Dionysus – poems 2 die for

MILLION WATT AMP

I espied Apollo there
with his lyre

or maybe an
old banjo from dust bowl
heartlands

I am no
expert on music though
strolling through the stadium
with his
half-brother Dionysos

both exchanging at that moment
a sort of knowing smile

my guy
wondering what it might sound
like and,
more importantly, what
that sounds might do
to the
structures of
society

if it were seriously electrified
Marshall amped up to the max
(not ten
but eleven)

fuzz-boxed, wah-wah pedal led
and shaking the foundations
of Heaven
through
something close
to a million Watts.

BONE CHINA

was at sister Emily’s house
drinking chamomile tea
from fine bone China

the day felt paradisal
but in the air
talk of civil war

so she and I chatted about
brutality, death and slavery

saw this escaped prisoner
making his divine way
to her front door
across her garden pathway

much we hoped he had
in store for us, was
bleeding
to tell us

leave us feeling in
the eternally ambiguous state
of hopeful, quietly
terrified,
secret acolyte

AS IF

as if
my little voice
can help you

give you succor
support or comfort
or any
help at all

my little
angry voice

vicious in
it contempt
for all that
stands against
a true rebirth
for
all humanity

a savage, barbarian voice
making a nonsense
of all its learning

deep in
empathy

everything it has learnt
from our cerebral
pagan ancestry

dictated
by all that has
arrived courtesy of the crazy god,
the prototype of
all resurrected gods

god of music, madness, intensity,
ecstasy
democracy and
the vine

PRODUCTION

on the farm,
perforce, we
put our heads together

everything under the Sun
puts is head together

wheels
set in
motion

as
word speads

and Heraclitus of Miletus
stops by

a number of things
brings to mind

solid argument inclusive: that
all is
twice, thrice,
there is nothing that
is not in process

meanwhile (forgive the inadvertent South African
colloquialism) not
back
at the ranch
but in the heart of Johannesburg

they are staging a production
of Euripides’ The Bacchae
have
already
launched into
the opening scene

which very instant, being
in the audience my
mind
thirsting for
ecstasy
veers towards chaos, entropy,
fractal mathematics

as we suddenly welded into one
sift and exchange
that whole Pandora’s box
of memories and
recollections

whispers and ghosts
the very
incantations that
pull aside the veil, strip
off the veneer

speaking for myself
but
perhaps all

hardly able to wait, kill
that terminal longing,
set eyes
upon the mask
that is
dark Dionysus’ face

DITHYRAMB

god of the sky
god of the soil

dismembered god
reborn in the fire

your gifts:
tragedy, ecstasy,
drunkenness

curses and blessings
set our triumphs
our limitations

energy
that electrifies

energy that
destroys

you ask us to revere you
then destroy us for
doing so your song

sweet dithyramb
capturing the balance of
all our
equivalences
our dialectic
of extremes

all our pain, intensity,
destruction and desire

FRIEDRICH

I was getting nowhere
praying for my soul

falling by the wayside
moving further away

which exact
moment you seized
to muscle in
on me
hold a knife
to my throat
(sharpest possible
blade I do
now believe)
and, lightning lurking
in those eyes,
gave me
books of
our darkest, sweetest god
to negotiate

mugging me
in the Church

so
about to fall

situation pretty much
the same
as when
the dark god
mugged you.

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)