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
poems 2 die for 