QUICKLY
read this poem quickly
we have not much time
an nasteroid/comet/meteorite
is going to
hit this Earth tonight
but even before which
tensions on the planet ensure
the button will
get pressed
failing which a killer virus
has obviously escaped
and then one or two
of the world’s
super
volcanos
is primed to blow
fill the Earth with pyroclastic flow
toxic dust
blot out the sky, the Sun
so, read
this poem
have some fun
best thing to do now
quite frankly
FARM TALK
let me
withold words
surrender
poetry
thus may I
figure out what
the farm is saying
the trees speaking
catch
these voices
hitherto drowned out
by my insistence to
delve into
the depth of my
faith in language,
human
linguistics
so many different ways
of writing, talking out there
DAVID
if you are
the David in
this great battle
why
are you slaughtering
all the poets?
if you are Solomon
with so much wisdom
to bestow upon humanity
why are you
flattening all the universities
burning the archives?
watching as
culture and history goes
up
in smoke
or dancing
around the flames
HANNIBAL DIRECTIVE
Ah, yes,
the Hannibal Directive
thought that would mean
smashing your enemy
into a lake
or luring them into
a complete double
envelopment
not killing your own
people to avoid having to
submit
prisoner swops at
outrageous rates of exchange
WHAT THE SATIRIST
TOLD ME
tell me
about yourself
so I
can really
offend you
feel my words
razor sharp
as they slice
flesh from bone
SHOSHONE
you were so in
need of the fruit
from the tree of antithesis
when I came upon you
arrived on the scene
slithered amongst you
rattling my
tail off to wake
you up
not much hope there
popping gobstopper-sized
pills to kill
your anxiety
already
you can see what
it has done to
your internal rhyme
scheme and system
pretty much shot to Hell
last to say this, for
obvious reasons, but
right now,
at this juncture, need
to stand
outside yourself, commit
to alterity, flick
switch to at least
semi-
Slavoj
dialectic might be just
a pipe dream
but what better
pipe
conduit to great
spirit do we
full Shoshone have?
JOZIE
hours later
my eyes
still glued to the road
except
this is all afterburn
the road is inside my head
oh Jozie
flashiest of cities
will you
flash for me
as I flash by
naked on the hotel bed
I feel gravity, taste relativity
conjure you up
from every mixed memory
(and
much mixed metaphor —
woefully so)
the mirror is like
the bottom of the sea
so far inland but
I can hear the waves in
False Bay roaring
but is this dream
trajectory
or am I now, at last,
speeding homeward?
so many souls leaving
not staying, refusing
to stick around in case
of a grand finale
jaw-dropping twist
in the ending
like when you
first confessed your nakedness
RIDE
I am not in
a rocket ship.
I am not
on the Hawking express
edging across time.
I am on
a regular flight
just a
mere 37, 000 feet above sea level
longing for a
soft landing, home
in your arms and
then (beloved turbulence),
the truly seat-of-pants, much
bumpy
ride.
DISGUISE
clock striking zero
clock striking thirteen
Ah, dystopia,
you are the master
and mistress
of disguise
the overlord of
pain
and scarcity
with glorious hypocrisy
you build your
dark concrete world
on such
stupendous lies
hiving us of to the
generous hallucination
that
feeds us every fiction
of unending supply
HERE!
here’s my poem
do
what you will
with it
have your wicked way with it
enquire, explore,
immerse
yourself
see what you can fathom
look for what you can find
but
what is this here
submarine-like, shark-
like
meeting you as you
submerge
moving like
a machine
dreadnaught of the deep
words
to probe you
as you sleep
poems 2 die for