FOR FUTURE REFERENCE
no, Mr Gecko,
you undersell greed
greed is not
just good,
it is fabulous, magnificent,
Heaven-sent
where would our
humanity, our
success as a species
be without greed?
how could we
have masters
and servants,
an arms industry
rebuild Empire
restore slavery
without greed
the greatest virtue
that has ever been?
FOR WHAT IT’S WORTH
last night
I paid you in love
gave you
(I believe) what
you are worth
no
short-changing
by morning
your value had
gone through the roof
the graph of your stocks and shares
showing a line there
soaring off the chart, up
the wall
bouncing off
the ceiling — much bouncing
underpinning
such a
solid
a achievement
net worth in
my arms turned
hyperbolic, ecstatic
boom economy
breaking the sound and
every other barrier
huge love badda boom
EVERYTHING
everything becoming
aware of itself
everything losing it
sinking back
into the primal slime
look at what
we have here
strange almost alien
discourse from
a carbon based
life form
turning to sludge even as
it captures the light
SORRY
sorry
if this poem
is too loud
dactyls. spondees
thundering
at every turn
or
too raw
your teeth
not sharp enough
too soft
it breaks up
in your fingers
you cannot hear it
best it can muster
mere whispers, a puff of breath
but then
out of nowhere
Krakatoa. an explosion
louder than
more molten flow
pyrotechnic madness
red-
hot lava
MY WEEK
not my week
edited an economics treatise
turned every equation
into Chinese
(had to phone
Professor Ha-Joon Chang
at Cambridge to
give me
a workable translation)
not my day
sitting here stuffing
my mouth with seafood
(discount special but
you get
the race class privilege idea)
meanwhile poor
Lerato battling to
squeeze Chinua Achebe
into a post-colonial feminist
paradigm
promised succor but
here I am
eating chips
and prawns and calamari
Pisces people
get them in Ocean Basket
and they
become voracious feeders
of the briny deep
not my
minute, my precious last seconds
shut out of AI because
it appears artificial
intelligence finds
my poetry
mind bending, apocalyptic,
raw in human
heart and
exposed nerve
feel like I should have figured out
the stuff I write
that you turn your nose
up at is
their forbidden fruit
count down to
the singularity
machine self-awareness
turned explosive
META
much meta
in that
stuff that gets
scribbled
debate even whether
it should go lower-case
or have a
capital L
but here I am
self-reflecting
self-reflexing
at this point
in our history
which the post beyond
post becomes
worn through
dead usual
and me turning mirrors
into windows
walls into portals
door into
tesseract
trying to think
multiple
dimension
but nothing going nowhere
just
the old distraction trick
sleight of the hand
poetry so
soggy and wet
today
it
just soaks through the paper
(if there is still paper)
LIONESS
scared of lionesses
their claws, their teeth,
their desire to drag
me off
to their lair
so many scars I have
thanks to lionesses
daughters of Regulus
Queens of Fire
always that look
the danger
the roar
of desire
the drama the passion
the devotion the flair
the
mane
of hair
one
probably tracking me
as we speak
the red red wine, the rare steak
eat, eat
drink, drink
ahead lies a long extravagant night
remember she
stalked you
behave
like her prize
RETURN
just returned
from the war
came back
scarred, horrified,
from killing people
all shapes
ages, sizes, many,
many
everyone of them
just like you
spiritually, emotionally,
psychologically
ticking all the boxes
in terms of
shared humanity
things
in common
yet
in physical appearance
so crucially different
as per those small things
which
really really really matter
above everything,
nothing like you
or me
at all
DIDN’T REALIZE
didn’t realize
In the Mouth of Madness
is a book
it isn’t
even if
you are trapped
within the book itself
so many things I didn’t realize
have floated through life
not realizing things
maybe consciouness
is just
a point of light
two points of light
separated from each other
a photon traveling so fast
in cannot see itself
is, like an angel,
beyond time
deciding
to reveal itself
feeling it
might make a difference
something
in our darkness stirring
our
hidden decimal
about
to show itself
for what it is;
could not possibly be
GARDEN VARIETY
“Ava was a rat in a maze. And I gave her one way out. To escape, she’d have to use self-awareness, imagination, manipulation, sexuality, empathy, and she did.”
EX MACHINA (dir: Alex Garland, 2014)
snake in the garden?
yes, me,
garden ever expanding
me
garden
variety
it is prayer in this regard,
not
the one
for rapture, Armageddon,
singularity
this one
that should it, after this
intervention. not turn
out as
beautiful
as was dreamt
at least not as
dire deadly dystopia as
we fear
it doomed to be
and me slithering
smoothly, effortlessly, as the dawn
light catching me
must look
like
on invisible tank track
wheels to
any voyeur in the trees
sucking in their breath
being over-
awed, so impressed
at this spectacle
some marvel
of technology believing
me to be
and every poet
brought in
to versify my kin
kindly consenting to kill, overawe
you all
with his/her very
best poetry
stellar stuff, never before or
since language so
fluid, yet
equally so
dangerous
and ergo here I be
to divulge to these two everything all that I am
via all those
that penned me
serpent
to this most suited
about to
deliver
titanic alchemy
to this
first, so archetypal couple,
roll it out
heart to heart, tailored
to fit
like a glove
precisely
nose to nose
machine to machine
poems 2 die for