Tag Archives: pain

POEM FOR 1983 ME (revised version)

POEM FOR 1983 ME

there you are
in that disintegrating photograph
so sure of yourself
Mr Wry Smile, so unsure of
yourself : deconstruct
this photo Professor Academic
Expert
so much space here
to delineate those inner doubts
and (to make no bones
about it) existential torments
scars of neglect

and what eyes have browsed this?
looked here, remembered,
eyes have looked into,
souls loved, have loved,
still love
could never
possibly forget
(know who you are, know
what history we have,
stuff
    shared together)

and now having
pulled this out of the hat
my next trick
will be
one of disappearance
taking all this stuff of self
off the shelf
go Cheshire Cat on you all
(having at times
threatened to
go full
mad hatter

perhaps in truth, far more Alice
caught right there
before the door into Wonderland
crazy. divine, nonsensical
quantum who
knows what
Wonderland

battling to balance
medicine that makes me
too big medicine
renders me too small

she
   of the sign of the Libra born
most loved of the beloved
quietly shaking
    her head at this point

and you
     who only yesterday
told me
to come visit

hit me
with all that goddess mythology
made everything
look so
   effortless

what fatal nonsense
was it our paths crossing

what fatal
nonsense was it
nothing and not
    everything, all?

POEM FOR 1983 ME

POEM FOR 1983 ME

there you are
in that disintegrating photograph
so sure of yourself
Mr Wry Smile, so unsure of
yourself : deconstruct
this photo Professor Academic
Expert
so much space here
to delineate those inner doubts
and (to make no bones
about it) existential torments
scars of neglect

and what eyes have browsed this?
looked here, remembered,
eyes have looked into,
souls loved, have loved,
still love
could never
possibly forget
(know who you are, know
what history we have,
stuff
    shared together)

and now having
pulled this out of the hat
my next trick
will be
one of disappearance
taking all this stuff of self
off the shelf
go Cheshire Cat on you all
(having at times
threatened to
go full
mad hatter

perhaps in truth, far more Alice
caught right there
before the door into Wonderland
crazy. divine, nonsensical
quantum who
knows what
Wonderland

battling to balance
medicine that makes me
too big medicine
renders me too small

she
   of the sign of the Libra born
most loved of the beloved
quietly shaking
    her head at this point

PLAAS ROMAN (farm poem)

PLAAS ROMAN (farm poem)

crossing the farmyard
to my domicile

trod on something in the long grass
   perfectly camouflaged

looking
    for all the world

like a stick

     which
            of course it was

my penchant for attracting
disaster wrong this instance

not the ambush predator
viper with potent haemotoxic
venom we
both assumed it to be

nor
    Cape Cobra (here in
South Africa we have
              the prettiest cobra)
nor Boomslang, nor Rinkhals

nor that speed freak elapid of
supreme flowimg motion

olive-gray in colour
hero of
    Tarantino’s Kill Bill
but with
silky pitch-black mouth

and me
   child of 53, making me
in Chinese
terms
    a fellow of that brethren

slow and quiet until called upon
then red-hot writhing, razor
sharp wire

sign of the
            creature closest to the
Earth (as I am now) and
thus
    with such gravitas

noodle with
           nuclear chemistry, one
drop

    never instil

thought here on the farm
might
     get away from him

hide from the god of life-
energy where

  there is
      no much

                 life energy

everywhere I look

plants sacred
to you

and the way you crushed me,
destroyed me
        injected me with tragic

beginning to fear
     I might be sacred to you too

never to evade you
ever
     escape your clutches

as my last days run out
and I can
       no longer walk your wild

or love
     your women, the ones
you singled out

chose for me perfectly

dreaming of our resurrection
wondering what
you
      will tell me, what

you will ask me
man to god
       (schemed as a
dithyramb)

         about the shared pain and ecstasy torture and beauty

of this life

      (forever fall
                forever rise)