EXACTLY AT THIS POINT

EXACTLY AT THIS POINT

left my mind
on the helter skelter

and you
first Dan, halfdan, third
Dan
whatever Dan you are

rollercoaster father
    smirking sublimely
heavens of cloud
light and dark cloud
above me

and she
who I wanted, needed
so much at
that moment
MJM of the shapely legs
and thighs
crashing into me at top
speed perversely
has anyone ever
received such a thrilling smack
in a dodgem bumper car

and the theorists speculating
on the nature of carnival
hum
   a good tune
talk a good liberation

and falling in line
        (such a
ragged line)
with every compadre
of that persuasion

I wanted to
go guttural
     get down and dirty
be
  the sublime poet of
the sewer if only
for a brief
moment
        outdoing the inimitable
Charles, universal stereotype
of this poet

Oh helter skelter
must be
     a surreal repetition
to have
that guy Manson
sweep back
    into fashion

and me
     at the pinnacle of the
rollercoast exactly at
         this point

PILGRIMAGE

PILGRIMAGE

skimming
our coastline

trawling
deep

sooner or later
they discover
our poetry

stumble across
that great outlier
that is
Ingrid Jonker

are captivated by
her sharpness, passion,
fierce emotional
honesty
and intensity

and yet
whenever I find myself
at the place she drowned,
marked by
her tiny, sun and sea
spray
battered monument

I get no sense of this
in wildest dreams
ever
a place
of pilgrimage

LEFT TO SAY


LEFT TO SAY

since she
is
   goddess,
divine

it would have to be
mortal Adonis
to make the sacrifice
to tell their story

get
  those beautiful,
painful words
upon the page

and there it was, their
love saga
     captured forever
magnificent creation

and there Adonis lying
finally in the arms of grieving          Aphrodite

mission accomplished, nothing
more for him left to achieve
nothing more
        left to say

IN CONVERSATION

IN CONVERSATION

In a parallel universe
that Adonis and Aphrodite
ruptured
the myth
    with joy of together

went to the ballet, caroused talked life and poetry
           over lamb souvlaki  and
red wine
    at a beachfront taverns

talked love and the
art of making it
stretch out
       beyond infinity
until the early hours

can tell you now
given the
nature
    of their divinity

this just has to be
the greatest conversation
on the
    nature of love

spoken, whispered,
since the beginning of time.
     

REVISED

REVISED

saw Adonis and Aphrodite
at the Heavy Metal ballet

watching barriers collapse
boundaries stretch

saw sheet metal fluted
rolled exquisitely sheer

the weight of those chords tempered with
grace, fluency
of style

and Adonis and Aphrodite
if not riveted in love
at least
holding hands

the truth of their narrative
so handsomely revised

the
years so softly silvering them,
their conquest of time

OUR LITERARY HISTORY

OUR LITERARY HISTORY

scruffy rebel poets
Knights of the Realm
sometimes those
strangest of
hybrids that fall
into both categories

and there
in the schools
and universities
an industry at work

creating a mosaic
building a pantheon

that Shakespeare, whoever
he is, whomsoever
he was

can float high above everything
in great
volumes of cloud

Hamlet teasing the Danish
first minister to fix
upon absolutes where
all is
shifting significance