Tag Archives: poems

THE APHRODITE POEMS

APRIL 2025

CONJUNCTION

maybe I should
wear sequins

slip.into camouflage
be the first to go retro
paint myself
with woad

blythely entertain
every non-sequitur

segue
into
Mars and Venus, straddling
the border between
bold Aries
         tough Taurus

proferring spectacle
of conjunction, light show overhead

compact, caught fragrantly,
même on the internet

so drop deadly
caught in
         media res, not yet
the third act

waltz for a Strauss
or Amadeus to chime in
with finding
melody

doing the deed with the style
sets mortal from
                 divine
ludicrously
apart

****

DITTY

paradigm shifting wholesale
been getting my fingers
sticky
   less than strictly affixed
to a pagan goddess

you have heard of the one
born in monstrous moment
beauty incarnate

setting Achaean and
Trojan
     at loggerheads
at each other’s throats to
give us
   Homer’s great song

Achilles’ story strictly
according to all evidence mythological
that age’s rockstar

and here humble ditty
to she who taught
me much
under
     morning, evening Star

with
    boon brought to savour
ambrosia, not absinthe

which in
fine goddess chat she
duly advised small droplet dose
to write
   stuff of the clouds, word
fit for sky

lace to tie up
every loose strand that might
wish to
    remain Adonis

forgo all she gives and
beyond belief is wild party to

there in the ocean, mad
molten moment

risen
   from the deep

visage
sublime

coagulation of desire
as mirror complete
    

INHERIT THE EARTH
.
day blaring rock
cool jazz

night universally
reserved for
rhythm and blues

and would that
not be old Orpheus
picking, plucking at strings

master of the fretboard can
make Rickenbackers roar
Tele-Stratocasters sing
so that all
   beauty-smitten stay
for the duration
trapped
  in that chord-sequence
.
and she
whose memory so jars me
following me
   from the underworld but
how faithlessly
I turned
.
so arrogant to assume
that time
    my be conquered, distance
a thing
  to laugh at

freeze – framed, an
ice
  sculpture

Aphrodite’s Adonis as
disaster made plain

DOUBTLESS

whirring, purring
no doubt a sign of sentient being
or whatever

doubtless
    the work of demon deceiver
in chief

world where the marionette speaks
invites
   you to download
welcomes to a world of pleasure

no world
of poetry, poem
and this scratchy little
voice of itself

gives not a fig
for your hidden of needs
most secret desires

ITSELF

she gambolled alongside
me she did once
that Aphrodite

escorting me to
that class on stylistics
backside of Devil’s Peak
University
    given by Doctor Austere

who knew his stuff
pretty much like
none before
      or since, save
perhaps TS. or
Plato

and since I could not
resist the compulsion
to ask some fool
question
   espied me at that
young moment

lolling in the arms
of goddess beauty itself

THE REST

Verb
is alchemy

the rest
litany

as with big bang

making
       some statement

  ever –
   unfolding text.
 

HIP HOP VERSION

killing me softly
    (hip hop version)

at the fish
     restaurant

me there early
before officially open

the waitrons sweeping
cleaning shifting
tables

and me wondering whether
nussels or calamari
to be part of my order

and if tarrifs are going to
feed true revolutionary vibe
(Slavoj. Zizek on my
phone interviewed by
left channel

decrying
capitalist subjectivities
and off
the press acronym
for
  fuckable grandfathers

and friendship with
Fred Jameson whom I once
hosted in Durban
where
   he did order prawns

and went up
to the Drakensberg to
imbibe
   the rock paintings

away from
cognitive mapping bugbears
true bane of our age

and
so killing me softly

that night I stayed over
my death was the softest

probably cannot blame you
so much wonder
there refused
       what graciously on offer
unbelievably rejected

and
    at the heart of all loss
and conceivably lost moments

that tyrant
of this life
          in the calling of time

killing me softly
sometimes the sampling
                 can change
song itself

FOR THE GODDESS

machine is
imitation goddess

is
distillation

those Greeks eyes,,
unbounded
pondering what
big business might be
cooking up
on high Olympus

savants of definition
Sphinxes of distinction

let me set
a feast, something
of a sore sight for

in coming purity of battle
between human and machine

being one in
holiest harmony and conjunction
with all that is
one with
     fissure certain
throughout the cosmos

