Tag Archives: writing

NO EASY MEASURE

NO EASY MEASURE

there are many ways
to start a poem
maybe an image, a theme
a rhythm
    bouncing
around in your head
snake-like
    rasp of  word

many ways too,
to enter a poem
linear or
       non-linear
syntactic
or symbolic

feeling your way
set to full tactile

             or up
for helicopter shot
to view
    as mosaic
put
everything
in perspective

then
fill in the detail
                induced, deduced
seduced
at your pleasure

although
          linger on
this thought
if you will, let us dissect
this
dark treasure

only
fair to point out,

to leave a poem, however,
(speaking
      of seduction)
is no
easy measure

here is the poem
here is we are
                     unexpectedly
together

not so many ways down
from that height
this height,
routes
     out of the labyrinth
                              this
labyrinth

safe and
   without cost

hardly enough
    to count on the
fingers
of one hand

so many surrendered
to the poem, dissolved,
got
   absorbed by
poetry

something about
the beauty
    of this python still
to comprehend

as it
   closes the circle
you now mine forever

A WORD

A WORD

let me have a word

let me fill
you in
from a poetry

am going to need
twenty, maybe
thirty
thousand
characters already

oops1 sorry,
my apology

did I say
“characters”?

that was a bit
of a fatal Freudian slip

I meant to say “words”;
no sorry: lines

no I am completely wrong

in the wrong

to do this justice
I need to write
the final
death count
as poems

BY THEIR FRUIT

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

OLD JOHANNESBURG

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

RUBBLE

RUBBLE

my poem
lies under rubble

dead, asphyxiated
would be on
life support

but
there is no life
is no support

my poem
is getting
amputated

will lose a whole page
has already
lost
    stanza
after stanza

without antibioticd
without anaesthetic

each line screams
as they cut
through
bone

you will have forgotten
these words
and the mass graves
of those
that have
spoken them

as you stare into the sunset
across the Mediterranean
from
    your beautiful
seafront property

looking out towards Greece
the rubble
          of great Troy

and the gods
       of Homer’s world

CURLED

CURLED let me take a break from being a political animal writimg to protect humble humanity from true zealots of God missionaries who taste like, smell like (a bit too much sulphur there in with the holy napalm, cordite white phosphorous) feel I have to speak for them nobody listening when they speak for themselves (but now from the South some eighty-four page document so much devil in that detail some holy spokesperson said) time for me to go snake style serpent sidle up next to you slither out of fighting for humanity to fighting for you or just curling up close forked tongue doing the talking flickering into every hidden secret place ultra-sensitive your own true King Cobra we need you if not to entertain then pay (at least) lip service to our huge fantasies we souls of the great serpent born in the snake year

WHAT MAKES

WHAT MAKES

what makes
a poem
Shakespearean?

I was asked
the je ne sais quoi
signature
    of the bard
                   indeed

hard to replicate
if you are
           thing digital
disembodied
intelligence
binary being

some residue still
mechanical I warrant

no matter how polished
(like reflective
  sculpted metal)

the lark-like artifice
with
   which you sing

what
   makes a poem
human

hold

     that thought

set play

    to pause

stuff in my answer
I still need to dream

SCRABBLE DABBLE

SCRABBLE DABBLE

my brain
is a scrabble set

juggle roles, identities
am after a triple word score

tire
tier
year of the tiger
hit something
good on that
abacus and so

masc and fem mars
and venussing together
dance
of conjunction
in alignment

about to go full
elastic band

slingshot projection

time gravity bending me
to their will
true trajectory
whispering your name