LOST ON ME (HEADCASE)
the gods did it
so wanted to fuck with me
last day
before i left England
to journey
to South
Africa
apartheid
South Africa
some sixty
two
years ago
threw the book at me
(two of them actually)
hurling them
from the top of
a wardrobe
(direct hits
on my cranium in
both cases)
later, in these very books,
I would find
parallels,
Polyphemus tragically blinded
by Nobody
throwing boulders at that
taunting Achean hero
to avenge
his mutilation
or Ajax throwing rocks
at the Trojans as battle became
brutal
beneath the city walls,
the fate of
all Ilium
hanging in the balance
of course, being only eleven,
this symbolism
was lost
on me
and Homer’s Iliad and
the other one
had, no effect on me, were
lost on me
about to sail the wine dark sea
myself
they did not
impact my life at all
amusing them that in their hubris
they thought
they might reduce me
to a blind poetry headcase
poems 2 die for 