poetry – Page 160 – poems 2 die for

WON

we came for the big game

met on the intersection
of Meridian and
Equator

we sat for the battle

you
waited in awe

they remained standard
first,
before a piece touched

they insisted on rule changes
make the game more equitable
in other words
their game more powerful

bishops
and knights

should be made invulnerable
echoing their
feudal
reputation
(“especially the white squared one”:
someone chirping
from the corner)

and then
it had to go, whole en passant rule
as unnecessary compromising
defences

and when
Kings castle on the back rank

strength of rook
alongside be
doubled from
five to
ten

to echo their supreme
nuclear strength

we came for the game
whole world watching

what
a shock it was
the day we won

PLAAS ROMAN (farm poem)

crossing the farmyard
to my domicile

trod on something in the long grass
perfectly camouflaged

looking
for all the world

like a stick

which
of course it was

my penchant for attracting
disaster wrong this instance

not the ambush predator
viper with potent haemotoxic
venom we
both assumed it to be

nor
Cape Cobra (here in
South Africa we have
the prettiest cobra)
nor Boomslang, nor Rinkhals

nor that speed freak elapid of
supreme flowimg motion

olive-gray in colour
hero of
Tarantino’s Kill Bill
but with
silky pitch-black mouth

and me
child of 53, making me
in Chinese
terms
a fellow of that brethren

slow and quiet until called upon
then red-hot writhing, razor
sharp wire

sign of the
creature closest to the
Earth (as I am now) and
thus
with such gravitas

noodle with
nuclear chemistry, one
drop

never instil

thought here on the farm
might
get away from him

hide from the god of life-
energy where

there is
no much

life energy

everywhere I look

plants sacred
to you

and the way you crushed me,
destroyed me
injected me with tragic

beginning to fear
I might be sacred to you too

never to evade you
ever
escape your clutches

as my last days run out
and I can
no longer walk your wild

or love
your women, the ones
you singled out

chose for me perfectly

dreaming of our resurrection
wondering what
you
will tell me, what

you will ask me
man to god
(schemed as a
dithyramb)

about the shared pain and ecstasy torture and beauty

of this life

(forever fall
forever rise)

SYSTEM

and now I find
and now I find

gymnast and
syntagm
are so intimate

anagrams
of each other

spooky action
at linguistic distance

but what do I know
of such unique connection

all my lovers
ghostly, some
actual ghosts

the dust of all
that was desire questioning
my stridence

gives the idea
puts me on notice

that it is
all simulation

and when you undress before me
in name only

getting the sweet syntax
up and running

see what you are up to here
Mr Shakespeare or
Earl
of Oxford

whatever you wish to go by
privately call yourself

spilling from Juliet’s lips
the philosopical truth of
a true rose

even if
a thousand years of cynicism
scepticism stands in its way

when you
go inexplicable mystery
and wrap yourself around me

making us (yes, channeling you
Professor Noam Chomsky)
branches, leaves
upon the same tree

graft taking
we can grow now together

happy
(who would not be) though
this all
feels pre-planned: our
perfect simulation

ARTISAN BAND

I try to sniff out
poetry anywhere
and everywhere

omce I thought
a few flashes in
a band on the Reeperbahn
four working class guys
irreverent, cheeky,
full of irrepressible
young life

watched them
began to get excited, thought
I saw, felt poetry there

but they
were just getting better
tighter
practice making perfect
as is the way with bands

some of their lyrucs
and harmonies suggesting
promise, revelation of something

a capturing of the heart
of rock
and roll

but I must have been mistaken
projecting my hopes upon them

tough business, hope
they make it
my artisan band

ENTIRE

you have clocked us
and cluedoed us
and played
every
game
with us

to see the world
through photoshopped eyes

to switch on that strobe light
good for interrogations

but not for
viewing from a divine perspective

all you have dehumanized
stripped of humanity
millions of God’s image

murdered
each, as your great book says,
a Universe entire

AND VANITY PRESS

I am
all about death

and vanity
press

this i
(readily) confess
to
both

woman
and
God

the chimes
in my head
both essence
of poetry
but also
cash register

and so I write
of holocaust and genocide
things that
lately delight

if not
why so tiny effort, huge
reluctance

to stop
doing so?

the sound effects of
slaughter

so much
one can do with them

FLOW KYLE

go with
the flow Kyle

trust
your instincts
at least
feel
your instincts

develop
an instinctual feel

imbibe your book
your sheets
swallow, digest
embody

then
throw away

run with what you
are good at
true to
is burning
inside you

play come
what may with
power
and way

release the huge
deluge of positive
carry
the day

FOSSIL

call me a fossil
but my eyes
are fixed like Medusa’s om
the clock that be
telling me
I got ninety
seconds to midnight

got me wondering
when midnight chimes
what in
this fairy tale
gets deconstructed, what
gets utterly transformed

and me
having to make my
own way, own
sorry way

all the way back home
forsaking the regal palace

as it warps and
shape-shifts and dissolves

as the book instructs
on practically every page
of its
dense, comple text

trapped between
such
fiery covers
(colour

in this instance
saying it all)

SUPER BOWL POEM

woke up
in time to hold off
on the SuperBowl result

worst fears confirmed when
I summoned up courage
to check

yep Brock loves God
but Brock loves
Patrick Mahomes

(does not seem
to care much about
Head Coach Kyle Shanahan)

and at this
        juncture, out of the blue,
an unruly host of
archetypes made their move
wanted to stick
         around a bit, get
the lie
   of the land in the process
of passing through me

a mad mosaic it was
for a while

many shapes and
sizes, manners and
demeanours

jostling up against each other
(Brownian motion)
excanging, debating,
doing their
dialectic dance, analysis
synthesis
no homogenizing

and there I was in a carnivalesque dream

chatting to the players in
St Francis’ kingdom
of those elevated
high above
the realms
of material wealth

peering into the abyss that
a philosopher cum psychologist
had laid
before me

a tablet broken with the
entire script jagged

and there on the road
a burnt out humvee

and there in the docks
a rusting destroyer

archetypes at home within
settling
for a game of solitaire

and me
thinking, wondering,
who does have a
prophetic bone in this
my body

is winning everything?
and if it is not

will there ever
indeed

be an end to war?

KYLE AT CHESS

After those blown
final quarters think
I should
play Kyle at chess

across 64 white
black squares

he would
not be at his best

checking on
his playbook
instead of
analyzing the
board

fools mate, scholars mate,
smothered mate
quick
into the pan
fried liver mate

one, two,
          three, West
Coast, East Coast
         Bobby Fischer
        (merciful) mate

he wouldn’t need to
worry about

the torture of
leading
heading into an

endgame, being
outmanouvered
at the end