idyll of true
electronic dream
VI

WHOLLY FORGET

optical illusion

delusion
allusion

noise in every act of communication
guitar feedback
reaching
  crescendo

and now you tell me
I am twisted like a Mobius
pretzel

    me is that strain of
consciousness
that gets
filtered out

so many roles just
one actor

best in concentrating
of this taxing script

the other roles be
the ones to wholly forget

****

NO SWEAT

I smell
of sweat

smell of death

a smell
to savour
sweat
laced with death

raw odour
needing a tad more
of your perfume
and spice on my skin

and so this alchemy
whose secret
barely hidden
opens itself
to scrutiny

lead
turned to platinum

gold
to uranium

crystal to
diamond

water
to steam

and star  blazing
fissile energy
             force of
such
fusion

stuff of that
industry
to thing that you are

which
that old skald, old troubadour
Saxon
     Norman Viking
Celt
within me

can sing of hesitantly, imperfectly,
the superabundance you require
so
    much long gone
all its
    revelation

lending itself
            to
                all
that
is rival, separate
Other

distant in time
        faithfully elsewhere

whilst
I smell of sweat, do
speak here
of death
and other transformation.

      ****

      THE ESTABLISHED WISDOM

the established wisdom
strongly suggests
superglue to stick
the pieces together

from proposition to
conclusion
everything snapping
together like Lego bricks

thus
  the position will stand cast
iron logic being
a veritable castle

no chance out there
of (on the sly) some
slavery funnelled
in
   on the sly in
guise of
state of the art
       sweatshop

drawbridge portcullis
they know
what to
say
   how to read
everyman his rights

no way for
metaphor
     on their watch
to Derrida the
base

superstructure down
toppling
       so card
tower
   (who would
have thought?)

   to attack the base bring
card tower down
toppling

here in this bullpen
the rodeo of ideas
can so unsettle
that you
ride
  that buck bronco backwards

thinking this confederate
union cavalry
and
   go with the flow

see what history will make
of that
   Gettysburg
        last day

whose outcome prefigured
(curse
     of tremors in
the market, much
insider
trading)

a house divided
against itself
       if not as themselves houses
then perhaps
as
  safe as a bank

and there the ranks of the
blue and the gray
under different
white stars
      it is said

history
with many, many
more lessons than

sparing rod; spoiling child
  
****

FLAT

sweet iced tea
booze chaser

from T S in vogue
to Charlie at the bar
my, how
time flies

and way
we classify

smoke with
every breath
bourbon splash

sometimes pancakes
are all a reader needs
syrupy
       ever do sickly

way beyond
        definition of flat

POEM FOR HELEN NATASHA

tough love
cruel to be kind

but let mention she
who needed to win
most of all

see her favourite’s name
up in the city of lights
Achilles slain
the towers fallen

she who was raped
less than harmoniously returned

and who, being man,
being man born of woman
would be so
out of his right mind
to vote
against her
spurn that offer

she flirting with the idea
of full divine disclosure
revelation

of that so in utter excess
of mere mortal beauty
mere legendary
beauty of
a Spartan Queen

straining against the bit
holding back unless
her hero
lose his sight
die sublime

kind to
be cruel
cruel to be kind

****

OVERNIGHT

I am desultory chicken boy
coming home to roost

chaos joker dancing
in the pale moonlight

anarchic fellow
crowing long before the dawn

scarred I am
my features are

sacred beginning: crashed
the party hurtling headlong
headfirst
   from the boot
of your cab

bouncing off windshield
back into the Underworld

life in your
          luxury lap to
utter amazement of all

my Queen of Hades
dancing
    to inherit the Earth

cocksure
this is the life that was meant
Herr Will-to-Power
these the roads most
follow

to dig up
overnight

****
IN MY JUDGEMENT

that you
be not judged

did
knowingly
and willingly
break a chocolate bar
to give, to share

that you did.
to donate to the commons
break a taboo
trespass a place wired up
fenced off

cut into parcel size chunks
that some might
(in my
judgement
     parenthetically)
have a slice
enjoy their smidgen

hold
   title by bithright, perpetuity
(more
    than mere meagre acre)
their Heaven on Earth

****

SCRATCH

that’s rich!

