FIRST STRIKE
aliens havs taken control
of Parow library
they are using their plasma
weapons to take out
all the poetry
classic novels and
books of philosophy
there were
not so many
but all are now gone
this alien high command
circling the northern suburbs
in their mothership
are openly
celebrating as
a titanic victory
the human race needs
to be even more unread
dull unimaginative
and stupid
to become the compliant
servants and slaves
the great
alien think tanks
are convinced we can be
INSIDE
poem is the fiction
of interiority
trying to persuade itself
it is
what lies inside
ad infinitum
again and
again
and again
sometimes with quite
spectacular transformative effect
(who in
their right mind
would doubt there
is an
inside
after that?)
MANUAL
this is the manual
that goes with
the reading
of this poem
it is not a manly manual
since it has to accept
shifts and slides
facts seduced
and opening themselves
up to
surprise reversals and
ongoing (nigh bottomless)
process of
constant interpretation
leading to
infinite possibilities for
re-
reading, rethinking, reinterpretation
and yet
even though metaphor
is itself a metaphor
is shot
through with metaphor
I do indeed need
to get my meaning across
this stanza break first up
but then
from me to you
so that you might run
with it, or perhaps walk
or at
least crawl
tenor vehicle literature
is a machine says Mr Calvino
but would
not wish for you
to stumble and fall
before
you are behind the wheel
before
you get the feel
before you are writing poetry for yourself
poems 2 die for