RE-RUN

Tags

Nature, Phil osophical, philosophy, poem, poetry

RE-RUN

Nature is
a mirror

in which
you become
what you
see

because of
belief in
the very idea
of mirror

this Nature herself
told me
behind
one
way glass

at the time
so
if clothed or
naked in
the nature
of her discourse

I couldn’t really say
couldn’t really tell.

POEM FOR MAGDA

POEM FOR MAGDA

“The sun is setting, the sky is a tumult
of oranges, reds and violets”.
JM Coetzee: “In the Heart of the Country”

snake slithers, belly smooth
but scales still rasping against Karoo stone and hard ground
I too live in arid place of thorn and rock

here too
prose is sparse but
sometimes electric
certainly not
poetry, no place here for poetry,
you could barely call
my speech poetry
what poetry is to be heard
is Wasteland, Mauberley, final
apotheosis of the modern
and its death rattle

snake slithers and slides
evolution is afoot, playing its intricate game
nothing abides
nothing abides

after expulsions spiritual and political
(and God knows we have witnessed those)
what place is there
to be called home with
a degree of assurance?

we wait, I wait, you wait
the great cataclysmic movement
so long foretold
and yet no sign
of this most painful
of wrenches, of being pulled back
into history

time for
re-assessment, time
before jackal and wildcat
invade all our sanctuaries, our
innermost spaces

to return
reconsider
go back to basics

house with windows and walls
food on the table

always a
sacrifice though
one
always demanded

old manual typewriter piercing
that silence
clattering away dementedly into the night

BEAUTIFUL

Tags

Beauty, Evil, Nature, philosophical, poem, poetry

BEAUTIFUL

Nature is
evil

you cannot argue so
without risking
the calumny
of complete contradiction

but only
a fool
would dispute
that Nature
can be cruel

and without
which cruelty
where
the beauty

with which
so hard
to reconcile?

PROTAGONIST

Tags

character, Fiction, metapoetic, poem, poetry, postmodern, writing

PROTAGONIST

Ah! My
protagonist

and behind him
his antagonist

quiet! he has not
seen her

they do not
know their
true identities
as yet.

FANG

Tags

Humanity, Nature, poem, poetry, Poison, Snake

FANG

snake
is
death
on a
spring

is Ph D
in toxic chemistry
into few drops
of fang-
venom

that
wisdom
distilled

yep
snake is
thing
impossible to
humanize

bite to kill
what is nutritious
full of
shit
or out
for a fake thrill

but snake
can slither
up into skull
wrap around
your mind

no human
ever smarter
and that’s
my
deadly truth

GRASS

Tags

Africa, Beauty, Divine, Humanity, poem, poetry, spiritual, wordplay, writing

GRASS

the grass
grows tall

and
beautiful

but without
radiance

I was looking
for radiance

and these thorn trees
this high grass
I could do
it justice
be the Walt
Whitman of Africa

but today
I do not see radiance

I long for radiance
my eyes so blunted
by all
the necessities
of this world

LIBERO

Tags

Beauty, Consciousness, Creation, death, Fibonacci, Freedom, Humanity, Italy, liberation, Mathematics, meaning, Metaphor, metapoetic, perspective, philosophical, poem, poetry, postmodern, ROME, writing

LIBERO

drunk on the promise of liberation
I crafted this poem whose very premise,
if you would permit me to explain,
does to
this very topic
appertain

insofar as it proposes, argues,
steadfastly maintains,
that words
be the clay
out of which all
was made

not as complete fiat but
slowly, slowly: process
of trial
and error

the code pre-established, all
the systems set in place

(this
as sure as
triangles
are
triangular,
spirals
are spirals)

all done and dusted
tried and trusted
written into the
acid of
our DNA

and so
I salute you
creatures
of truth and beauty

and fib you not
Senor Fibonacci

loving the light in
your fair land with
its paramount city

leaving your own
carefully calculated
indelible impression

and
here is the very book
in which it is written
(the one we
contest, always argue over)

so much
blood in the
sand
of that arena

why is it
that beauty must
always contend with death

again
I hold up my
net
and trident

(or sword: for
pen
best metaphor,
best metonym)

so much
marble and gold
begging the eye
to look upward
redefine perspective, dream
of long-last freedom

drunk
on those
dreams
of
a future
on promise
of liberation

under which
eternal pressure
I do write
this poem

trying to
tie up
loose ends
get
opposites
to meet

square
all circles

such ironic that libero
the word I shamefacedly stole
is actually your own

TREELINE

Tags

Crucifixion, Metaphor, poem, Poet, poetry, symbolism, tree, writing

TREELINE

don’t read
any further

go
direct

to the source;
follow me
to the tree

see how well
this theme is here expressed

the growth
slow, painstaking,
yet a
joy to
all

sorry that
my pen should
so wound you

that here you
bleed
for all to
see

your stigmata
my poetry

IN THE FIRST PLACE

Tags

Adam, animals, Aristotle, Cat, Cats, Garden of Eden, Language, linguistic, names, philosophical, philosophy, Plato, poem, poetry, The Fall

IN THE FIRST PLACE

Damn Adam for naming
the animals

why on Earth did he
feel compelled to turn
to Latin for labelling species and genus?

and why did he not
tell us their secret names

the ones they use when talking to each other
because the names we give them,
sometimes they
ignore them entirely
take for example
my cat Tinky
finer cat philosopher and
gueriila fighter you
would be hard pressed
to find

and I was hard-pressed to find her once
hunting for her high and low
calling her name (tears and
panic just
around the corner)
already about to hit the lampposts with
reward notices

and then she arrives, nonplussed,
wondering why the fuss
giving me that look cats give
regretting the stupidity of
their chosen owners

regretting their fallibility, their
lack of grace, smarts and cool

which, Tinky asks with
eyes keen as Aristotle’s, conviction
sure as Plato’s:
“were these not

the things you
had and lost
when you

forgot our names

when we had the connection
and you knew
what was what

in the first place?”

PREDATOR

Tags

human, Humanity, Nature, panther, poem, poetry, predator, Reader, shark, Snake

PREDATOR

water streaming through my gills
bringing the life-giving oxygen

I power my way forward
body so streamlined it is pure vector

dorsal, pelvic, pectoral
gigantic fins to stabilize
as I torpedo towards you
through the water
you being human
this being
no fair fight, supreme
mismatch

Oh yes, when I die
let me reborn in some
size or shape of deadly predator

hunting you down hopeless, hapless human
locked onto the smell of your blood

yes black as night and cruelly beautiful
my eyes blaze like emeralds
lit from within
my claws to catch and hold, dagger
canines to do the coup
de gras with

or slither like lightning turned into muscle
each drop of my venom there, in theory,
to wipe out an army

more than enough
to deal with you

who so
foolishly, artlessly,
entered into my target territory
whose heart
I have on heat desk

my speed
coiled up for
all such

devastating encounters

and yet
in your eyes I see recognition
absurd realization you
know me from somewhere

but I have have long forgotten you
reader, or the
wish beautifully realized

expressed
in this poem

having forgotten what it is like
to have been
human

my poetry now a matter of
rhythm and execution;
timing and kill