Tag Archives: school

Changed it a little

HISTORY LESSON (JET JET BLACK)

we wuz having our
obligatory history lesson
back in ’69 at the
old Settlers’ High School
Bellville in the Cape

Mr Meiring doing his thing
to explain the Coloured people
without reference to
miscegenation,
in a racially divided,
apartheid
South Africa, that
most taboo of words

and me and Marilyn,
the Jewish beauty I was
already
kind of love with
were giving him a right liberal
dose of critical stick
for
with all due respect, if
you believe that
you will believe anything

and
long before we knew
anything
about this theory

long before
we heard (if we ever did)
of superposition, probability,
twin-slit experiments
and
quantum field wave
front collapse

generating (and this the
crazy, crazy
beyond
Mick Jagger, kaleidoscope,
psychadelic Alice in Wonderland,
genuine orthodoxy) multiple
universes
constantly splitting off
from each other

and
quantum theory going
science fiction on us, wouldn’t
you believe it

we saw
the history of our future in
every conceivable variation

saw
the Springboks lose in 95
Bafana triumph
in 2010

saw the two planes a week ago
clip the roof

of the stadium
saw a future where
half the class
had married black

saw an alternate past
where
the dinosaurs never copped it

and me and Marilyn, even
Meiring in our
lovely brash
T-Rexness, no worries
there whether
our wonderful scaled skin were
gorgeous emerald
or crimson, (king
crimson) pearl white,
caramel or jet
jet black