EINSTEIN’S DICE

in the tesseract
I came across
Rene Descartes playing
cards with the Devil

this was a quantum
environment, so

both were cheating
willing the
cards to change

such
is the sneaky nature
of consciousness

when
I win, I lose,
therefore I am
(and every
win-win a
lose-lose

from some
utterly paradoxical, diabolical perspective
ten-a-penny in
the tesseract)

BETWIXT

BETWIXT

here I am (again)
between worlds

in some
desert backwater
without the water

a nowhere being
the very deconstruction of place

walking these streets come dusk
I am intrigued at the
possibility of angels
navigating their
way
through us
invisible, unrecognized

and devils too —
though these I can generally
make out at a glance

SIZZLE

when your spit
hit the ground
it did not sizzle

which allowed me to assume
you could not be a demon
or a devil

though you bent me double
until my juice poured out

found
itself in a flow
which is
all that
is to
be known about

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OBSERVING PANDEMONIUM

the devils erected Hell
in next to no time

wonderful architecture if
you have a taste for high kitsch, or
respect modernist brutalism
on a truly legendary scale

quite eclipsing
Speer’s model for
the new Germania

or our own
relatively modest efforts
to build a
fortress palace there
in the backwoods, where
everything is
pristine
and there is no time for
darker, industrial arts

SYMPATHY TIME

Have a few music CDs in my iPhone including the Rolling Stones — whose music I always associate with big changes in my life. But it came as a huge surprise when I sat down at my desk on campus first thing this morning and Jagger’s voice suddenly thunders out of my left trouser pocket: “Please allow me to introduce myself, I’m a man of wealth and taste…”

of all the songs to hear suddenly from nowhere: SYMPATHY FOR THE DEVIL

I suppose I can say I’ve been warned.

THE DEVIL IS IN MY POEM

The Devil is
in my poem

raising, raining down
issues of
symmetry,
asymmetry

making my poem
a polished mirror of my
fears and inadequacies

a freezing
rain
a hot rain

and from jungle to desert in
the blink of an eyelid
(I think they call this jump
or match cut)
Devil constructs a scenario
sketched out like Dogville
to tell me
what is pauper (actually
show
rather than tell)
and how it might
to prince elevate

yet speaking of crane shots
God is here too — like
grass between concrete

stuff small but of such power
just must
reveal and
be revealed.

MILTON

Milton: now there’s a
round head difficult to
fit into a
square hole

of all the Puritans the
most cavalier and
yet deadly to a King

but then why the body made a mockery
raised from the grave to
be properly hung

whose words
lash deeper than the
wounds of Lucifer
whose
mind brought us all
tumbling in our evil
from Paradise
to that
most wretched
enclave of power, malign
political space.

MY DEMONS

I was in the wood
when my demons assailed me

spoke with
so many voices
I assumed each leaf to
be devil-tongued

and as I listened and
the words
entered through
a kind of
dark osmosis

I thought of you
with your single truth and
golden breasts

parable of the good that now,
even should I have wished it,
could possibly not save me.

FAUST

I am a feeble Faust
clutching at
golden straws

will sell my soul for
an annotated Goethe
or scribbled on Kierkegaard,
for the hand of
Helen of Troyeville, Johannesburg,
but not just
the hand
but the hair and eyes
and every other part.

IN THE DETAIL

IN THE DETAIL

Lady
careful with those
blowtorch lips
those red
hot fingers

this body belongs to the direct
descendant of
Catholic martyrs
whose enemies
burnt their flesh with more holy conviction
though far less
religiously and
no fine
attention to devilish detail.