PLAYING THE BLACK

Tags

poem, poem poetry political moral, poetry

PLAYING THE BLACK

was playing
the black pieces

about to force
mate in two moves
but then told
a new
sheriff
in town (no ebony and
ivory coz
did not
shoot the deputy)

and black in this
brave new world
is never
allowed to win

for that is the essence of
this two-dimensional flat-world
with square checkered boxes
spaces of
death

and
life

the light and
dark of good and evil
wearing their colours
plain and simple

as the sky goes haywire with
fundamental misreading
every force needing
counterbalance
sending you
Oh marshal of whiteness, Caesar
of all white pieces,
scouting for
unsullied realms of
good old homestead meaning

reassuring
easy and prosperity-comfortable
like a Christ parable reduced
to a sound bite
psalm of David
grossly lip synched
grotesquely misunderstood

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RENAISSANCE MAN

Tags

female, poem, poetry, sexual symbolism, Universe

RENAISSANCE MAN
“Deserts of vast eternity.”
Andrew Marvell

counter-intuitive it may be
but when I walk down
the road after
hearing your voice
I feel the cosmic
pull of gravity
sense the degree to which
time is stretched and compressed
according to
relativity
and therewith every
rhythm in my body, every
beat in my heart

you
are dark as the night
the stars are set in

and so many
stars, huge
blue-white stars

and pink ones, our colour,
our sensual, together colour
greater than
the Sun, our little
almost-forgettable Sun
for brightness
and for overwhelming size

in this Universe where
our connection began
eyes, mouths first and
then
every molecule

the sonnets for her
pouring out my pen
(us just
your average run-of
-the-mill dark lady

and her
a little less than word-
worthy
Renaissance man)

SO-CALLED MEN IN BLACK

SO-CALLED MEN IN BLACK

I was enjoying a mocha latte
on the dark side of the Moon
watching aliens prepare
for Earth invasion
from their so-called
secret bases.

The name of the coffee shop
escapes me right now
but I think it is
connected to space, stars and
such like
by deep semiotic resonance
at a metaphoric level.

And anyway, much in the news,
since they threw out (or had
the aliens arrest) four
huge, manly astronauts
for wearing suits of dark colour

talking zero gravity, but
that’s enough to get you killed
if you
don’t stock up on sugar
and take your coffee black.

BREXIT STUFF

BREXIT stuff
is old hat

heard my
father and mother
talking like that

many years ago

just before
a

whiter
than white
rabbit popped
out

saying we
were on
our way

to apartheid
South Africa.

MONKEY’s WEDDING

mixed blessing
monkey’s wedding

an unseen hand
adjusting the clouds

let Mr Darwin
say what he can about wealth
as the day is evolving

mixed blessing
monkey’s wedding
(unless, of course,
the other
way round)

LEMONADE (BEYONCÉ MADE)

Lemonade
Beyoncé made

stuff
dragged from
Southern swamp

made to rock, soothe,
enflame, stomp

for
our time
a most
personal, political romp

MODIEGI MCCALL

how did my humanity
get so bleached?

when my wife
last put it through the wash
she used tropical
fabric-softener

those deft fingers digging in
yet not added much to
my melanin

TO IMAGINE RAINBOW NATION

EXCERPT FROM “SPECTRUM ANALYSIS”

SPECTRUM ANALYSIS

 
The hero of the hour
is levering apart
the bars of the rainbow
 
now, bent back upon itself,
we can at least see the light
for what it is:
the last sad flurry
of a buckling sun
 
and if we hurry up enough we
could well be in time”

Excerpt From: Garside, Damian. “Zero Gravity.” Xlibris, 2014-02-10. iBooks.
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