Category Archives: Uncategorized
SOUL
SOUL
I’ve had it
with these poets
gonna go
full Hannibal
gonna
go Buffalo Bill
gonna dig a deep
fat hole
in somebody’s
basement
give them
the hose
until
they stop
writing little
little little
all whisper and muffle
and sort of
sense tickle
until they surrender
to brutality
and show me
their soul
Prolific?

FAIR PROPORTION A
FAIR PROPORTION
they bring the hybrid
to his cell
she needs to talk to him
since species-wise she
has a fair proportion
of his genetic makeup
here she is
for what it’s worth
I agreed to meet her
hard to figure out
exactly what
is human
but one must
presume
it is there
so this is it
this is in me, embodiment
of what I am
capable
the likeness is
there but everything
about him
seems guarded, hidden
as if he instinctively realizes
all that is terrible in
his capacity
all that
can be wrong, go wrong,
and he did terrible wrong
she aaked to talk to him
get answers to questions
she felt she needed
answers to, for her
crucially important
so she could figure out
for herself what is them
what is us
we talk
She is so insistent in
going over things, knowing details,
minutiae, everything
exactly
I look at him one lsst time
try to see through those eyes
(I do not have human eyes
to me they
are untrustworthy,
thoroughly upsetting)
I want to tell.him.
he might have, ought to,
have sought forgiveness
for his crimes, these
humsn crimes
senze
a moment– out of nowhere
of grace
and dignity
so I leave with a wish
that he finds courage and
composure at his execution
having killed so many of
my people, pure and hybrid,
so different and yet
who knows how close
in what is felt inside.
She leaves the cell. We
ask no questions. What
hopes she has, what
reassurance she found
is hers alone. We
should not enquire.
FEEDBACK
FEEDBACK
“and so cold”
William Carlos Williams
just want to say
you wrecked
my night
my day
my week
my month, my year
my death
my life
playing
like that
coaching like that
do you
not know?
is it not
amongst the so
many things
you do
not know?
PLAAS ROMAN (farm poem)
PLAAS ROMAN (farm poem)
crossing the farmyard
to my domicile
trod on something in the long grass
perfectly camouflaged
looking
for all the world
like a stick
which
of course it was
my penchant for attracting
disaster wrong this instance
not the ambush predator
viper with potent haemotoxic
venom we
both assumed it to be
nor
Cape Cobra (here in
South Africa we have
the prettiest cobra)
nor Boomslang, nor Rinkhals
nor that speed freak elapid of
supreme flowimg motion
olive-gray in colour
hero of
Tarantino’s Kill Bill
but with
silky pitch-black mouth
and me
child of 53, making me
in Chinese
terms
a fellow of that brethren
slow and quiet until called upon
then red-hot writhing, razor
sharp wire
sign of the
creature closest to the
Earth (as I am now) and
thus
with such gravitas
noodle with
nuclear chemistry, one
drop
never instil
thought here on the farm
might
get away from him
hide from the god of life-
energy where
there is
no much
life energy
everywhere I look
plants sacred
to you
and the way you crushed me,
destroyed me
injected me with tragic
beginning to fear
I might be sacred to you too
never to evade you
ever
escape your clutches
as my last days run out
and I can
no longer walk your wild
or love
your women, the ones
you singled out
chose for me perfectly
dreaming of our resurrection
wondering what
you
will tell me, what
you will ask me
man to god
(schemed as a
dithyramb)
about the shared pain and ecstasy torture and beauty
of this life
(forever fall
forever rise)
NEITHER
NEITHER
what happens
happens
look at this poem
it may go
one way
may go
another
I may take it this way
you may take it that
both of
these roads considerably
less-travelled
only chance of us ever meeting
will be on
a road
neither of us picked
Check it out
BLOCKS
BLOCKS
we had our bullding blocks out
the whole carpet
was covered in them
so much fun to be had
building castles; founding
empires
our imaginations
free-wheeling
about the
tiny world of
the living room
and then, in a rather peverse
surge of destructive mind-set
we entertained
the thought of planes
raining down destruction
our tiny
populations crushed,
destroyed
bombed out
of existence
no shelter bullt, or place
of refuge
it simply being a matter
of available
bricks
and then we heard
real bombs falling
exploding in sticks until
we took
a direct hit so
forgive us
if we can neither explain
nor suggest
our guess
at a reason
for we are dead now, as
yet undeclared
ARCHIVE
ARCHIVE
pitched up at the University
in time
for my lesson
but there
was no lesson
no lecturer
no classroom
no
University
just dust and smoke and,
in the distance
the burning
archives
but perhaps I misinterpreted this
perhaps I
got in wrong
in solitary confinement
you made it sound
so reasonable
ark of the archive
archive of the covenant
with no
archive how will they know
how I was disappeared?