the Rolling Stones – poems 2 die for

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

GRAPE FLAVOURED DRINK.

GRAPE FLAVOURED DRINK

has always been
messing with me
taking an
unhealthy interest
in my affairs
ruining my
love life
(except for a single
stupendous orgasm
that
rewiring the switchboard
of my brain
flipped my
orientation
to transcendental)

ah, yes
first stumbled across you
in Euripides’ play
me
slipping through
the fourth wall
to commune with you

hunting down that
rather fascist King
as a matter
of legacy and
brutal vengeance

chaos and the irrational
so
wedded to

and you smirking on
the sidelines
as at the end of
that production

I danced
to the Stones, so wanted to be
pop-rock star
cult
phenomenon you
would claim
to be
created in your image

how much
I suffered from
your love
no less than others
suffered
from your hate

and she
with me that night of
cathedral
huge
sublime
flesh knowledge

falling incandescent like
meteors
to crash and
burn

finding our grounding
in the
wet
dark loam
of irreducible earth

your earth
and your wine too, being
your distinct province
as commonly
agreed-
upon deity
of it

though out of wine (red
and
white alike)

we sanctified whatever
you needed sanctifying
drinking
lurid purple, grape-
flavoured drink a

STONES

STONES

I saw the scene
in the Chess Studio film

so iconic and
yet the moment did
not know it
yet

revolution in the music
of the muddy river
with all
its deltas and
tributaries
(do not
trust me to
describe it, go read
Derek Walcott’s
fabulous poem)

broke blues legend affronted
at the cheek of these
five skinny
ultra pasty white
long-haired
dionysian ruffians

unloading amps on their turf
like it was all
in a day’s work

just part of the process of
legend, transformation of life
into mythology

yes, Mr Waters, welcome
to epic
they took their name
from one
of your records (or maybe
it was some
Jewish folk singer’s)

step opon Olympus
they say and of course
do not say

they are the music of this time
this changing time
come full circle

from hereon in
it is pure Rolling Stones