poem – Page 10 – poems 2 die for

HARD TO BEAT

no tiger claws
no vampire teeth

even so
walked through this door
and I was recruited
for murder

all above board
Geneva Conventioned

quickly prepped
armed
and parachuted

into the fray
proverbially armed
to the teeth
(aforementioned teeth)

and what teeth!
less of interest to a
naturalist than
an orthodontist

not much good
for snarling or
biting
through arteries

but pretty
good
with pins

and securing commando
knives between
teeth whilst
leopard crawling

pretty
good
with pins

at pulling them from
grenades with
my teeth

pretty hard
to beat

HEROES

we asked for Spartacus
we got Julius Caesar

we enquired
about the availability
of the Buddha
and you gave us Genghis Khan

history always
switches on us
tells its
own punchline

holds us up
to bad joke scrutiny
makes sure
we miss the point

demolishes
every hero
fighting
for humanity

tells us
who to
follow, obey,
even love

in a voice
you make our own

DESTINED TO END

Ah, poetry (let’s
out a breath
hears
syllables
expire)

hard to love it
impossible
to destroy it

Eliot, Richards,
Yvor Winters

all those years wasted
learning about it

from first
stumbling days on
the Rondebosch campus
then in red drag
robe
about to be
your Dr G

which does the job
for would be rapper
of academic professional
(professional
perhaps not
in the
dolling up to
take on the streets
revolutionary
of pleasure sense)

but
incoming! a fat
opening line
fully
armour-piercing
iconic Krupp
88mm

flouting itself as it
whistles upon me
fade to
black. fade to
white

lap dissolve and then
match cut as it
demands
all my time

wouldn’t you
know it, have guessed it
something this
agonistic
simply certain
to happen

popping
onto the page
exactly where we are, here
of places

oddest location where
we swore
never again, would never
see
let alone entertain
each other again

so
adamant this
would be so
and yet
look what just happened

both
of us cast headlong
shades of the Lady
of Christ’s

angel
of free speech, secret cosmic rebel

off to the races
newly redefined spaces

no way of knowing
where this poem, this
thing poetry
ever began

where (and how) in Hell, on Earth,
it is destined to end

BY DESIGN

everything
twitches, shudders,
revolves,
devolves
evolves

shades into

melds
dissolves

splits, pulls tricks,
goes longitudinal, lateral.
becomes hybrid
finds
a solution

runs parallel
chases, takes tracking shot,
edits, splices.,
dices
chases, runs
away from
enters into, escapes
out of

connives, convinced,
consumes
is consumed by

darkens,
enlightens
extends
goes out on a limb
shifts and returns back to
resolves then rescinds

enhances, romances,
shadows, throws
shade upon

thinks better worlds, best
world

worst life we
can imagine

worst reality, surreal actuality,
horror show entirely

ones we
are born into
die in
die from

are enshrined in
remain remembered

unless
resurrected, reincarnated,
renewed, reinvented
simply born again

all things
      designed and created unless
worked it
all out themselves
        (what works
best
   for them)

generating their very being
out of something
rather than
nothing

why is there something
rather than nothing?

why
is there anything

when
nothing is central, primal,
presupposes
logically, mathematically
essential

look at yourself
plain as day you
just appeared out of nowhere

nothing
so
much the deeper

beyond
all conjecture

wiser
than

we could ever fathom
from the very beginning
before
the beginning by
inescapable design

such a grip on the plan

SALVATION

maybe I might
have forgotten myself
at that moment
of chaos and crisis

have forgotten to tell you
you have
become goddess
the most
beautiful thing
in the Universe

divine object of
the adulation of the stars

beloved dream of
all of us
self included

who
have known you
loved you
longed for you, wanted you

worshipped you
from this intimate near

or
as with me

so deeply
from afar

that chaos, that crisis
stuff of supernova
of exploding galaxies

put
to one side

alien to
the quiet order and
system
and
death by
intensity

of
which I
for the peace that is
light and
sort of
respite

guess I should write
being perhaps
some salvation

HAVING HANNIBAL FOR BREAKFAST

tell me Dr Lecter
how many census takers
have you yourself tested

and is
their bureaucratic impudence
any guide to flavour

this I ask
as one of your greatest
admirers
who
would have felt
so blessed
to have just a smidgen,
an ounce
of your visceral
eloquence

not to speak of
your tactical acumen
or ease with
which you
freely segue

from devious thought
to diabolical strategy

but
let that all rest

we are both here
for breakfast, to enjoy
ourselves
try
this Jamaican cuisine
you were so thoughtful
to bring

jerk Dr Chilton
lots of prize juicy
essential and
inessential
parts
in a doggy bag

YET ANOTHER

wrote a poem
crashed and burned

nice and crispy
in my coffin

no big deal
this grandest of exits
doesn’t make me
a rockstar
or anything

just another wannabe
following that script

so faithfully followed
right now
you might think it
an algorithm

that old self-destructive
yearning
for excess

yet another convert
to the great
Arthur
Rimbaud paradigm

BELONG

Sufi Mufti
Grand Wazoo

feels like abracadabra
like verbal algebra
tuneful vowels
rolling
off my tongue

Shia Shia
Sunni Wahabi

and you Omar Khayyam
and disciples of Rumi

out in the desert
looking for rose
of beauty
woman

whose every
move a poem
every word
divine bliss

something mystical about
these Persian angels

something that drives the soul
to write
its love on sand

and me
in Heaven as I spell
out the logic
of this grammar in
full
linguistic mouthful
after mouthful

searching as I speak
for place to
belong to

if you
would have me belong

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)

EMPTY

had five friends
around for roulette

Boris
Leonid
Sasha
Dimitri
Natasha

played all night
lost every time
around the
table
perfect hexagon

my luck deserting me
every time
      nothing doing
my
   life clicked empty
.
poems
     spent shells

dead on the floor
before
anyone might

tragically inspired
stoop to read them

much
   dull fun, real drear, in
   this
     deathly writing business,