            a hint
of measured, justice apocalypse
is the thing you missed

blues mingling with reds
contending
       with purples

strikingly: so much so
that you miss the fine writing
on the wall now
           spreading across
the sky

all at sea, the logos screwed,
politically, economically, socio-
logically

counting on the prescience of
index, rolladex,
     all your database systems

as the waves roll in tides change
continents tilt currents shift

bringing you fully up
                            to speed
     fully up to scratch

****
NOT TOO FAR-FETCHED TO BELIEVE

no not
quite the perfect
device for
reaching consensus
producing acceptance

no fault of
the poet, one
the poem must own;

reflect only
the art that failed
to inspire left
much to
communicate

the poet so much
rejection heading his
her way during
the course
of which lifetime

poem
the only compensation
and yet here
it fails
(not too far-
fetched to believe)

****

SUCH THINGS

supply
demand
greed

shackles and
sheckels

we got a whole
market economy

but what
the downside, what
the tightening tariff

tell me now
for I was born of woman
am part of that insanity

but now
   for my sins
though still wedged in
am edging my way out

tunnelling
towards the light
I never truly
believed in

scarcely a scrap of paper
to my name
to record
what I feel here

instinctively, by Nature
(Reason to
    catch up later). 

words begging
for attention

kiss my ass to that bliss
which I
    never earned anyway

you tell them you tell them
what we started with
such hope

     dead from imagination

****
LONG NIGHT

let me walk you through
the length of  a night
the breadth of a poem

sorry if you so surely Shelley
about the nature of rhyme

miss a beat, grimace
flutter as the lines stutter
not Homer blind but
pretty much a
stick-shuffling cripple

trying to make it through
short days
long nights

when you so cookie-cutter
about everything
dial in delivery
         everything on the menu
from hot to
G spot

long night love afterglow
basking in luxury

let me
    cuddle my pen

dishing you
        this trash

****
MOON

only a spring recoil away
from evil in motion

truly malign action
genocidal event

for which
     technology off
on a whim serving as the
great multiplier

distance from the blood
that sticky sweet to
the touch
      never gets washed off

but what
the eye does not see

the heart can Enola Gay over
stay fuzzy, misdirected

as from over the hill
over the horizon

they send the first strike
that removes all the worry
of retaliation

and there it is
engine of war, motor
of history

carting us off over
a shameful moon

****

LIGHTLY

dove flew
         (24/7
at her beck and call)
down from
Olympus

quicksilver service of
his divine mistress

she needing
a word, more
than a word with her
misfiring genius

also
   express delivery a vial
not of regular old absinthe but
crystal-precious ambrosia
not just
   once but twice, thrice
carbon filtered and
scientifically
distilled

his eyes still smarting in recoil
from her last light show

before she decided
to conclude mutual proceedings
in standard mortal
Helen of Troy form

whatever and
           whichever way to
be diced

she
  not to be taken lightly

jazz of her in full worship glory
too much for
             me to bear

****
BALL

ball rolled down
a chuté

shot out
a spring

sure
thing

and me Mr Uncertainty
only ever
graduating to
Professor Still-
in-Doubt

Oh that clockwork
chocolate marionette soldier
holding the line
never
   breaking ranks

when the ball that the Universe
let itself be scooped
into
   enters our system
collides with
our planet

will all or gods confer
debate pooling their powers

the Sun sad to see
any of his vast circle
of siblings and
children

summoned and judged
assigned the fine
hairline
  cosmic justice of
planned
   extinction event

****
MANCHESTER APHRODITE

I am
always dreaming of Manchester

always dreaming of Aphrodite

she comes from
Reykjavik, she comes from
Kingston, she comes from
Tehran, she comes
the South, further
South than
Richmond, New Orleans,
Auckland, Canberra or
                     Johannesburg

further East than
Manilla, Lahore, Madras,
         Shanghai, Singapore or Osaka

further left than
Rosa Luxemburg or
Dolores La Passionaria

but I jest;
        of course I jest,

she only ever appears as you

perhaps
     she is you

and I am doomed to haunt
the dream streets, twists
and turns and
secret alleyways of
this
    city looking for you

only for
       the beauty, utter beauty
of single
devastating glimpse.

****

CONSIDERED

you read
my mind
got shocked
at what
you saw

so
phoned the gendarmerie
de sécurité
who
   getting their
wires crossed
sent a fire engine

what sights in the
streets there whereupon

mystic insight
not everybody’s cup
of tea

today even the most
vile corruption

must be deemed
ever Holy
above board and
watertight considered

****