SHADOW KING

Tags

arrogance, macho, male, narcissism, poem, poem poetry political moral, poetry, power, pride, satire

SHADOW KING

He is
the Shadow King

you secretly always
wanted, the great
Imperator to
absolve from
troublesome
thought, tiresome
responsibility

Messiah down
from Heaven
to live
in your
heart of hearts

or perhaps
your intestines
twisting and unraveling
as it all
falls
apart.

SPLINTER

he’s smart
that guy
in the mirror

no he’s a
sucker

try to
sucker punch him

see his face splinter
his blood

all
over your hand

SUN PEDESTAL

SUN PEDESTAL

was trying to
climb that high pedestal
pissed at all
the riff-raff already there (easy
it turns out to
ape genius)

scratching, clawing
desperate to see, feel the Sun from
a couple of feet closer

the sheer delusion of it
only hitting me when I was
almost there
about to
win
or fall
feet closer

NOTHING CAN RESTORE (die koeel is deur die kerk)

Nothing can restore
in Afrikaans they say
(I say) the
bullet has already
travelled through
the church

and it does not matter who
it was aimed at
or why

it always hits
Jesus by mistake, and
the apologists and
damage -controllers
rush in
to protest
having carefully worked there way
past the money -lenders outside
the temple

loud-hailing, megaphoning, taking the top-Nielsen rating media spots
to proclaim
that this was not
Jesus, just a
statue of him, a crude icon,
a (missing the irony) pale
imitation
and now since this
is now written in longer than
15 minute electronic stone
who are we (we
little humble
expendable people) to
disbelieve them?

IN GOOD COMPANY (ON OUR BLUE ALIEN WORLD)

dawn another
day on
the alien planet

so many
different species, races, cultures
words that I do
not understand

alone
on a hostile, vicious,
caring, beautiful planet

the Mother that
nurtured that
secretly (the
tragedy
of
our separation)
I hate

in good
such good, like, alien company

LAST AMENDMENT

I am a
mirror
but you
cannot see
yourself

you say
there is no image
and if there
were
it could not
be me

I hold a mirror
vainly trying
to capture
what it is in
you I
see in me

and then you look
the mirror clouding
over as
in a fairytale
and the
voice that speaks there
tells you there
is no me