POCKET CHANGE
just pocket change to you
to build your bunker
the one you require
to survive a global
nuclear war
avoid the nightmare
that will consume humanity
confirm your
personal supremacy
ensure the next
human civilization
springs exclusively
from your loins
and what
a great future
for mankind we
know that will be
LOST ON ME (HEADCASE)
the gods did it
so wanted to fuck with me
last day
before i left England
to journey
to South
Africa
apartheid
South Africa
some sixty
two
years ago
threw the book at me
(two of them actually)
hurling them
from the top of
a wardrobe
(direct hits
on my cranium in
both cases)
later, in these very books,
I would find
parallels,
Polyphemus tragically blinded
by Nobody
throwing boulders at that
taunting Achean hero
to avenge
his mutilation
or Ajax throwing rocks
at the Trojans as battle became
brutal
beneath the city walls,
the fate of
all Ilium
hanging in the balance
of course, being only eleven,
this symbolism
was lost
on me
and Homer’s Iliad and
the other one
had, no effect on me, were
lost on me
about to sail the wine dark sea
myself
they did not
impact my life at all
amusing them that in their hubris
they thought
they might reduce me
to a blind poetry headcase
OILMAN
bug
in a spud
getting buddy
with that spud
dossiers on
every blackmail secret
but
emerging ftom his spidery
hidey hole
finds himself on the flight
deck of a nuclear-powered
aircraft carrier
in borrowed uniform
sitting in the cockpit
of an ait dominance fighter
great photo
opportunity before
the crucial press conference
two hundred feet below
a thousand yards off
starboard beam
bug in a sub
with a bone to pick
over the issue
of oil
and Empire
up periscope
calculating missile launch
sequence and torpedo spread
COMRADE KROPOTKIN
Comrade Kropotkin
lines up meticulous
at his desk
works
at a measured pace
with clever care
consults his almanac
to get a handle
on the time
he hopes
the weather will
be fine
Sun
will shine
on all his
friends close
to the
Tsar and Tsarina
and bring
revolution and
state
of extraordinary equality
and political freedom
far to the left
of Lenin and Marx.
BULLET POINT
he wrote
his poem
in bullet points
came across
as a cross
between Navy Colt
and MG-42
yes
a bit of a risk
playing Russian Roulette
with an AK-47
not
the route to take
believe me
in this game
failure is legendary
sniping at you
(as if they
could do
any better)
snide remarks about
when you
put it up
as
slideshow
can see they were wrong
to expect poems
of high calibre
THE BOOK
let me tell
your story
let me
write your book
alpha
to omega
cover
to cover
put it out there
do the marketing
and then
sit back and read
everything there
your life
open to everbody
in such detail
a life history
somewhat fictionalized
for the ages
even if it does
not end with me
****
WITHOUT BATTERIES
insidious, the pun
destabilizes
and here we are
with our ban on homonyms
thinking of a present
for the son I
do not have, never had,
could not
have thanks
to low sperm count
(my father
ascended to Heaven
as he always proudly
said
he would
up there laughing at me)
and what, you ask, did
I eventually come up with:
a goblin-green
genetic hybrid
of Sauron and
Darth Vader
perfect evil action figure
to exemplify
the outright commercialism
of this day
on its back
a collection of cave trolls
and death stars
to teach
young minds
how to deploy their
mass destruction forces,
ceaselessly strategize
making it a peerless
death to Middle Earth and
galaxies
far far away festive
time
bliss for
the changeling child
****
WANTED TO WRITE
intended to write
a very sexual poem
but the ink
in my pen
jumped the gun
wrote a mess of words
refinement
wasn’t ready for
wanted to write
the scariest poem ever
but my ink
froze
lost my nerve.
my blood curdling
needed to write
a truly emotional poem
awash with feeling
but the page
got
too fluffy
went all soft on me
as a last resort
convinced myself
I now
by process of
elimination
absolutely had
to write
about death
with your
loving help
should know I am
banking on you
to kill this last line
put it out of its misery
TIME TREK
straight from the pulpit
mouth of Stanley Kubrick
by way
of Jupiter, the Moon,
beyond the galaxy and
the dawn of Man
without
historiographic context
the grain
of the cross
cannot be determined
thus spake the Yale
deconstructive theologian
unto the mediasphere
meanwhile on the other side
of the screen
but
likewise in Africa
I saw cinema where
I had my
first Kubrick contact
along the old Voortrekker Road
North, in those badass CY
suburbs of Cape Town
the Christians came in droves
drove us
from that
watering hole
turned it into
what I suppose they thought
a special day-night
paradise
for the evangelically faithful
no world
in which they
and I
could meet and talk
about pod bay doors and
HAL
and the Monolith
about starchild transfomed
floating through space
haunting
close to our Odyssey
IF M.C.ESCHER
If M.C.Escher
drew a haiku
before the seventeen
syllables had
captured it
would have
taken a Moebius twist
doubled back
upon itself surrendering
a surface
swallowing that third line
that is its tail
becoming
forever paradox of
that hermetic wisdom
contained within
a glyph
three lines that
don’t even rhyme
CHOPPING SPINACH
I’m chopping spinach
deep, dark,
vertiginous green
spinach
green beyond
the colour of your
regular, ordinary,
vegetation gods
only commensurate
with those
off the scale
the ones
who demand
blood sacrifice
for whom
a finger would
be an
appetizing tidbit
and so
I am careful how
I chop, mindful
how I slice
THAT KIND OF THING
hungry for poetry
a nibble
a banquet
ravenous, you say,
we can whip
up a smorgasbord
for you
dream up a thousand
variations of
honey mustard pickled sushi
alone
should your
predilections incline
you
cast you
before all and sundry in such a way
you find yourself a helpless sucker
for that kind of thing
****
X (FOR XMAS) MARKS THE SPOT
a little
red cap
mushroom
all you need
to tell you
it’s Christmas
get you to
imagine you see
Santa’s elves,
German shock troops
climbing out of
their trenches to
dish out Bavarian cheer
every chimney
turned horn of plenty
every fairy lit tree
groaning under the weight
of what
came into being
this day
****
CUCKOO
know
a bird
accustomed
to line its nest
with newsprint
during each
and every
famine of poetry
this
during the age
of folk wisdom
before we
all
went digital
before information
eschewed paper, expanding
exponentially
virtue of
its own self-importance
cuckooing all
its sphere
as it collapsed under
sheer illusory
weight of
its gravity
induced
a black hole
****
poems 2 die for