Tag Archives: poetry

RELEASE

RELEASE

here I am
at Woodstock 69

my head exploding in the moment
     did not think things
could change out
of all proportion

Carlos Santana standing there
wrestling with the demons
in his guitar
      ripping out my heart
serving it back to me shredded,
dripping with
     Lysergic acid

did not figure he could
mellow so
       smooth

and the end of Vietnam
lead to everything headed
in the wrong
direction

and here we are now
         having lomg said our
goodbyes to
a raw music of ecstasy
of transformative connection

music now
         filtered and distilled

served
in a box

box we would ask you politely
not to think outside of

ever dream
         that soul, spirit, body
whatsoever
     altogether

we can agree to release

QUIETLY (SAID THE PHILOSOPHER)

QUIETLY (SAID THE PHILOSOPHER)

quietly, said the
philosopher,

thus
the philosopher spake

argued quietly
should be
my default mode

here
on the edge
of an abyss

never jump to, rush to,
solution, conclusion

only after
careful inference,
                   deduction
make
   lightning leap

remember
   that a single feather
a flock doth not
of
  necessity make
still less
     an angel

though the brush of a wing
where none
      should logically be

the feel of
a beyond
          you cannot put your
finger on

may be
    different thing
                    entirely
every
   ounce of your being
shred
    and philosophical fibre

crying out for
     deeper engagement

doing so
      quietly

VERTIGO

VERTIGO

I hate vertigo

fear it
entirely

wonder what
life should be
like

could it
be at all tolerable
if it
    did not go
of own accord
consent to
  leave me

and so I am
sensitive to
the world’s vertigo
the one
that mad philosopher
wrote of

the one where all
that was balanced
is lost
    the tipping point
of fundamental energies
refusing reconcilement

in the words of the crazy one,
forever our fate,
    determined to return.

TO BE SURE

TO BE SURE

rejoice;
beware!

something
out there

a new
continent
       as yet
undiscovered?

unnamed
asteroid;
         new
planet?

something which
we found
      found us

bound to change
                everything

bringing, to be sure,
greatness and goodness

for
all mankind!

rejoice!
       beware

something out there
          already, to be sure

new planet
new continent

near
     as it is far
             

IF JM COETZEE HAD WRITTEN THE ILIAD

An old poem, decades old, was originally published in New Contrast and then in my collection, but one that seems particularly relevant at this moment in time (conquest, civilization, war, atrocities). It also implicitly warns teachers about trusting their students, they might just, as with me here, start to think themselves too big for their own boots. Smartest, most generous and inspirational human being I have ever met, this poetic perfidy of mine notwithstanding.

LET ME NOT

LET ME NOT

let me not
overlook the spectacle

climbimg
   your mountains

swimming in
your river

drinking
from your pools

but
  having lost my
breath, almost
swept away

let me
    find my feet
feel
   grounded again

find my lips your lips
my mouth your mouth
our two
    bodies

climbing, descending, rising
falling

      a fit so neat so
sweet
so
    s in splendid

for a night where time
gravity
      forgot themselves

nothing on Earth
might separate

INVESTMENT

INVESTMENT
(poem for Gary Stevenson)

I smile at you Gary
from the bottom of my pram

though I’m
not sure you would
bet on me
find me
a good investment

I think you
smile back
(though what do I know
about trust
and the people and
the world
out there that
awaits me)

you seem
a good soul, generous
smart, a good enough human
as humans would
appear
to go, not yet
done a risk analysis, calculated
the percentages

my future out there
moving past, looking in

pram, ship of state, all
the same to me now, feel
the germ
of an Odysseus (what
seas
to navigate?)

are you Achilles, Charybdis,
one of the Sirens,

figure of myth, truth and
shadow Homer of my future, just

stopping by for a
quick, blind, taste
of the future,
sublimely

quiet peep in.