EASY

EASY

poetry is easy
you
just write it
and there it be
it is there

look at these
lines for example
nothing here
of note
what
could be easier?

everything open
totally transparent

complete absence
of the overly complicated,
tricky metaphor
hint
    of theory

stuff that might
mask, deflect, expose,
distract,
       misdirect

present you
with who knows what
confusion, dissonance
about
   the nature of
your world, the world,
and who in this
world
      in fact you
thought
you really are

get you to stay
from what you
know
   to be true

were
told to be true
in heart and
soul
      battle of
hearts and minds along
strictest of lines

between which
should not read

so easy to
read these lines

miss yourself
falling between them
   
there
     
you

    be

have always been
there it lies

FREEZE-DRIED

fudge soft
     was my brain at my
first philosophy class

Plato’s dialectic wholesome,
why should not the State be
good and strong
and solid and true?
why should I not be
thinking axiomatically
working my
way slowly
     towards great gnosis
at the cave’s entrance

why should this not all be,
even in a philosophy class,
some desert of
the real shadow show
programmed to
amuse
   this unspecified
superior intelligence?

But these are questions for
later
     not for poor white boy
at mountainside university
refugee from
all that Christian National
Education might teach
true
   to apartheid

and so, face-beaming, I
did drink it, savour
swallow
   every joyous scrap of
the fat one via
Professor Obi Wan’s
interpretation

the Jewish boy in the corner
(so slightly older
reading his way into
territory
     full-on genealogical, beyond
good and evii

scowling at my
naivete,

     having not
become my friend

Nietzsche not yet
my philosopher of choice

outside, of course, outside
the theatre down
the slopes
beyond the steps

something stirring
something
        at a different pace,
with a different
dialectic

about to explode
about
   to rock to the core

but this
down the line

from up in this high place
easy to calculate
work with
   established truths,
historical certainties, clear
percentages

down there
as bra Chris wrote

its all
in graffiti, still
yet in code

soon
   world going to
go full on punk, class-war
deconstructive

defeat in Vietnam

meaning
power
      of powers

determined to determine
we think how they say,
are
   so subtly, subtly
forced
to do as we are told

mind put on hold
fast-food fried down
to the last algorithm

brain
    freeze-dried, feel
free to liquify

fudge soft
back then

     but maybe
Plato was right

NEVERTHELESS

NEVERTHELESS

raid?
deconstruction?

we can argue about it:
fact remains
with raincoats and
torches

you forced your way
into my poem
in the middle
of the night

outside
     no mob with
pitchforks but
a pyre nevertheless

what is to be burned?
I ask; you
do not bother
to grace
  this question
with
an answer

of course, it is one
of the great questions
of all time

whose true answer
in this context,
this situation,
   makes not much
difference

no
difference at all

SLIP

SLIP

sorry

I was writing this poem

and my pen
slipped

the text
spilled

       all over
the place

ruining our
time together

wrecking our date

feel I need
to underline, bold font,
how
   regretful it all
is

how embarrassed I feel

took out my
      pen to write these words

construct
     an apology

and the damn pen as
pens do
       went all Derrida on me