Category Archives: political

RIGHT AS SHE BLOWS

RIGHT AS SHE BLOWS

Human rights
human rights

you have to squint
through a microscope

to get the gist of where
she is coming from
in her text
on human rights

Oh my humongous Suella
Sulla Braverman Braveheart

you will stand by your principles
fight for them lie
for them
kill and almost
die for
them (not
really, but it rhymes)

and rhyme is good
and euphemism too
and repetition
a zillion times

uncovering the frustrated
inner poet in you
(not that you would
ever stoop to elegy
not
the job of
Home Secretary)

to bewail
lost migrant lives.

A DARK IRONY

A DARK IRONY

a dark irony appeared
well, more
than one

filtered up through the floorboards
appeared out of nowhere
fell
from Heaven

but whatever its origin
could not wait
to make mischief
amongst us
do its little work

dividing us from each other
ruthless seperating us
as it
always does

sheep from goats
virtue from
sin

but, above all, those
of the species
with a modicum of
smarts
from
those chosen from
up high
blessed by the sanctity
of all-
knowing power

to take up
their true and rightful place

amongst the
blissfully
ignorant

terminally
stupid

arrayed in such
forbidding shape
(never more solid
more coherent ranks)

FIRST STRIKE

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

SETTING  (for JM Coetzeeon his 83rd birthday)

SETTING  (for JM Coetzee
on his 83rd birthday)

the pain
is embedded
has become
geological

so
deeply impacted
revelation is going
to be
  extinction level
be seismological

and there we are (time
as we now
    see
          thing quite unreal)

looking down from
the reverse slope of Devil’s Peak
out over the flat suburbs
(dust and sand
              of ocean reclaimed)

but your mind is
far into the interior
digging up the bones
that tell us
      pain is history;
history pain

somehow they cannot convert
your cerebral into spectacle
no technicolour out there
to match your austere

somehow
        intensity here has
of necessity to be
sharp
    and sweet

somehow
      these titanic currents, seas
meeting
        twisting, contorting

all going to
      flow ultimately
                        transformed
in that wash

for now
    so precious little melding,
blending
                                    hope
for the rude rudiments
of a comfort zone
            (plane almost scraping the
lids off shanties take offs
and landings
                      whole other, true,
South Africa
    cannot just wish away)

and there you are
                        delivered
of all our quandaries
all our questions
            bitter conundrums

absorbing the crimson sunset light
in your paradise of refuge

do you
          not think of us    recall
what was lived through?

take a
        last look our way

scan sky far
      to the West    where Sun
is forever setting

Sent from my iPhone

ODDS ON

ODDS ON

bet you
don’t encounter
too many wobbly
xenomorphs
out there

coming here to conquer
and convert you
teach you
the truth
of their
unbalanced philosophy

so many equivalences between
our worlds and cultures

including our deep
religious faith
in four-
lane highways and
reality
TV the black hole of

consumption we
were created to be

AS IT SO HAPPENS

AS IT SO HAPPENS

as it so happens
the Church and State
are both
outraged

the Sun and Moon
have begun to
tango begun
to samba

and some devil drunk
on tequila
is in the vestry
demanding communion
damanding absolution

quoting from a mash-up
of Neruda’s sublime Cantos
and visionary
holy books

and all are aghast
having booked their places
these
sons and daughters

not a tatter between them
no missing thread

and thus
in assued completeness
remain well aware

that devil on tequila becomes
devil in tequila becomes
democratic
host of devils that
bring decorum down

become god of thd people
hacked to pieces and
resurrected
become
the bones
of the philosophers doomed

until the end
of argument
to host
perpetual return