life – Page 2 – poems 2 die for

WATER MOCCASIN

I waa thinking
of a dream poem
about a new
dream body

when all of a sudden
a mud-coloured water moccasin
broke through the surface
of my flow
alerting me to
the inescapable nature of entropy
and the primeval structure
of my being

and here the skunk odours
of this approaching viper
alerted me
at once to the dingy, tawdry, drab
undercurrents
of all life

and so
I sensed it best to put
all dream-minded thoughts
on hold, let
them back burn for
the night

water mocassin gliding
effortlessly by
not as ornery a reptile
as is
the reputation.

BOMBSHELL

BOMBSHELL

so much life
surrounding me
desirous
of investing me

before
the night is over
I’ll probably find
myself

stripped
to the bone

down
to my core

even before they get
to lug me to
the graveyard
screw me down
in my coffin

talking about life
commerce between creatures
predators prey
opportunistic strikes
best
evolution

on a You Tube video
was astonished to see
a much
critiqued young lady with
monster flippers and
aqualung
frolicking amongst
tiger sharks in the sea
off Hawaii

same species that savaged
the sailors floating
in the ocean beside
the torpedoed
Indianapolis

heading to the depths of
the Pacific to
a now long-
forgotten grave

doom
shadowed ship that
the Japanese had
been stalking

on its return to
home port after
slipping into
Tinian

as per schedule, to drop
off the bomb

STRINGS truth beauty the puppet moves, speaks I pull a few strings not my usual bag to first cause anything but when it talked slanted, funny, out of the side of its mouth I bore a hole through its wooden brain put a shot through its temple when I peepd through the hole not exactly suffused in wisdom or, since you request it, resonant with your symbolism guidimg to the light the overwhelming light

PHYSICAL CONDITION

PHYSICAL CONDITION a nation of physicists how can I emigrate to them? will there be a test? will I be able to smooth myself in cope with this supremacy? for they live in this world with one foot in another ocean an ocean whose true depth will never be measured my mind struggling to calibrate itself to embrace all possibilities shape myself in line in order to become a natural naturalized citizen only world to my mind has any pretence of any hold on reality

CONSIDERATION

CONSIDERATION disconnect uncouple float around taking it all in the beauty the existential the abstract all that is in this supposed simulation riven with torture carnage unspeakable pain and why if it is all a phantom supremely a fiction why is it of such deadly import what we think, what we say why are there lies we must all be cultivated to believe in propaganda from Heaven every single say

OLD JOHANNESBURG

OLD JOHANNESBURG

waiting by the roadside
in old
Johannesburg

maybe
resurrection
will
befall me

maybe redemption
will come my way

failing which
perhaps

a circus or carnival will
come
round the corner

sweep
stubborn old ideologies
off the street

as serious joke or
perhaps just giggles

a parade of Zizeks
tumbling past me as if
Red Square
comedy

where figures from the
Commedia del Arte
are here
to replace tanks

look
seriously at the world and
it suddenly goes
Toy Town

confirmation bias
on open display for
everyone to see

fat
conspiracy here:
buses passing every few minutes
not stopping for everything
the drivers
believe

waiting for the curtains to open

waiting for the means
transport a boardgame
on my back

set
of lewd Cluedo
for whomsoever might
wish
to join me

help me
to survive
life on a billiard sphere

hustling to get by
wanting to be Master
always
a slave

waiting for the lights
to darken

have
lost the book
in which
I was made

****

after a
while

everything
slithers

snakes and
ladders

perhaps better to
devote time
to generating boardgames
rather than
squandering my existence
writing
poetry or composing fiction

****

bumper to bumper stacked together
owe it to them

to not close my eyes,
keep looking

or everything before me
will disappear

and this funeral procession
miss its target

some poor
exclusive dignitary

about to skip his rendezvous
with captivating tombstone
of proportions extreme

so much here
so mechanical

yet so many
vital nuts and bolts

****

bureaucracy
is horror

bureaucracy
is death

I sat with
Slavoj Zizek

through yet another sunset
telling jokes

about philosophers
telling jokes and
the end of the Universe

(not that this necessarily
implies a causal connection)

today the lawyers
of old and new Johannesburg
are
heading North
with a holy bone to pick.

I sat by the roadside
play after play

oodles of
words, scenes,
dialogue
even

still in my head

ghosts of tales
still
to be told

(media marvels yet
to unfold)

old Johannesburg

WEAVER BIRD

WEAVER BIRD

always on the farm:
flash of bright yellow
across my
line of sight

furiously at work
building their nests

chirpy
masters of
twig engineering
brandishing their
golden purpose

meanwhile, since we
are on the subject of
nest-building
and things
with wings

let us observe old Nick
leaving his helo
having just be ferried

from quite distant shore
to Mediterranean ship

pausing a moment to
stroke brash steel,
sculpted aluminum

of the true
spirituality of the war machine
lover
extraordinaire
paramour to the extreme

blowing kisses to his image
where
reflected in such surfaces

every drop of bloodlust
contained in booklet form
in jacket
inner pocket

there
blueprint
of a world gone skew

slavery redeemed
refreshed anew

Sun
itself

blind to the glaring ironies

so much
to fix with

all this weaving

GREEN

GREEN

the rains

       the rain
       the rain
        the rain

have given
the grass, the trees,
the plants

a lush edge

the green fingers of
the gods responsible
for green

have grown
greenier

and me
on the margins

liminal
as usual

feeling both oddly alien
and strangely at home

NOTHING SO

NOTHING SO

nothing so humbling
as a tiny insect crawling on you

and not
going Defcon 1 to 5
5 to 1

thinking live and let live
and what is life but
crazy difference?

what is life
but trying to
make it through the weight
of each day

discomfort, sometimes danger,

and always bearing in mind
at the back of your mind

that at
the end of the day
on
the cosmic scale

all this shit might
actually be
your pilgrimage

(people dying left right
and centre
of mere imagination)

SEED TO STORM

SEED TO STORM

seed to
perfect storm

let us
consider
that dynamic

explosive this energy
in the million
volt zig-
zag of its release

Nazaré
Teahupoo

surf that water mountain
until it crashes into
a swirl
of demented foam

when the world breaks for us
against us

when storm
supercharges our
lives

go with that flow
at ultra velocities

       plug yourself in
what
      else can you
                   are you

supposed to do?

seed to
perfect storm

storm to perfect seed