GOING WITH THIS
up
down
vertical lateral
throw me a lateral, tell
me where
we
are going
with this
what brain flashes
will consolidate
translate into
paper, paper
with markings
(English
not Martian
as in
some bizarre
alien postcard)
how it will all
all evolve
grow, take shape
find its genre, its species,
whole
poet biology
spawn of some sort
seed set there
but
sewn
up
every stitched
ripe for receipt
LOUD AND CLEAR
“I do not think they
will sing for me.”
Yeats on steroids
Yeats on steroids
that’s what he called me
avatar of that man
whose every
photograph suggests
crusty, prickly
whose every word to me
so generous,
illuminating, out
of left field
such a rooted traditionalist
yet swing door open
to extreme
innovation
to speak soothing words to
the loneliness of the soul
and me
like your Prufrock, like
that aging Irish senator
propped up
on a stick
talking to school children
them wondering
what that
old fool
was talking about
(as kids
will always do)
and you
I laughingly told you
that your
Wasteland was a
(how did I put
it my
memory failing me
Oh yes
I have it!)
ghost tapestry,
tapestry of ghosts
tissue
of allusion
which is rich
coming from me, standing
before you, metaphorically
speaking
(could not be
more metaphorically speaking)
alluding to you
your poetry
my sense of your presence
how it was back then
some lunatic giving us
a slice
of What the Thunder Said
for, of all things, our (my)
fucking matriculation
English
examination
who is that one who
walks beside you
that ghostly
desert voice you cannot hear
but is
the poem, your poem
my great beloved poet and poem
possum, Mr, Professor TS, Tom
I hear you
loud and clear
do not need
my steroids
to hear you loud and clear
STARBOARD
why am I not
at the river mouth?
where sea, ocean
swallows what the river
has to say
in some old boat
navigating this estuary
removed from every regrettable
trait of this mechanized,
corporate
academic world
nothing to edit, lecture
to prepare
article to co-write
just
time turned irrelevant
as we lie down in the keel
of this celebrated
drunken boat
your drunken boat
that took
the Seine by
surprise, by stealth,
by storm,
as we
quaffed the green absinthe
until we ourselves
became luminous
yellow-green
nothing quite
to meddle with your mind
like that
beverage
and you mumbled your plans
in a spray
of wild poetry:
gun running, Africa,
early
iconic death
lesson that the wild electric
children of tomorrow’s
tomorrow
could ape, imitate
freely swallow
and there now we see it
and steering to starboard
the first of his kind
to fight
to destroy Empire,
renounce this world
and its rules and its laws
and its doctrines and
its claims to
power, mastery and
authority
that sleek terror monster
beast of rivers and
curved sheet steel
and its Captain, oozing nemesis
and the anger
of a subcontinent
there to
take us aboard
we angling to
be taken
aboard
leaving the river mouth
for depths beyond imagining
taken
beneath
own world, our world,
world of our own there beneath
REWINDING INGRID
saw you
undrowning,
undrowned finally
the people at Gordon’s Bay
doing their beach thing
no idea
they are.
moving backwards
everything now
by cosmic decree
in reverse
.
and, then I saw you
leave the water getting younger
unwriting every
poem
reliving ever relatiobship
every sexual
moment
from its end
to the beginning
and there your monument
of course, that was doomed,
to die as it
became newer, more
pristine
less weather-scarred, beaten
and thing of deriliction
whose plaque
no one
ever reads or heeds
.
now suddenly
before it all gets dissolved
deconstructed by
the return
to its creation
this text so lucid, so
bright and
clear
like her poetry
when we all used to read it
Sun now
rising in the West you
might say.
setting before it rises.
logically, I suppose,
we all
headed for the womb
and that
thing which
is death, and yet
has
to be death’s opposite
polar different
and when
all rewound, not
a star
born yet
let’s
start again; press play
be better this time
WEAVE
don’t you feel
in your bones?
we’ve been
here before
weave
we’ve
same story
same
poem maybe
same long-suffering life
or,
turn a cartwheel,
everything topsy-
turvy
dizzy vice-versa
vis-a
vis
you and me
sucking on a bon-bon
wondering what it
all
boils
down to
essence of
difference
portrait
of polarity
something solid and serious
substantial in our connection
or maybe
vapid, ephemeral
nothing more than a breath
would take your
every breath
been
here before
wove
so much less
could have
wove so much more,
MADE IT
thank God
you made it
thank God
you are here
have circumvented
every obstacle, every
inconvenience,
every scattered booby-trap,
every coldly calculated
anti-personnel mine
they laid with
careful, diabolical precision
every step of the way
along your
most likely path
and me so bloodsoaked
imaging this scenario and
having
to bring it into existence
collapse possibilities
into realities
alternate
versions
no less
real
things we hope, think, pray,
believe might
be final
in this, as in all things,
we might only dream.
TIMES
we met
we merged
we exchanged lives
(spent a lifetime
exchanging lives)
got to
understand each other
understand
the nature of
the soul
your soul
my soul
their host
of sad, fantastic, joyful,
great, terrible,
glorious,
inglorious, minor
major times
things that may
just end-stop
things that do
and do not
that do or
do not rhyme
FACE VALUE
surrender
why won’t you?
this is a poem
where it behoves you
to lie
back, get
immersed
allow me
to spoon you
every word
ladle the best
this page
dare offer, upon
and
all over you
no Chinese torture this
exquisite drenching
to the core
and nowhere to
be
felt or
seen
the slovenly snafu
of a typo
but if
there is to be this
misery, this raven
of chaos,
of cosmic glitch
let us
cut it down
to size
pocket book pocket it
(not pocket battleship)
and cheek
to cheek (with supreme cheek)
simply take it at face value
S BEND
tempting fate
red, white,
rose,
de noir
still,
sparkling, on
an
S
bend, we drank
glass after glass
laughed, toasted your
many romantic successes and
odd disaster
(so few
and far between)
crazy highs and
scarcely worth
speaking of lows
including that one
burned into memory, so
crushing,
irretrievable
I will need a lot more wine
to go there this day
QUA NON
so you fancy
yourself a grammarian?
angular you look, I
must say
catching the mirror
catching the eye
man slash stroke woman
of hairline margins
snip, snip, snap
look how carefully
we have tailored your edit
part of a crusade
to syntactify the world
paragon of trust
more so than bishop,
accountant,
starving banker
hoarding gold since
the rewrite is here
poems 2 die for