ABOUT
so South is heading North
turning
things
around
the globe
in your bedroom
best turn it
upside down
South on
the Equator
giving its all
all that it takes
dreaming
a new vision
no more
Northern mistakes
so
South
heading North
simple
replacement;
this what it about
MY FLAT COUNTRY my flat country scrub divided by highway stretching further further Oh, the luxury of a small town with a library chance to drink coffee be philosophical mediocrity entropy won’t say they’re married but rented a room by the hour for much of the night and when it comes, when all stalls at risk of repeating myself Oh, what a night incomparable night
FLOW I came because of cash flow problems, ended up on the river which must have had a sacred meaning once despite being the colour of stewed tea but we all had a nice lunch — correction, everyone had a sensational lunch but me taking a turn for the worse tottering off to the tiny aft toilet (adding to the discoloration of the waters no doubt) Oh life, against the current, can be a harshly blended mixture. And me here because of matters of terminally negative cash flow not so everwhere: here houses big as colleges whose manicured gardens sweep down in lush green to the river’s edge and here is one strikes my fancy as an African replica of the Palace at Versailles lost in wonder for a moment of breathtaking economic speculation (Marx on the Moselle) but then time to go home the boat turned around. Post-lunch the workshop am here to facilitate running softly downhill.
OF BELIEF Thought I should write love poem to (and for) the world but it probably will not end how I think it should how i wanted it to thos is the issue with creation never turns out how you hoped or thought and there is no going back to the drawing board Oh the architecture happening right now in my brain, my head, lying naked on the bed in my tiny house on this farm curtains closed lights left off (even if out of loadshedding but a moment before) imagining I could just rachet up the sensitivity and feel the flowers grow hear them breathe and talking (thinking) of nakedness, my dear, is yours not overdue? but hold that thought even worse news from the Middle East streaming in pictures of Dantesque horror words of insanity, of satirical vulnerability everything up to the max pushed to extremes (not what Aristotle was thinking what he figured on teleology would derail poor Socrates in his project of self-knowledge and moral sphere) things here so naked, exposed in all their ugliness (by every metric) bleak intensity things the world of the farm would not believe and so naked as I am speaking to you calling out to you wondering what your good self might make good or best and even better in whatever illogical gradation fullness of our together might sway the nature of belief.
WRONG
you have
us wrong
you do us
wrong
we are not
the head or leg
or foot or
arm of this
thing or
the other
thpugh we may
undsrsand them
better than
you do
understand you too
better than you
understand yourselves
who once gave us
a weapon
to destroy ourselves
.
across a chess board in
the endgame
all of one player
use it
to anniliate all
of the
other
except, by
grace of God and
the smarts in our head
you saw us
met us in court
working together
despite your insults and
cheap shots
so clearly
to your detriment
unless you learn
what we have you learn
would teach you good
the way is bad
but there is another
MAMBAS so complacent and complacent yet again left-brain, right wing such recipe for human stupidity deluding yourselves into expecting slow worms when we came as mambas — venom measured to make maximum use of every critical drop and prempting rebuttal speed off ths charts impossible to catch us and how you floundered losing your sense of place and actual places slipping into paralysis mamba neurotoxic venom stealing into your system taking slow but incontravertibly catastrophic effect
WHITEBOARD
I see
two pictures
of a
whiteboard
believe
they have been
decontextualized
all the blood
washed away.
CASCADE weaponize this poem harshly weaponize it softly need to defend the indefensible suck good blood truth (and hashtag) out of my thumb opposable entity, fattest of fingers and hey hey Deleuze happy hanaka Hegel me in line with arm raised high to deflect legal contention from terror, my accomplice me now in bed waiting for breakfast, as simple as a one slice two slice open-face sandwich making for an interesting dialectic, however you elect to interpret reader writer master slave blurring of these categories, until, who knows?, look to the East! Look to the South! maybe a cascade
BY THEIR FRUIT
I have such trouble
writing this poem
my words swell fat
like overripe fruit
burst on
my page, on my fingers
covering everything with
sap wet, thick
and sticky
in colour and feel
indistinguishable from blood
and these
are the same words
the golden children of the law
use in the court room
where
such words do
not explode, do not
shatter the auditorium
with blood-juice
and bomb shrapnel
proving
(sadly, sadly)
that there will always be something about poems, about
poets
and the power
of their poetry
that remains forever
at a distance
tragically unreal
poems 2 die for