eternity

and how alternate history
fits into that picture.

Tea coffee. Tea coffee.
Coffee tea. Cannot make my mind up in the queue for
hot beverages
maybe need a dice
or something

and here we are
where we were
sans little boy braggart
British confidence

long sans apartheid
and any kind of attachment
to any former self

perhaps this is
my gift, my redemptive
sole contentment

perhaps
here at the harbour
watching ship after ship
where I am not a passenger

arrive
depart

I can enjoy whatever harmony
this is and
what it might now mean

SHADOW

I am so pared down

pear
for me is fruit
of duality

what a pair! (derision, vouce of
so-called social standards)
what a pair! (voice of crude
sexual appreciation, titillation)

my Mum and me
were a true pair (I do
not lie
I have seen the pictures)
I have divorced
myself
from her memory
for reasons I cannot possibly
possibly divulge here

but is this separation by
paradox not our great
communal experience
tragically
connected in that
we are all
so separate, all so
alone

and in the end
all we were is just shadow
shadow

but even shadow can
blemd, pool

I am shadow so separate
I have gone already

shadow and self
only unity there
can ever be

KEY

here’s a door
here’s
a key

come in
help yourself
look around

check what it
looks like
to be
in my dream

to find yourself free
to explore, free to
follow
your heart’s desire
find what
you need

since this,
this is my dream

I have
what I need

have found
what I need

here
is the door

here
is my key

NAMED

Lovecraft
Strangelove

have to got to
love the
love
embodied
in your thinking

enshrined
in your very names

WHISPER

wrote you a poem
not for reading
not for reciting
either

this is sweet, sly
little poem

decidedly
for whispering

straight into
that small, soft ear

breaking into
tiny, petal-like
downward fluttering pieces

every false barrier
every
fourth wall

fall
of Jericho:
their bricks and mortar
seen to
magically
dissolve

DISTANCE

distance between our
first and
last civilizations

just a blink of an eye
who knows how many
thousands
and thousands
of years

such difference between their
long lost world
and ours so
clearly in decline
on its way out
we lacking the magic
of their wisdom, smarts
and
pure technology