THE DEVIL OF MOSHAWANE
the devil of Moshawane
is writing a poem
about Moshawane
he is
writing a story
set in Moshawane
why
would he be writing
about anywhere else?
the writer is wondering
whether he should not forgo
being a devil
and become a saviour
or maybe
he can
be both
devil and saviour
one the one hand he is a devil,
on the other he is a saviour
in myth and in legend
and all the oral histories
he is a figure long foretold
steeped in mythology himself,
he fits the bill nicely
a figure who might just
have stepped out of the pages of a book
and not
just his own (unfinished) book
but an ancient tome
a necromicon for the ages
or a great hermetic text
opening a window onto
the soul’s secret paradise
shape-shifting, astral travel and
providence of alchemy
Oh yes, our devil writer
imagines himself a figure
in landscapes of
dream
and of nightmare
being
from beyond our galaxy
yet creature
of salt and soil, solidly
(as any goat of sheep) of this
beloved
Earth
biological mutant (a stiched-together son of Frankenstein)
biomechanical cyborg entity
figure whose
imagination forever expanding
whose depression as crushing in its gravity
as a cosmic black hole
imprisoned
in the network of mind, its seething
sea of incessant idea
and yet hunting for the key that
the pathway is sworn to reveal
and what if
it is all circle, all
a dance of binaries driving everything
yet
we all crying out for a story
a simple story, yet
rich
in truth
in revelation
the devil writes and writes but
cannot capture
his failure the deepest fear