ANNAPURNA

Tags

Humanity, identity, Metaphor, mountains, poem, poetry, writing

ANNAPURNA

“you can never climb in vain”
Nietzsche

let us not
be too quick
to pooh pooh slow

we being creatures
of instant energy conversion
dreaming of light velocity

no, it’s slow and steady
when it comes to
giant mountains

what began with whim
continued with supreme conviction
in the time to see
it through

present us
with a challenge

whose conquest is about
the testing of our mettle, taming
of our being

seeing if
we are up

for hero’s journey
where the climb
gets
vertical

when the philosophy of life
flies so
far off base, soars

so
high

you’ll need pure
oxygen to
come to terms with
its deadly levity

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K99B

Tags

Capitalism, Consciousness, cyberpunk, Dystopia, erotic, Humanity, identity, Life, meaning, Metaphor, philosophical, poem, poem poetry political moral, poetry, postmodern, poststructuralist, satire, science fiction, Sexual, Sexual innuendo

K99B

“buggier than batshit”
Philip K Dick

downtown Tokyo
(not sure if it was TOKYO B66
or TOKYO C67)
a drug-addled psychic
grabbed me
said “listen, bitch
godda gedda grip”

then disappeared
(magic being the
art of
pure distraction)

and so
they were throwing Jesus bombs
up and down the street
would like to say
that for you, my dear,
I caught and saved one

but it wouldn’t be true
not even
mythologically
certainly
not spiritually

and as for me and you, is
there any truth more questionable
than ones we
presume sexual?

(Nietzsche and Bukowski’s ghost-like grins
signalling approval
I shoe them away
no time for dead prophets
or
homeless people)

before long they had latched onto me
sex-selling Androids, because I fit the profile
(nothing capitalism cannot do
when it finds its
imagination)
and of course, retina-scanning my memory
then all
shapeshifted accordingly, enterprisingly
into form quite like you

same eyes, hair voice and
obviously skin colour

but as for
more intimate details, well
then I’d have to
ransack my account, push up
debts payable

and what fun is it really
what joy in the afterglow

cuddling with steel and fiberglass framed
as binary equation?

advertisements for this that and the other
as room-sized holograms, projected, freely given

somewhere someone
having had a huge brain-wave
regarding those on the edges
margins of
the system
how they
might be brought home, brought in
to the centre, the heart
be perfectly aligned

this
in downtown Tokyo or
Detroit or
Johannesburg

Johannesburg D55
or K 99B

OTHERWISE

Tags

Humanity, identity, machine, Philip K Dick, poem, poetry, Sci Fi, science fiction

OTHERWISE

yes Mr Dick I wish
to walk in and out of alternate timelines

travel to distant galaxies uncertain
whether or not it is all a hallucination

whether or not
I am a machine

programmed to believe I am organic
conscious, cognitive and
in all things relatively undetermined

no otherwise that I have not as yet suspected
lurking somewhere in the back of my brain
on the margins of my system

about to
assert its claim
to the heart of my being

TWO

Tags

Africa, climate change, Democracy, Ending, Global warming, Humanity, poem, poetry

TWO

going to vote Jumanji
going to
vote
cradle of
humanity

vote for
the species
inside and
outside

vote for
the scullery
and yet University

the circus and
the zoo
better
rethink
those too

along with the
oceans rising
cutting continents down
to tiny islands

showing the dots
we failed
to connect

the two to
add to two

NEW

Tags

corporate, economic, feudal, Humanity, Medieval, poem, poem poetry political moral, poetry, postmodern, satire, servitude

NEW

the new Medieval world
fully postmodern, fully feudal
no single, absolute authority
political or spiritual

just so many Divine Emperors
Godkings, ten-a-penny

and you
reborn into slavery,
resurrected under the
sign of the corporate logo
branded into
your flesh

no Christ
to save you

FROM THE PAGE

Tags

dissent, Fascism, poem, poem poetry political moral, poetry, totalitarianism, writing

FROM THE PAGE

was writing, writing
writing

could not get the words right
(right meaning “exact”,
not in league with
some
masquerading devil

who would march us up
in our regiments, crisply uniformed,
to the iron
gates of Heaven

where angels with machine-guns
check our credentials
let us In)

no the words, as you see here, were
running away from me
flying off at tangents
swirling on the wind
without focus or power

and who would read such
preposterous metaphors,
ridiculous images
Cassandra warnings of
the end to all polity?

and yet
hopeless as the poem is
however ineffectual

the forces of denial are battering away
smashing at my door, pressed up
against my window
desperate to prevent my pen
producing a line, managing
a choice phrase

for this dominion must be absolute, no
dissent is
tolerable

even this sad, worthless effort
blood-washed from the page

GOLDEN

Tags

Alien, Apocalypse, apocalyptic, Ending, gold, Humanity, ironical, irony, poem, poetry, South Africa, South African, Viking, Voyager

GOLDEN

the Earth is uninhabited
someone scribbled over the great text of life

but do not fret
they have sent my image into
deep space stuck
to a spacecraft
somewhat
out of frame

my image photoshopped
on the side of beauty
whitewashed (whiter
than I if
that were
possible)

and so, this golden me, made
in South Africans, heading out
across the galaxy
longing for the
embrace of an alien
whose civilization outlived us, surpassed us,
who scans our
record scratched upon that
divine metal
hoping he will
give me

more than just
passing glance

ignoring my complicity in the oppression
of those who dug this metal

who saw the
raw of this wealth, dug
with gnarled,
battered

unrewarded hands

THE JOY

Tags

energy, Fire, Humanity, joy, Life, Nietzsche, pain, poem, satire, star

THE JOY

you struck
a match

in the
darkness

but
burned your
finger

the pain
the pain

the
joy

sheer
joy

fiery
as a
star

ALIENS

Tags

Alien, aliens, dark, Evil, good, Humanity, Light, philosophical, poem, poetry, satire

ALIENS

invasion, colonization,
tutelage

there are only
two kinds of aliens
in the Universe
out in
our galaxy

those which
blaze like stars
mirroring our light

those that mirror
our darkness
our
pitch black
night

we the
very worst
I’d all these aliens

in whose deepest space
these
forever fight

POEM ON WORKERS’ DAY

Tags

poem, poem poetry political moral, poetry, ROME, slavery, slaves, socialism, socialist, Spartacus, workers

POEM ON WORKERS’ DAY

so I pulled into Rome
on workers day
to debate liberty
with some slave owners

wore red
which I had difficulty explaining
would be our colour

not the colour of Empire, of
its soldiers and legions

there, within earshot, a Thracian gladiator training,
his sharp Greek philosophical mind
listening to the debate
taking

as he dies on the cross of ultimate rebellion
all that was said to its logical conclusion