I
The rain came
the blind duo
outside SPAR warbling away
great guitar twanging counterpoint on
the great gospel classics
and me
listening, poised
uncertainly at
the flag’s edge
where falling
off the map
is not unheard of
Oh my
place of stones
your history
surrounding you
like the
ghost of
a ghost
along your great pioneer
hunter-gatherer trail
the usual museum-
worthy relics of
a lost civilization: condoms,
9mm cartridges, Castle and
Black Label labels
still legible amongst
the smashed glass
but this was no
celebration to
rival that
of an Empire
mafficking itself silly
thinking (for one crazy
deluded moment) of
the world
dancing in the street
from Cape to Cairo
no more
time here for
word of miracle
of fish, loaf, contract,
RDP house
here
under shadow of
omnipresent tombstone
the page behaves like rock
my pen bleeding ink enough
to save every pothole
so great a flow
it reminds the gods of
our time as
primeval sea.
II
Ah, let me
embrace you, my
Taung ancestor
(no point
here nor
place for
the niceties
of race)
fellow citizen, brother
consumer, heading back
from town with
painting under your arm
perfect to fill
that dining-room space
remember us
shabby poets, artists,
in that
strangely defining
Altamira genealogy
skipping between worlds like
trickster shamans
metaphoring you
again, again a
tale of
renaissance, rebirth,
of the beautiful pain
of deepest human desire
****
Gospel rapper
Jesus blaster
riddle me
why
Sunday must
rule supreme
spell out
the ding dong code
of our spiritual
sexual bodies
and what if
history
breaks its glass
exhibit case, walks
the street (like a
brash prostitute) brazenly, openly?
takes a stroll down to the taxi rank
guided by the smell of excrement
the very spaces so
well-memorized, internalized, now
radically defamiliarized
bringing
the next hotly revised metaphor
to take us, transport us
to head-place
of thinking differently
****
catch the breeze wonder
how many prayers
are kite-like floating
to Heaven on
the updraught
ballooning to
the size of Zeppelins as
they rise with
confidence, smugly
secure
****
city of potholes
of reductions, obligations
bureaucratic solutions to
lowest common
denominators
a
motion picture revelation
of hard Germanic economic truth
truth hard as
splintering siege shrapnel
as
crucifixion nails
as bad, beloved
British bayonet.
Steak
on the griddle
learn to forgive
forget
just
let it
sizzle
let the book close even
on stars than groan, stars
that scowl
be the poet
philosopher of
Minerva’s (now
featherless) owl
****
maybe I’m just
irrelevant
maybe
just waste
think thoughts of purpose
as the Sun sets behind
that huge, absurd
amphitheatre of
a sports confection
imagining an afterlife
trapped in the turnstiles
no chance to
flow, ebb
fall,
rise
something less even
than Cartesian consciousness
carried across
scratchy airwaves
than the life
spirit that
umbrellas in the rain
mushrooms under Sun
III
her body beautiful
but fading badly (pressure
of market value)
drifts in and out
of visibility
leaving its mark, mark
of ancient sexual
Empress
every time (ca-ching!)
there is a sale
Oh dark tonight of
the planet, dark
side of the Moon
garden of sweetest, urgent,
toxic blossoms
jungle in which the
dice always roll
snake eyes
(card is always diamond
trump is always spade)
and child Caliban clutching
your Kruger coins
already know will
have to
make do with ersatz,
with fake Miranda
whilst the wizard builds
banks on the
back of every storm
****
Meanwhile
who is the one
stalking you
following you
hop-
skipping behind you?
his poetry is full
of desert, there is
sand on
his lyrical tongue
if I were
orbiting or
strategically
positioned satellite
I might
give you feedback
tell you how
exactly you fit
(camouflaged/un-
camouflaged) in
this arid, self-
obsessed world
even though
you
strike me as
ant-small, lizard-
cautious, busy-bee
scuttling buzz-beetle
as you
drone your
way (every
day)
***
toll booths
taxes
proliferation of new
(imaginary) barriers
(but perhaps
frontiers)
things changing
words fading
war and
death
not inconceivable
let me stop
this Pharisee
stone cold ask
him
what he sees:
who will
cop it last, first,
fire the
corresponding shot
so much resting on
this or that
swinging like
a pendulum
marking
time
****
the rain came
put paid
to swirling
dust-
devils
as they conspired
to taunt the
parishioners
with thoughts
antithetical
thoughts outside
their frame of reference
and the SPAR couple
nearing a conclusion
yet still
twanging away
and a writer (perhaps)
writing with bone
the words
of ending returning
to beginning
finding the nowhere Rome
to which no
roads lead but
all return.
