WHOLLY FORGET
optical illusion
delusion
allusion
noise in every act of communication
guitar feedback
reaching
crescendo
and now you tell me
I am twisted like a Mobius
pretzel
me is that strain of
consciousness
that gets
filtered out
so many roles just
one actor
best in concentrating
of this taxing script
the other roles be
the ones to wholly forget
FLESH OF THE FAITH
some buffoon
they call and
who calls
himself
a philosopher
slipping between
jokes
and profundity
fires away
name of the game
dance
of truth, not
so easy to work out
the steps
world and self what
they want to say
for themselves
despite themselves
so damn intricate
so hard to
pin down when
in this labyrinth every
level brings
fresh layer
of deception
and why
must he always
touch
his nose?
is that some
kind of tic, sign of
secret brotherhood or
silent spiritual homage
to H and L and
M his
forebears and yes,
masters
meanwhile I am continuing
this badly scripted
life story
my tale of desire
full of
twists and turns but
no story to speak
of itself
an iron wall
dystopian stuff with
digital chip on
the shoulder, chip
in the brain patriarchal
body guards
stretching between my
heart and its object
wherever that
object, whenever it
should
come into being
that the motor, engine of
everything should
be loss
and distance, incompleteness
and sadness
great for Slovenian
thinker, South African poet,
though
getting it down in all
its harrowing
complexity
could be an industry
might
not
keep your warm at night
(flesh
of the faith to
deeply
hold on to) may
not even pay the rent at all
VACUUM CLEANER
there’s Plato
and here’s
a vacuum cleaner
helps you keep
the cave clean
get rid of all
those transcendental
appearances
some
great film director
must
have left
lying around
and here I am
dusting and sweeping
giving the place
a thorough
Spring cleaning
cleaners are always welcome
in every utopia
just have to lie
about their
poetry
cannot be afford to
get caught
with a scrap
about their person
the Republic of Philosophy
has clear ideas
on the nature of text
and how
to determine
what it means
OXIDE
angles
are collisions
bespeak incidence
and refraction
can see this
check.it out
from the running time
of the Universe
and
all those iron-oxide
socialist red planets
elephant
in the room
no room
for the elephant
enough
room
in the elephant
space
to cover every surreal
contingency
short of nightmare
space to burble, jumble up
words bounce balls
and spheres and
jagged
pieces of
interstellar debris
around and
around and around
MUG AND BEING
five types
of bread
seven kinds
of beans
a bean smorgasboard on
a tiny toast
tell me Juliet
you are the expert
on the names
of things
could this bland name
cover
such a
stupendous thing?
or are we now forced
to jack up
our language
as common parlance
turns
cordon bleau, basic
foodstuffs
forget
their station in life
invert such an
ancestry to
plead
their case for
being haut cuisine?
once upon
a time
coffee was
just coffee
being
before essence
bean before
steam
and so much de Beauvoir
Sartre cafe existentialism
beat
poetry: Corso, Ferlinghetti
hinged upon it
but now
you need a handbook of
coffee phrase
and idiom, a coffee lexicon,
a coffee thesaurus
not just
spolit for choice but
thrown into
infinite quandary
whilst
business is buzzing
deals are
going down
brains going whole full
minutes without
delectable roast
flavour
indispensible caffeine
(unless caffeine
free because
trendy to be so special
stylish or
in caffeine
cold turkey)
to drink to take to eat
to go
dolce dolce rapido
latte expresso
sweetie
dear
would you like a house cup
cup of
house brand with
sublime piece oc toast
(actual piece of art)
and
the being of your beans?
Need your answer now
before
beford you very eyes
I percolate
become pure dream
FREEZE-DRIED
fudge soft
was my brain at my
first philosophy class
Plato’s dialectic wholesome,
why should not the State be
good and strong
and solid and true?
why should I not be
thinking axiomatically
working my
way slowly
towards great gnosis
at the cave’s entrance
why should this not all be,
even in a philosophy class,
some desert of
the real shadow show
programmed to
amuse
this unspecified
superior intelligence?
But these are questions for
later
not for poor white boy
at mountainside university
refugee from
all that Christian National
Education might teach
true
to apartheid
and so, face-beaming, I
did drink it, savour
swallow
every joyous scrap of
the fat one via
Professor Obi Wan’s
interpretation
the Jewish boy in the corner
(so slightly older
reading his way into
territory
full-on genealogical, beyond
good and evii
scowling at my
naivete,
having not
become my friend
Nietzsche not yet
my philosopher of choice
outside, of course, outside
the theatre down
the slopes
beyond the steps
something stirring
something
at a different pace,
with a different
dialectic
about to explode
about
to rock to the core
but this
down the line
from up in this high place
easy to calculate
work with
established truths,
historical certainties, clear
percentages
down there
as bra Chris wrote
its all
in graffiti, still
yet in code
soon
world going to
go full on punk, class-war
deconstructive
defeat in Vietnam
meaning
power
of powers
determined to determine
we think how they say,
are
so subtly, subtly
forced
to do as we are told
mind put on hold
fast-food fried down
to the last algorithm
brain
freeze-dried, feel
free to liquify
fudge soft
back then
but maybe
Plato was right
poems 2 die for