POET IN THE RAIN
the rain sizzles
poet splitters
a few syllables
dissolves, melts
flows somewhere
as liquids are wont to
meanwhile
(for a billion meanwhiles)
the cosmos carries on
business
as usual
same old laws
that birthed us, did
us in
upon which we
came to depend
unless
things changed, shifted gear,
found a different trajectory
whole new
direction
could
have fooled us
no one around to document, observe
no one left to tell
WHAT A WAR IT WAS
what a war it was!
existential:
you alone, standing
against humanity
a brutal battle, which
Praised be God you won
with your
devilish déception
heavenly weapons and
sublime technology
annihilating everything extraneous
alien to
your big picture
outside
core prophecy
returning the species
back
to the Stone Age
those few straggling remnants
you suffered to survive
what a war it was!
down
in the edicts
since Cain
first slew Abel
back at the blood dawn of time
PRAY CONTINUE
I am badly wounded
haemorrhaging everything
waiting for
your coup de grâce
drenched in blood
surrounded by
scraps and
pieces of what was
once humanity
bits of bone
embedded in the
brain-spattered altar
in this place of shelter
I am not quite dead yet
so pray continue
lest
I bear witness
still a mathematical possibility
I might survive
TARGET
you talk the stealth
of first strike
they won’t
know we
are coming
and so we both fire
though no one is coming
this beautiful
death technology
such a
shame,
if put to waste
what use being born
with a price
on my head
target on
my back
and Einstein’equation
demanding final vindication
PERIGEE
I saw him
last day of primary school
for him
riding his bicycle,
exultant
down that
street
in Parow
next year
high school
a big brainy
boy now
Mars
at its perigree
his head
full of
Ray Bradbury
nothing in the night sky
redder or
more relevant
than our brother
world with
its dust and its
oxides and canals
and
perennial
alien menace
(though
in Mr Bradbury’s
book it
is we
who colonize you
to our shame and
shock and
terror
(the tribes of the plains
know that
story through and
through)
cycling full
of joy
leaving past
behind
for future
wonder
what come the end
of his days
what of this
he foreseen
what
the one
foreseen
might possibly remember
this is a poem
about Parow
a God-forsaken place
jam-packed with churches
some of which, it must
be said, has
been said,
have needle sharp spires
pointing perpendicular
up at
the stars
and the planets
Mars
singled out high above
red
as ever
something knowing
about that look
if this
world of
dreams, and fears,
and desires
and secrets
could ever look
ever feel at all
HARARI
the grasses
of the meadows
shall feed us
no more
savannah hunter-gatherer
no more
child of exodus
waiting impatiently upon
promised manna
spores
from a far
flung star
holding the germ of a
far-flung idea
fit
for
purpose
unless
off the track did deviate
as to
what
we were, aee
made of
who
we are
A SHOT AWAY
shot in the arm
shot in the back
Merry Clayton
backing your jumping
jack vocals
the whole planet
about to boil
rise up, straming, foaming,
bubbling over
but
if we go
(fast fast
not slow)
at least we can tell ourselves
with songs like these
we were
more than microbes,
were
way more
than
just froth
CRISP
the Sun
not yet crisp
have we
Aztec priests
to thank
for this?
crisp
is what the snow
in deep space
believes
itself to be
no
Sun
of any ilk
to bring
some
raging warmth
soften that reality
to what fits sweetly
within our range
whilst
we hold tenure
of
this place
OXIDE
angles
are collisions
bespeak incidence
and refraction
can see this
check.it out
from the running time
of the Universe
and
all those iron-oxide
socialist red planets
elephant
in the room
no room
for the elephant
enough
room
in the elephant
space
to cover every surreal
contingency
short of nightmare
space to burble, jumble up
words bounce balls
and spheres and
jagged
pieces of
interstellar debris
around and
around and around
poems 2 die for