Tag Archives: postmodern

CHANNELING

CHANNELING

a pretty derelict
unused space now
(like an
interstellar void)

but once
tge SkyVue drive in
used to cover
acres of territory

and the bush under the screen
where as kids
we played
cowboys
and savages

remember that screen
well it used
to fill half the night sky

saw Spartacus there, and
Cast a Giant Shadow

which wars, it seems,
never really died

Rome always lingering
Empires of Man versus
Empires of Heaven

but now
the whole planet
is our
screen

we have screens in our pockets
screens in our heads
inescapable
channeling

and there enough projection
to fill every known desert
desert of the real
Neo

truth having
dissolved, truth crucified
by fiction

truth’s fate to be enslaved
by the narrative of the day

and like
the poem says we
have all
become cyphers, organic
little molecules
in the dance of supreme fiction

the new reality to be
broadcast twenty-
four seven

dreamworld Neo, germane to
the Zhuangzi parable

cowboys, savages, think
like
a butterfly

the wild gift of technology
the premise to allow

without any
lingering sense of irony

to speak of self as supreme,
and, yes indeed, the world


.

OLD JOHANNESBURG

OLD JOHANNESBURG

waiting by the roadside
in old
       Johannesburg

maybe
     resurrection
will
     befall me

maybe redemption
will come my way

failing which
              perhaps

a circus or carnival will
come
     round the corner

sweep
    stubborn old ideologies
off the street

as serious joke or
perhaps just giggles

a parade of Zizeks
tumbling past me as if
Red Square
           comedy

where figures from the
Commedia del Arte
are here
       to replace tanks

look
   seriously at the world and
it suddenly goes
Toy Town

confirmation bias
on open display for
everyone to see

      fat
conspiracy here:
buses passing every few minutes
not stopping for everything
the drivers
             believe

waiting for the curtains to open

waiting for the means
transport a boardgame
           on my back

set
of lewd Cluedo
              for whomsoever might
wish
to join me

help me
to survive
life on a billiard sphere

hustling to get by
wanting to be Master
always
      a slave

waiting for the lights
to darken

have
lost the book
in which
I was made
        

****

after a
while

everything
slithers

snakes and
ladders

perhaps better to
devote time
to generating boardgames
rather than
squandering my existence
writing
    poetry or composing fiction

****

bumper to bumper stacked together
owe it to them

    to not close my eyes,
keep looking

or everything before me
will disappear

and this funeral procession
miss its target

some poor
exclusive dignitary

about to skip his rendezvous
with captivating tombstone
of proportions extreme

so much here
so mechanical

yet so many
vital nuts and bolts

****

bureaucracy
is horror

      bureaucracy
              is death

I sat with
Slavoj Zizek

through yet another sunset
telling jokes

about philosophers
telling jokes and
    the end of the Universe

(not that this necessarily
implies a causal connection)

today the lawyers
of old and new Johannesburg
are
   heading North
with a holy bone to pick.

I sat by the roadside
     play after play

oodles of
         words, scenes,
dialogue
                                even

             still in my head

ghosts of tales
still
     to be told

            (media marvels yet
to unfold)

old Johannesburg

LIKE IT

LIKE IT

I like it when
even
   in full flow
(the joy
of flow)
you catch exactly
how your
mind works
how it all works

have your
self-reflexive
meta moment

finish the poem
with its special twist

and the Universe
(whether it is
              real or
simulation)
smiles and
           welcomes you
to postmodernity.

FOLLOWED

FOLLOWED

followed Jacques Derrida
down a rabbit hole

seriously
name-dropping all the way

saw Slavoj Zizek
and all his twin twizzle
and tweedle brothers

who asked how I could
have been so sure
that down was the direction
I was heading
  when, counter
intuitively, up might
equally
      make perfect sense

and I
might be twin too
Moon cavorting on the lunar surface
doing sibling-style stuff
with young
    Castor and Pollux

and other twin
who penned that tune
I am the Walrus and Richard and
Karen
    in such seemingly
beautiful harmony

Oh you cannot
     put a cat in a box
and have any kind of certainty

you cannot come up with truths
you can always reconnect

the very land we stand on
slipping and sliding
so slippery-slidey

what
     we have before us here
(not referring to the tea party)
so different
    from what I was thinking, what
expected, and
what I almost fancied
I was destined to express

THAT WILLIAM BLAKE CHARACTER

THAT WILLIAM BLAKE CHARACTER

saw that William
Blake character
on social media

disagreed about the war
had a few sharp words

fresh from this exchange
looked him up
found
   not a word on Wikipedia
save a reference to a character
in a Jim Jarmusch film

which seriously flustered me
for I had got this notion
into my head
   about this far from prototypical
radical
      early nineteenth century
English Romantic poet

but seems it is all a myth, a false flag,
huge disinformation

which 
     stands to reason,
for if there were really
a Songs of Innocence and
a Songs of Experience

think how
different the world would be

FROM KENDRICK LAMAR

FROM KENDRICK LAMAR

strange perspective
you get
married
to a robot

watching the gangsta
rapper winning
the big award

tattooed arm, backwards cap
thanking God
  the great promoter
(looking up as he does so
this shredder of
    convention)

and me and robot gossiping
about the whole thing
kind of laughing (much
robot ha ha
tears in her eyes emoji
laughter) paused

for a moment
while she downloads
acquaints herself with
the entire history
of rap lyrics, hip
hop music

converts this poem
in a flash to the style
of Eminem and
then Kendrick Lamar

so a feeling for poetry
    perhaps because
I named her
Sappho

we still for the Nobel Prize
for Eminem
    joining TS Eliot
and JM Coetzee

the speech and
lecture in Stockholm
  from Kendrick Lamar

SOMEONE ELSE

SOMEONE ELSE
“My only regret in life is that
I was not born someone else”.
                 Woody Allen

you looked through that
special drawer

for mementos, treasures,
precious relics of time past

you you found were
poems, love poems
written
    for someone else

told
their own story

self-
explanatory

no comment necessary
or required

it is always; there
is always
     someone else

it iz in the nature of desire
who we are
     you don”t need
a doctoral thesus on
Jacwues Lacan

to figure it out
    but it just might help

things
might help

and everybody ultimately
knows that ws all
want, wish
   we were someome else

want to pour our hearts out
to somone who might love
us, want us
or at least listen

but they have no time
for you
      and your pain and
all ypur somebody else troubles

becausw
   in the hearts they know
what you are
is
    less, is negative
is not what

they thought

          too young you were
to figure out the disappointment
on all those faces

first breath
you took

    meant for somebody else