SIDETRACKED

Tags

Africa, Cat, philosophical, poem, poetry

SIDETRACKED

nothing gets sidetracked
like a cat

can see it live when
the pupils get dilated
eclipse the irises like
dark moons

sometimes
I must be cat
(sans fur species, tailless
two-legged variety)

because I get
so sidetracked
my world
pushed to the side
like a typewriter carriage reaching
the end of its line

and how sidetracked I must be
to have ended up in Africa right
on the Ramatlabama border
father
to Bengals
lover of a woman
whose name I mispronounce

spots before my eyes as my tiny big cats
leopard (and cheetah) spot past me

need
to get this sidetrack thing down pat
go off
the rails in this strange, accommodating space
ever so gracefully

ENCLOSURE

Tags

cosmos, poem, poem poetry political moral, poetry, South Africa, Universe

ENCLOSURE

I slept in your gardenof divinity
plucked
from the tallest trees
the sweetest fruit

and some really exotic low-hanging stuff
really accommodating and utterly tempting

this
unit men with clipboards
summarily walked in
told me
these days of gathering
were definitively over, not
just numbered

villains from
world of William Blake
on steroids guess
they must
have been
in the sad history of enclosures
the final chapter

and thus
kicked out, I wandered around,
my mind filling up
with thought most nebulous

crazy stuff, of the kind
even new-age conspiracy would not allow

such as
the ambivalent, alien to us
yet close
to us. gods
that walked the Earth
were trying to communicate with me
in ancient images and symbols
rendered post-
industrial via the most
license of translation.

And so
a fruit factory it is

must accept this outcome quite
unselfishly

(ancient Dionysus locked
in legal combat, unable to claim
himself as
his own intellectual property
now industry has
proclaimed themselves
the gods of music, dance, drama,
chaos and wine)

Oh so
much anger
now I know
where Blake was coming from

now I know
how he feels

wicker man burning
in a basket of fire

that you
might have tea and scones
with cream and jam on them

that you might
return from the hypermarket
with blood red Shiraz or
greengold Chardonnay

****
no third act
possible

so don’t
get your hopes up

here
through this door
for the second

and tracking shot
across the galaxy now
in deepest starless space

or perhaps
downtown Johannesburg
(no, definitely not
the backslope of
Devil’s Peak
in Cape Town
where
the life sort-of
behind this poem
contrived
to
get defined)

Ah, yes, Hillbrow
I saw that picture
saw what
lies behind
each
high facade

space
is power but
here I fail
I am
no warlord, no
Genghis of the rent
(each crevice in
the housing laws
begets
a Golden Horde)

no
place here
for those
who do
not have
the gene
for war
left Sun Tzu’s treatise
out for show,
to impress
purely for the art
of other conquest
seemingly ever-ready
to be
re-consumed and
to re-inspire

strategically positioned on
the love-pillow or
naughty night stand

***

be fruitful and multiply Johannesburg
when I
said there was
no
third act, well,
sue me — I lied!

divesting myself of my no-place-
in-this-economy milky
minded mindfulness

throwing it out
of the window

through the pod
bay door

so to speak
so to speak

not the place
for any kind
of would-be, needs to be,
less long suffering
poet in residence

for Plato’s moral
mathematical citizen
infinitely less

(for how long
have they, these philosophers
been telling us
the Cosmos
needs a lube job

and other
acts of essential housekeeping
to ensure
it is
a much, much
nicer and more human
better prison

this to which
we are condemned
as consciousness

(at this point the poem
just breaks off) .

AT LEAST: CHRISTMAS IN MOSHAWANE

Tags

Christmas, poem, poetry, South Africa

AT LEAST: CHRISTMAS IN MOSHAWANE

not the Christmas music you would expect
now midnight has struck
this Moshawane Christmas

the air smoky with the joy
of barbecue fire
I slept through it all almost
nearly missed all the fun

and truth is
plagued by Covid, a world
degenerating into bizarre nationalisms
that turned to the internet
for its wisdom, its
principles and
philosophy of
moral guidance

we need something to
remind us of
where
we should be
what
life is meant to be

united under Heaven as one
species, one humanity

until
the last of these songs has
been played
enjoyed

ride the tide
of goodwill for
all it
is worth

at least

NOTWITHSTANDING

Tags

poem, poem poetry political moral, poetry, South Africa, South African

NOTWITHSTANDING

dig dig dig
you will not
find anything
too late
to find anything

yet I can reveal
the history here
is
just
shady deal

blood that
cannot be bought
with gold
of diamonds

this notwithstanding
was
nevertheless purchased

for a song by
the sharpest, wildest,

now the
richest and
the best

so dig
along this seam
of memory

nothing here
ever forgotten

notwithstanding no
hope of payback

DIGGER

Tags

poem, poetry, Roy Campbell, South Africa, South African

DIGGER

digger dug
he found
your gold

somewhere out there
in the veld

and there you were in Spain, I recall,
dig in with the fascists despite your humanity
that flag
more conducive to your great faith

