Tag Archives: poetry

ON THE SPEAKER AT SPUR

ON THE SPEAKER AT SPUR

takes me back
Supertramp Logical Song

takes me back
not quite to Plato, Nietzsche,
Heidigger, Socrates
that
   smorgasbord of
philosophical ideas and little
old me battling
my way gorgeously
through
     Logic and
Metaphysics 101
               TS Eliot’s Prufrock
and Wasteland

and you there, Missy Libra
sleek and slim and
from the Northern Suburbs
of Johannesburg

but I couldn’t make a move
because you was obviously
so
obviously sold
on someone else

except
that someone
was
    (so, so
illogical, so counter-
intuitive
against everything
about myself
I was
told
   to believe)
me

on the speaker at Spur
the logical song

and you
telling me what I missed
all those
   years ago

showing me
just how logical
      the world can be

THE ART OF DROWNING

THE ART OF DROWNING

so many people
drowning themselves
getting drowned
in this Shelley family

save for Mary
I see Mary gaunt and
icy brilliant on an
Arctic ice floe
waiting for
the last act of humanity
to play out

myself
nearly drowned
or perhaps did
so should
not be
the one to talk

but Mary your story
still haunts, likely will
haunt forever

taunting us
with the humanity that
is death
is mapped out
aeons
into the future

soon to find itself
alive
in
the heart of the machine

CEMETERY ROAD

CEMETERY ROAD

cemetery road
ultimate
cul-de-
sac

for here
ages of souls
slumber
sleep

sounds of war in the distance
not too
far in
the distance

no one not
in that cemetery
can recall the
days the Nazis
brought their blitz
to Manchester
now under
the flag of St George
fascists of new kind
are fighting their way
into the city
Oxford Road and
all those universities
turned
I fear
into our British Stalingrad

oh, these ghosts,
do they see, sense
any of this
are they disturbed

on which side would
they fight
for which cause
would they fall

imagine themselves
dying once, twice,
thrice
many, many
times

since already dead
and my great war grandfather
what
would he
make of this

thing surely
beyond his comprehension

so
beyond yours
beyond mine
beyond all of
us

comrades, enemies
too divided here, now

to
share this poem
begin to talk

VACUUM CLEANER

VACUUM CLEANER

there’s Plato

and here’s
a vacuum cleaner

helps you keep
the cave clean
get rid of all
those transcendental
appearances
               some
great film director
must
  have left
lying around

and here I am
dusting and sweeping
giving the place
a thorough
Spring cleaning

cleaners are always welcome
in every utopia
       just have to lie
about their
poetry
    cannot be afford to
get caught
with a scrap
    about their person

the Republic of Philosophy
has clear ideas
     on the nature of text
and how
   to determine
what it means

AS THEY SAY

AS THEY SAY

they paid
the ultimate price

got you thinking that
someone lined
you all eleven
             against
a wall
          found a
firing squad
to put them
   you out of your
                        misery

miserable because
you lost the game via
a stupid
      mistake

ultimate price;
   as they say

DANBOY

DANBOY

Oh how deeply
I regret my impatience!

finding it hard
waiting here for centuries
for a poem
that will
not come

how much better
it would have been
to be
exactly like
my dear friend
Danboy
       (or brother, or
brother’s keeper
or
   something)

who moves with
such lightning speed
hesitating
    for nothing

so fast he moves
between the moments
attains a speed
    that cannot be
seen
   by God.

SOMETIMES

SOMETIMES

sometimes
                   less than
    nothing
is an
         actual quantity

sometimes it is a literal
statement of fact
that you
    could not be more wrong

sometimes I
        desperately need
to shut
out
     your erratic energy

that I might respectfully
commune with
      the dead poets before me

who did
    in their time themselves commune

this a tradition going back
to the
     very first poet
at the beginning of time