JERUSALEM
if this is Jerudalem
why do the stones not speak
the very walls sing hossanas?
why does God who owns
both symbolic rights and
ultimate reals estate
command his worshippers
to share, unite,
not flow into that darkness
of which there are no words,
solely mystery
as one continual, endless stream
whose only form and shape
and sense
is blood?
THIS GUITAR
this electric guitar
is singing, screeching
to high Heaven
and the Devil has
promised me a woman
before
I be baked in an oven
roasted in a furnace
reduced to
sentient ash
doomed to suffer forever
the flames
of an intense fire
and this
as fair, reasonable
payment for her beauty,
such beauty
your beaity
creature created to
define and express inner
and outer
the entire limits
of desire
DOWN
I am a god
demigod
hero
beloved by
all on
Olympus
I am switched to
panorama
I get the whole picture
and here, with the denouement,
I shall call upon
divine machinery
to
escape
the stage
leave them to splinter and
splutter, their
tongues
tied around them
constricting like the serpents
that swallowed
Laocoon and his
male chlldren
and here it is, my vehicle now,
dodging the heavy flak,
as it slaloms through
search-
light beams
luckily this is classic, no
thought of variation of outcome
alternate history
not a hope
in Hell do these aggrieved
little mortals have
of shooting me from sky
seeing me plummet down.
PRODUCTION
on the farm,
perforce, we
put our heads together
everything under the Sun
puts is head together
wheels
set in
motion
as
word speads
and Heraclitus of Miletus
stops by
a number of things
brings to mind
solid argument inclusive: that
all is
twice, thrice,
there is nothing that
is not in process
meanwhile (forgive the inadvertent South African
colloquialism) not
back
at the ranch
but in the heart of Johannesburg
they are staging a production
of Euripides’ The Bacchae
have
already
launched into
the opening scene
which very instant, being
in the audience my
mind
thirsting for
ecstasy
veers towards chaos, entropy,
fractal mathematics
as we suddenly welded into one
sift and exchange
that whole Pandora’s box
of memories and
recollections
whispers and ghosts
the very
incantations that
pull aside the veil, strip
off the veneer
speaking for myself
but
perhaps all
hardly able to wait, kill
that terminal longing,
set eyes
upon the mask
that is
dark Dionysus’ face
ABSURD
in a poem
it gets so absurd
the whole thing
can be changed
by
one word
for the piece
at hand
it’s life
or death
the shift of shade
you now express
CROSS
my sphere
your sphere
two
hemispheres
no actual line
of demarcation
marked
for us to
cross
at out
peril
as painful first
step to
(what discord, what
dissonance,
what celestial music)
some
kind
of redemption, state
of liberation
ENDGAME
playing chess
whilst our liar leaders
think about war
at the summit
of their lives
you don’t have
to be Bobby Fischer to
win
a nuclear match
just a matter of economy
and who makes
the
signature
sacrifice
puts it all out
there
tempts into an atomic
no-holds
barred
pawn gambit
SOFT
soft
as a
leaf
haiku
tiny
falling
swept across
the page
by breath, breath
of the spoken word as
the brush
the paint give
everything meaning
BOX SEAT
there is nothimg
in the box
the box
is shrouded
in mystery
someome left
it locked
but now
it has
been opened
the box
is covered with
gold leaf
exquisite
wrapping paper
it must
have been
full
but now
it is empty
shrouded
in mystery
not just
one mystery, either,
a mystery
within
a mystery
once it
was full
(I believe
it was full)
but now
it is empty
EQUATOR
forget boundaries
forget enclosures
here
there are no
prisons for the body
of the soul
there is wide expanse
open sky only
boundless
across the page
between the lines
each and every
three sixty degrees
meridian and back
from pole to pole
twice across
the equator
planet
to galaxy
ocean to ocean
from
the river
to the sea
poems 2 die for