amidst all those fireworks, and yet,
such small prelude
you and the surrealists
at each other
free of licence, having
a truly poetic war

committed not to
kill or would but excoriate
bring back in a cage
that beating heart

and then digger dug
up something else
an old assegai
from your days
close to the soil of Zululand
a beginning here
a pointer perhaps

the blade aimed at the prestige destined
to befall you
the literary battles, sniping
from the back

all so transparent, clear as crystal
rather than flawed diamond

lightning flashes
as it comes back to me
such words
of singular wit

behind that
as always, the passion for light
as means
to the Earth’s signature

the sadness
there unmistakeable
if only
words could,
did
mean more

****
the mine they mined
closed now, exhausted

there
on the very spot
where digger first dug

down on my bucket list
I wrote: see and capture the joy
of your
Camargue horses

the ones in that poem, in that collection
a first edition in the bookshop
but a bit
too pricey

HARBOUR LIGHTS

Tags

erotic, Ocean, poem, poetry, South Africa, South African

HARBOUR LIGHTS

it’s a long, long time since last
I saw the lights of the harbour
reflected off the glum oily night-black
surface of the sea

after which my thoughts
are drawn outwards following the tide
as it elects withdrawal
pulled
deeper and further
into that balmy tropical sphere
following that
warm ocean from
where it hugs
the continent

they named it Indian, and so
hard to divorce these waters
from all spiritual meaning

hard to
tell it to
bring no dreams or desires as
we float gradually East

I was in the thrall of such desires once
parked in my car with you
right on the foreshore

there in
the backseat
you taught me many sutras and gitas
of soul sexuality

the waves crashing
who in
such
a blessed situation
would decry such
a cliche?

THE DIFFERENCE

Tags

Difference, poem, poetry, poststructuralist, satire, South Africa, South African, writing

THE DIFFERENCE

your poetry
is some of
the whitest
ever

not
a
good look
for a
South
African

poetry so
white
you can

hardly
read
what is
written there

NO LIE

Tags

comic, cosmic, poem, poetry, South African, Universe

NO LIE

there’s a fireball
on my stoep
No lie!

it burnt my meat
torched my braai

singed all the hairs
of my chest
and boep

and all my beer
just evaporated

Shame, you said
thinking minor cosmic
inconvenience
not alien invasion
failing to comprehend
the gravity
of my situation

for when I swore at Heaven
the sky
just erupted
in laughter

all those evil, demonic stars
itching to destroy me
flirting with disaster

SOULMATE

Tags

Fascism, poem, poem poetry political moral, poetry, satire, South Africa, South African

SOULMATE

me my soulmate
at the fascist braai

she was drinking beer
from a broken bottle

her boyfriend got aggro
at the way I was checking her

put his
face in
my face

so
I displaced
it for him

Note: South African English
“braai” = barbecue
checking = looking at, admiring

RETURN

Tags

Britain, empathy, Hitler, Mafikeng, poem, poem poetry political moral, poetry, refugee, South Africa

RETURN

feel the dirt between your toes
and then tell me
what you think about empathy

my Mother, when she was
young and beautiful and
more free-spirited
(she could not have foreseen
the dementia that awaits)
worked in our little English
Pennines town (going by
the less than picturesque
name of “Mossley”)
told me how the woman
she worked for, a Czechoslovakian
Jew and refugee from Hitler
treated her kindly, but
kept that chapter in her life
as a unspoken mystery,
saddest of secrets

and here I am
on African soil, here
on the outskirts of the
famous siege town
where hinged the
entire credibility of
an Empire

sun-browned, hard farming men
with Mauser rifles
had their lines here
so close to
giving Victoria
the shock of
her nice life
and her smug, public school
Generals the shock of their
pith and khaki overrated
two and three stars

and they too
down the line
would have to
learn that
hard, hard lesson
of acceptance
and empathy

they too
of all people

history would reveal

and so
to those unsteady boats
ridiculously small inflatables
crossing where
the Conqueror trail-blazed
nine centuries (and then some) earlier
where
Hitler had hoped to follow

find poor Mrs Beck and
her quivering family

deal
once and for all
with that troublesome empathy

with it
at large
where would the men of iron and blood
and concrete
be?

Feel the dirt
same for all of
us
’tis common

only to be shared
when
to that great, final dust
we make our return

no refusal there
of space, of accommodation