Tag Archives: poem

QUIETLY (SAID THE PHILOSOPHER)

QUIETLY (SAID THE PHILOSOPHER)

quietly, said the
philosopher,

thus
the philosopher spake

argued quietly
should be
my default mode

here
on the edge
of an abyss

never jump to, rush to,
solution, conclusion

only after
careful inference,
                   deduction
make
   lightning leap

remember
   that a single feather
a flock doth not
of
  necessity make
still less
     an angel

though the brush of a wing
where none
      should logically be

the feel of
a beyond
          you cannot put your
finger on

may be
    different thing
                    entirely
every
   ounce of your being
shred
    and philosophical fibre

crying out for
     deeper engagement

doing so
      quietly

VERTIGO

VERTIGO

I hate vertigo

fear it
entirely

wonder what
life should be
like

could it
be at all tolerable
if it
    did not go
of own accord
consent to
  leave me

and so I am
sensitive to
the world’s vertigo
the one
that mad philosopher
wrote of

the one where all
that was balanced
is lost
    the tipping point
of fundamental energies
refusing reconcilement

in the words of the crazy one,
forever our fate,
    determined to return.

TO BE SURE

TO BE SURE

rejoice;
beware!

something
out there

a new
continent
       as yet
undiscovered?

unnamed
asteroid;
         new
planet?

something which
we found
      found us

bound to change
                everything

bringing, to be sure,
greatness and goodness

for
all mankind!

rejoice!
       beware

something out there
          already, to be sure

new planet
new continent

near
     as it is far
             

IF JM COETZEE HAD WRITTEN THE ILIAD

An old poem, decades old, was originally published in New Contrast and then in my collection, but one that seems particularly relevant at this moment in time (conquest, civilization, war, atrocities). It also implicitly warns teachers about trusting their students, they might just, as with me here, start to think themselves too big for their own boots. Smartest, most generous and inspirational human being I have ever met, this poetic perfidy of mine notwithstanding.

LET ME NOT

LET ME NOT

let me not
overlook the spectacle

climbimg
   your mountains

swimming in
your river

drinking
from your pools

but
  having lost my
breath, almost
swept away

let me
    find my feet
feel
   grounded again

find my lips your lips
my mouth your mouth
our two
    bodies

climbing, descending, rising
falling

      a fit so neat so
sweet
so
    s in splendid

for a night where time
gravity
      forgot themselves

nothing on Earth
might separate

INVESTMENT

INVESTMENT
(poem for Gary Stevenson)

I smile at you Gary
from the bottom of my pram

though I’m
not sure you would
bet on me
find me
a good investment

I think you
smile back
(though what do I know
about trust
and the people and
the world
out there that
awaits me)

you seem
a good soul, generous
smart, a good enough human
as humans would
appear
to go, not yet
done a risk analysis, calculated
the percentages

my future out there
moving past, looking in

pram, ship of state, all
the same to me now, feel
the germ
of an Odysseus (what
seas
to navigate?)

are you Achilles, Charybdis,
one of the Sirens,

figure of myth, truth and
shadow Homer of my future, just

stopping by for a
quick, blind, taste
of the future,
sublimely

quiet peep in.

OVERKILL

OVERKILL
“Eloquent, oracular;
A volcano heard afar.”
Shelley, The Masque of Anarchy
(poem on the Peterloo Massacre)

Ah, my beauties
here is poetry
where it has always been

first past the post
(postmodern, pissedmodern,
posttruth, postnuclear,
postapocalyptic, post-
whasoever)

play of language: you realize
of a sudden that deep
down in
    your tin heart
you have to prevent it

look at the danger: exhibit A,
very drowned poet

his young pregnant wife
dreamt the future as monster
private parts monster
(as they all are)
scratching at her window
demanding
       life, consciousness,
not exactly Turing tested but

she scared
the life out of us, this
virgin snake did cosmically,
with what
   ex machina she
duly came up with

such overkill
   need to nip it in the bud
radical danger of metaphor
surely
   needs its own -dectomy

the threat of crucifixion
along every highway
and byway
      resurrected again

something the billboards
really need, are crying out
                                   for

real spectacle
        behind them.

VARNISH

VARNISH

he vanished
because he lost
his varnish

the gloss
fell off

end of the licence
afforded to clown face

debate now raging
openly, covertly,
between
    reflect
and refract

pitting the opaque
up against
the transparent

no space in this world
of everything hidden,
full disclosure

for the serious serial
beauty of the translucent

the mystery if the word as
it conjures killer fact

hard to
     live
         where condemned
to reflection, purity
of copy
     completeness itself