The Late One

A dead bird dropped by my window sill

To see if I perhaps remembered still,

How she’d swoop, slicing through the wicked air,

Burning, in ecstasy, her worm to snare....

Into Serengeti

Come love, hold my hand softly, let us wade
Like dust through this dry grass, bare boundless grass,
Grass that breaks out into tree spots that shade,
For our relief, all moments that’ll surely pass.

Can you not hear the false acacia prattle?
Yes, ‘Karibu’ is welcome in Swahili.
In the rooms you can hear good women whisper
‘But not in this cold water’ and toast should be crisper.
See that school girl now, how she smiles freely,
When it rains she’ll be raped, or sold for cattle.

The carrion king in his royal glide,
Bald pate spotted with rotting flesh, froze,
Tucked in his lump of throat, and marked with nods
The moan of lions twined in post coital repose.
In nearby huts, the militant Maasai’s rhyme
With snot and treacle together contrived
To our taking in of all trinkets that chime.

The man with the camera twists time and light,
So well suffuses with meaning and might,
Ox heads, or the hind jambs of wildebeests.
But in the flint of doe eyes will I feast?
When she smiles I am sure to lose my heart at least.

Come love, let us lie under this red rock of life
Here is the cradle of man, the womb of strife
We can sleep now, dust in dust, gorged in its shade
Tonight, you can show me how god was made.

Purpose

Some say that purpose is a matter of overcoming contradictions, of forcing one path, of willing away the other voices, from within or without. Then there is an end. Then, with luck, meaning. But the trick here is to not question that meaning, not open that box of cat. For how could purpose ever be the cure of paradox? Eyes wide shut, maybe. But purpose.....purpose is at best like finding oneself, an oxymoron.

What makes you unique?

With brandished wit, wisdom, and probity
Of structured aesthetics, like me,
Ten thousand snowflakes sought back the sea
To question whence its uniformity

I'm a believer

I saw death depressed, in a rut, recumbent,
silk shroud slipping off a greasy paunch
Spotted with spit and the flesh of chicken
deep fried in palm wine, which he now and then
Licked at to soothe a chapped underlip, all the
while regarding with envious haste a haunch
Of pork that lay wasted on the prophet, who
but sat instead philosophizing on women
And the general impropriety of underclothes

The lost serpent

The inconsequences of my life are reared in muted strife against the absurdity of yours, not poised to bite, nor to burn out, prepared; but unfanged, ashamed, with only this hiss to curl, whimper, and abide.