origin story – poems 2 die for

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

AMEN TO THAT

the spaces
between words

letting me hedge
my bets
with you threatening
to go
full Plato
get universal with me

can’t
allow that to happen

need to scratch around here
making my own noise
doing (as they say
in sixties-speak)
my own
thing

the light fading
and light, searing light
an intimate part of
my origin story

what saved me
in saving my father’s
seed

thoughtful fireball
suddenly at the heart of two cities
obviating the tactical need
for father flyboy, Mr Grand Slam,

to drop serious deathload
on temples and those
sweet bridges you see
painted on
porcelain

maybe catch some
vengeful ferocious flak
my brother
told me
without little boy and
his fraternal thermonuclear twin
(dropped on
that most Christian of
Far Eastern Cities)

he and I might
not be having
this conversation

you and I sort of making
acquaintance

whatever that
is precursor to
(the spaces
between words
throwing
a spanner
blowing us off track)

and yet
if we are, despite appearances
to the contrary, about to meld
go full Plato
before
some altar

would smile and say
Amen to that. Amen to that.