PERFECT SENSE
they returned
from the stars
less than
gloriously poetic
but who
we were we
to tell
expecting free gifts
not extenpore pastorsls
and sonnets
our highest virtue
being utility itself
their
ultra violet skin tones
and much
mutated fusion of
every dialect of English
made everything they said
every utterance
they made
much like their poetry
and what
they revealed of
their world
something doomed in our ears
to fall desperately short
of true
perfect sense
****
GOLD STANDARD
you are
the gold standard
best
touchstone
asked for a handout
you chopped
my head off
split
the atom
stole
several body parts
oh my staccato life subject
to this debt slavery
roll over credit
what was now
roll over
play dead
or actually die
all for a few scrappy
coins in the offing
kind of
smaller
than atoms
and me
under such pressure to
edit down
this poem
get it in tune, right tone
sufficiently complicit
in every single way
WAYSIDE
the worst ones
that fell by the wayside
had to be poets
what other conclusion
can we come to?
what wealth do they bring
unto themselves
and unto all of humanity
with words and lines
well beyond the general reach?
I think about
why this
should be so, plainly
it seems to resist explanation
this compulsion to
act otherwise, play
in a different key
sing
a different song
so far beyond my comprehension
I have to reach for
the oddest of all metaphors
to get my head around it
RETURN
I rent a
flower
am renting it
right now
rented one
yesterday
this one though,
is special,
before
petals fade,
colour
fades
need to
take it back
get a full
refund, perhaps
even
accrued interest
good flower
good money
time waits
for no
man
but this
is how we
make time
time
(that strange
German sage
said it
again
and again)
time
is illusion
a fiction
time
is
return
in all
its horror
and beauty
GALLERY
I paged through my AI art
gallery
whilst you were busy
working at your craft
reports flooding in
of genocide and
impending nuclear confrontation
not enough to detract
you from your task
of penning the perfect couplet
and then perhaps, who knows?,
sky’s the limit
a further lifetime might well
need to be devoted
to the first draft of
what holds so much promise
of one day becoming
a most exquisite haiku
shining like a jewel, a gemstone,
amidst all the rubble
and detritus
of what we once were
a beacon of light
to draw us together throughout
the years of hard nuclear winter
perhaps
tattooed on skin and
thereby passed down
through the meagre generations
of survivors
more effective as message
that painting
sculpture
could ever be
which very idea I put to
my AI artist
in a flash of
miraculous intelligence
bound
to come up with something
a little off-putting since
still somewhat aliem
yet wondous nevertheless,
worthy of its place
in my gallery
never
to be seen again.
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