poem – Page 168 – poems 2 die for

JOZIE

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

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

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!

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

WROTE

wrote
a poem
for you

the words
bleeding through

memories so
powerful
painful

hearts
torn

in
two

SURPRISE

here’s the surprise
in this morass
of words
.
lies are truth
truth
is lies

every meaning
you woke up with
were
certain of

has been
re-defined

and the symbol of
your salvation

bent,
twisted

into new configuration

HERE

here is my poem
poem I am so proud of

you tore
out of my book
ripped
out of my mouth

plundered
from my body

buried
in deepest
hole imaginable

since contrived,
created

to be part of our conspiracy
we
animals
non-people

FARM WITH A BARN

the farm
with a barn

and a silo
underground

wants
a world
without
consequences

world
for and
by
the exceptional

for your
disinformation

as their
forever playground

BLOT

it’s a dance alright
insane dance
of alignment

and here you are
in all your impudence

to call
out
the false steps

connect
all the dots

turn down the volume
on same same
cranky tune

call out those writers
meant to
lyric
this song

fingers dictated, pens
all over the place

text they have written just
a fat Rorschach blot

DEAD

morality is dead
it died before
our very eyes

both slow
lingering death

and death like lightning
death by lightning

but don’t
say anything

let us pretend
morality is still alive

otherwise
they will shoot
us where we stand
or where
we kneel (execution
style)

as is
their moral duty
moral right