Tag Archives: death

NEITHER HERE, NOR THERE

NEITHER HERE NOR  THERE

sadly I have
forgotten you already

though a little bird
keeps reminding me
how razor smart you
were
   and how beautiful

something I have to tell you
before this poem
goes off
   the boil

it’s Christmas day after the day
after the day after tomorrow
I would wish
          you every joy
but we cannot risk climbing
out of our trenches
onbewapendt
     exposing our shared
humanity
risking all
that vulnerability

I can whistle the tune of
every tracks on those
albums
you gave me for
Xmas
    God knows how many years ago

and soon but not
together obviously we are
going to
    wake up dead finding
ourselves one
hundred
   percent spiritual
able to laugh
   (not earthbound resounding
seismic belly laugh
more celestial titter)

at all
those
      misunderstood signs, wrong
words, mistakes,

as far as
     eye can see landscape
of obstacle and
barbed
     wire

here where time is meaningless
and
     spanner in the works and
as a
consequence jammed
clockwork

but I did send
a dove with a message

if it reaches you if you
read it
        deep as I have tried to be
it is all neither here nor there

LESS THAN FINE

LESS THAN FINE

wanted to write a
sexy poem
very
sexual

but the ink
prematurely ejaculated
shot out of my pen

wanted to a write a
very scary poem
ultimate scare

but the ink froze
my blood curdled
as it
    hit my brain

wanted to write a
very sentimental poem
terribly sad

but the
page got fluffy
all
   of a sudden
out of nowhere
went all
soft toy on me

didn’t want to
write an
elegy, my
elegy

a poem
on death
but you
twisted my arm
persuaded me I should

promising  me
you would give me
the perfect
last line

all those last lines of my own
though by
no means hopeless
less
   than fine

DEAD

DEAD

trust me, it’s complicated,
but if you
are reading this poem
you cannot
be dead

maybe
not quite alive
but cannot be dead

no paradox here
neither the trivial
nor the magical

just a philosophical aside
regarding your
spiritual condition

not alive perhaps
but not yet, definitely
not yet
not completely dead

so many
I know (have the pleasure)
would argue
totally gone
do not yet realize
it
but beyond the pale
dead

but
step up
to the mike

and give me
your best whisper

here I feel, hear
breath, am certain I feel breath

TINCTURE

TINCTURE

tincture of something
on my tongue

hard to place it
need to pin
it down exactly

outside the world its
raucous self, perhaps
even
   more cantankerous maybe

we talk softly therefore
defining our demeanor.
quietly desperate not
to say the wrong thing
feeling our
way towards acceptance,
adjustment

we wonder if this could be
the same small bustling cafe
from all
    those years ago

and if we would be doomed
or maybe fortunate enough
to enter into
the same debate

as to whether what
we are eating today
is canneloni or
lasagna
    how we see now that
time before when
we almost
   shared love

so close we were but
such a gap between us
in our mutual
understanding
    of the codes and syntax
governing
offers and
suggestion

so much lost though
perhaps here we are again
in disagreement

could there be
any “if onlys” that we
actually do share

the ghosts of that love and
metaphysical questions
raising the hypothesis that
ghosts
   could be lovers

so much here the same
so much that has changed

LOVERS

LOVERS

millions
were making love
when the bomb
dropped

a fat few megatons
vaporized them instantly

moment when
dream and desire
annihilated themselves

love and death
in dark exactitude
of intensity
    so mirroring each
other

as if the species
was fucked from the moment it began

but
the poem still here

jury out
clock still ticking

lifetimes of love
still to resolve

KOI (for G.)

KOI (for G.)

hope this message
reaches you somehow

just to kick off
the world has become a darker
place since you departed
odds on now
we are going
to wipe ourselves out
in nuclear war

stopped by your old place
much had changed, your
inimitable spirit and vibe
long departed
          and I thought of
your fish, those koi
gliding through their pond
in your front garden

had a conceit of myself
speaking to them but
they did
        not appear to hear any voice
or I must gave missed their answer
sound travelling air to water
one medium
to another

who knows what get’s heard,
distorted, filtered out?

what message is received
        what gets missed and
travels on and
on
   destined to expire or
carry on forever

life still chugging along
      a flash of silver scales
beneath
     the surface

I wonder how they saw you
   how much
         they remember now
       

POSTSCRIPT

POSTSCRIPT

footnote
postscrip

let me whisper to you
the request I made
to the Moon
to simply erase me

easy it is
   to scheme a Hell
for consciousness, one
that will certainly work, do
a good job

as you see me here nicely dissected
set out as
shards
    broken into pieces

by the time you stagger
onto the scene
to salvage
     what you can

not a trace, not a trace,
last thought I had
record
   of that place

my books
fighting their own little
almighty war against
the persistence
of dust

perhaps you might shut
that one lying
upside down on the bed

so much in there
perhaps of interest
           presenting some
doorway
calling you to
the window

can add to the memory of
bittersweet memories of
the best memes
of humanity

as adjusted, edited,
presented
     themed in major
or minor key

if you had bothered to read,
scan, copy,
scatter
    surmise
    
if you had bothered
                 felt the need

OCEAN

OCEAN

Raymond
your ashes resting
somewhere in
that great
Pacific Ocean

together there
with your beloved wife

would travel there
to pay homage
except you
left me
no money
not a cent, not
a dollar
   (each one of
which much
South African money)

so much for
exchange value and
the price paid
for poetry

you a scientist yourself
of fundamental
life chemistry
told me
    you did not could
not believe in
the crazy
madness of the quantum
whose most
attuned minds find
it hard if not
impossible to
plainly explain

and so
we agreed to disagree
at moment
    somewhat before
you died (final
collapsing of
our wave front)

PIsceans both:
let us leave it to ocean
to have the last word

make of us
what it will.