TECHNICAL
let this
be a breeze
a zephyr if you will
whistling around
your ears
better use
this term respecting
your
preference for
the physical
wish
to be technical
perfect weather for kite
and magic carpet alike
swing-
wing metaphor
exact
careful prosody
plotting your flight path
to the end of the page
(unless
such velocity
you escape
to deep space)
CHORD
I imagine
there is a script in my head
the page not yet in being
crying out for
birth by improvisation
wanting to go wherever
it wishes to go
meanwhile in the forest
Puck never foresaw King Crimson
never anticipated
the marriage
of Robert
and Toyah
Toyah and Robert
when these stories
tell themselves
they believe
brain states but pen dictates
something in the ether
flutes, strings or
maybe
an eerie mellotron
singing, cross-
pollinating
I don’t know
whence or why all this comes
flows first
like a trickle, then
a river flowing
through a capital city
but it comes
it comes
turns time to
its tune
and you
as always an inspiration
to me
serenading me silently
but inwardly I dance, have
no choice
but to
your body
raw rock and roll, incipient
heavy medal
your mind
Mingus, Davis jazz solo
your voice
the missing solution to
every unsolved ancient philosophical
problem
every genre
zone and miracle twist
in the plot, jaw
dropping moment
leaving no niche
left uncovered, hoard unfound
across that sweet topography
and every
molecule fibre
crying out, imploring you
to fuse
with my mythology
jump aboard my allegory
become my inner metaphor
in the confused progressions of this symphony
the very Devil’s chord lurking
I do believe
AS METAPHOR DOES
reached
the end of the line
another line suggested itself
popped into my head
demanding to write itself
or it unfolded even as I
tapped the keys
even as
the pen ran away
from me
metaphor transporting me
even as it burst
into thought
metaphorically
as metaphor does
COLLIDE
you cannot
deploy a screwdriver
to fix
the world
will set you
on a collision course
with hi-tec
cerebral
high minded people
intellectual
salt of the Earth
nor light you turn
to instrument more organic
warmer, softer
of shape less regular
(but in the same
ball park
when it comes
to visual metaphor
and the logic of dream)
a tried and
trusted mechanism
evolved over aeons
shuttle-slide into action
same principle as self-
loading but
hopefully more
symphonic
yes
and stumbling into
sympathy, empathy
let us consider
the heart that
lies at the heart
of all these hydraulics
lies
at the heart but hopefully
speaks the truth,
it’s truth
so much in the joy of cataclysm
pumped into the air
that doesn’t even make sense
scarcely comes
in syllables
a waste of good carbon therefore
every breath here expelled
and that is without even
bothering to consider
the happy physics
of all those mouth-centred
mechanisms
fuelling such
soft collision
loosening, tightening
the screws that hold this all
in frame
keeps the picture
together
twenty four seven
or frames
per second
as metaphor much needed
in the heart of the night
some
scarcely even poetic
fit just right
TONGUE TALK
I flick out my tongue
to test the air for you
drink
your scent
rattle
appreciation
no
threat display
though lately
I have been told
I am
indeed venomous
potent neurotoxic
am thinking that
the glory of my dance
and the
beauty
of my coils
sly sophistication
of my
pattern
will
win you round
JOZIE
hours later
my eyes
still glued to the road
except
this is all afterburn
the road is inside my head
oh Jozie
flashiest of cities
will you
flash for me
as I flash by
naked on the hotel bed
I feel gravity, taste relativity
conjure you up
from every mixed memory
(and
much mixed metaphor —
woefully so)
the mirror is like
the bottom of the sea
so far inland but
I can hear the waves in
False Bay roaring
but is this dream
trajectory
or am I now, at last,
speeding homeward?
so many souls leaving
not staying, refusing
to stick around in case
of a grand finale
jaw-dropping twist
in the ending
like when you
first confessed your nakedness
RIDE
I am not in
a rocket ship.
I am not
on the Hawking express
edging across time.
I am on
a regular flight
just a
mere 37, 000 feet above sea level
longing for a
soft landing, home
in your arms and
then (beloved turbulence),
the truly seat-of-pants, much
bumpy
ride.
HERE!
here’s my poem
do
what you will
with it
have your wicked way with it
enquire, explore,
immerse
yourself
see what you can fathom
look for what you can find
but
what is this here
submarine-like, shark-
like
meeting you as you
submerge
moving like
a machine
dreadnaught of the deep
words
to probe you
as you sleep
BEYOND (YOUR) EMBRACE no melding tonite your mind closing like an anxious wound infection, infiltration, metaphors of sickness seep still into the body politic have done so, I am afraid, since the beginning of time but the risk, you tell me, the danger sheer danger of reaching out whatever the payoff, whatever heaven in that yield risk run (you calculate) is catastrophic better to err on the side of hate
HOLES
there are holes in the paper
places of quicksand
the words cannot
traverse this broken landscape
move at pace
across the page
shocktroop you with
tactical juxtapositions,
lightning images
no
the whole nature of
poetry has changed
those books on mechanized modernism
so obsolete (ultimately
so) better
thow
them away
only good
for metaphor
subtext is where
the power now
lies
poems 2 die for