dinosaurs – poems 2 die for

Changed it a little

HISTORY LESSON (JET JET BLACK)

we wuz having our
obligatory history lesson
back in ’69 at the
old Settlers’ High School
Bellville in the Cape

Mr Meiring doing his thing
to explain the Coloured people
without reference to
miscegenation,
in a racially divided,
apartheid
South Africa, that
most taboo of words

and me and Marilyn,
the Jewish beauty I was
already
kind of love with
were giving him a right liberal
dose of critical stick
for
with all due respect, if
you believe that
you will believe anything

and
long before we knew
anything
about this theory

long before
we heard (if we ever did)
of superposition, probability,
twin-slit experiments
and
quantum field wave
front collapse

generating (and this the
crazy, crazy
beyond
Mick Jagger, kaleidoscope,
psychadelic Alice in Wonderland,
genuine orthodoxy) multiple
universes
constantly splitting off
from each other

and
quantum theory going
science fiction on us, wouldn’t
you believe it

we saw
the history of our future in
every conceivable variation

saw
the Springboks lose in 95
Bafana triumph
in 2010

saw the two planes a week ago
clip the roof

of the stadium
saw a future where
half the class
had married black

saw an alternate past
where
the dinosaurs never copped it

and me and Marilyn, even
Meiring in our
lovely brash
T-Rexness, no worries
there whether
our wonderful scaled skin were
gorgeous emerald
or crimson, (king
crimson) pearl white,
caramel or jet
jet black

REGIME CHANGE

we were
a bit dumbfounded
when the planet itself
told us
we were
headed for
regime change

that it was
bored by the age of
mammals
fed up with
the disastrous
dominance of
a species of ape

looked for a reinstatement
of the age of the dinosaurs,
the best of all ages,
as our own
Jurassic Park
demonstrated so well

LITTLE LIZARD

LITTLE LIZARD

“The Tyrant Lizard, the most incredible monster in history. Sign this release. Anything happens to you, we’re not responsible. Those dinosaurs are hungry.” Ray Bradbury, A Sound of Thunder

I am a little lizard
in a time of final, feral dinosaurs

they shut down the children’s library Mr Bradbury,
where I first read you

i think that they imagine
if they lock the doors
they burn ideas

children it seems
do not need, should
not have
their minds expanded

no sublime terrors to
enrich the joy and horror
of their being

if I ask them regarding
the evolution of mind,
the fulfilling of the species

they tell me

this is not my place
this is not the time

bite
and swallow

there is no legend of a carnivore
greater than the nation

and my dead end is
a supreme blessing

to those who dictate
the terms of all illiterate life.