In this world whorl
Faintness of mind
Absence of deduction
Bleakness of vision, and
Mashing of consistency
Scare me.
So now then:
Season be my reason
Reason be my guide.
Men are foolish, and their women also:
The raindrop, gaining weight,
Faithfully drops to the ground
The heating water ascends
The morning mists disperse
Upon the rising of the sun
All the mighty rivers
Obediently follow the dip of the land,
In their majestic flow
The thin-feathered bird serenely
points wing to air
Upon the onset of winter
In search of warmth in other lands
The tree, through all time,
Freely and abundantly gives of its nourishing fruit
To all that thirst, hunger ;and yearn.
Plugs fit neatly into their sockets
Cigarettes burn as they are lit
Trains follow their rails:
Men and women do not. They do not.
They are foolish.
Crack my joints, I can feel the pain
Depression run over me like tar
A jingling noise in my worn, tired mind
There's a whole lot of things cutting me up
Lord the gore, the sore, the bore
The putrid stillness, sick familiarity
Of dumb, blunt appearance
Show time, show them your teeth
There is nowhere to hold
So slippery all round, so jittery
Maybe I should go up the mountain
And grow me a long beard
Then dourly examine doings below
But still rest won't come
My mind is not an easy clinic, you know
For all and sundry to walk into
Fulfilment, satisfaction; hard to come by
Hey, you God, hands up:
What did you put man out for
If you couldn't put a better taste in his mouth
Why suffer him all this misery
Gnarled, grilled tooth-edged heart
Plays it horrid sad part
The grilling, paralysing estrangement
Strange laughter of scattered brains
Tooth upon tooth nail upon nail
To leave us all spinning in bewilderment
Wet church songs sang over rigid corpses
And it's hard to tell who is more dead
The standing or the encoffined
The gore the sore the bore
Days are but dry pieces of twig
Empty of emotion of feeling of compassion
Indifferently blowing on the opportune winds of time
Caring not where they go nor what they do
And I, caught up mercilessly in there, enmeshed
Am I to be crowded, bumped and scorched?
No. I lift my hands.
Soft touch; on lowdown keys
What is it like, to have such
an overflowing sentience
My lips are bunched up against
the sky
Coldly seeking no more human touch
Having got so scorched
My sorrows, where they lie
Will they ever sleep?
They are like fat maggots
Churning round and round even
around the splashes of fleeting bliss.
I have built this castle before
All glistening and sheeny;
but have had to live alone in it.
My song has been sung into outer space
Evading all incidental ears
Echoes, all just echoes
Freezing away on the cold planets.
Love, we have tried hard to love.
Repelled, repealed, bruised.
Our longing hearts have smashed
- Abrasively, searingly, tearingly -
Into crumpled, frowning, woeful, twisting
emotions,
Really a clash of incompatible sounds,
scenes and colours
We have coiled up onto ourselves, withdrawing
surprised and hurt
Our hearts have failed to be felt into
And so we have been asked to close up
Tightly draw the curtains of our mind
And behind thick blind shades
Bleed, weep and mourn
For a deep-down heart-touch
A gentle, soft, oozing release
A paying-out of amorphous emotions
Into close-packed space
But Lord oh Lord!
The butter moon melts away!
Noon, sore of my bleeding wounds
Words clashing with my nature
My bowed head slowly rises
At a slight cautious glimpse
Of my frozen raw emotions
Lord how they cheat each other
I love you I miss you I kiss you
How glibly they lie, how smoothly
No soothing word for you my naughty
dear
For if you can't see with your eyes
Why don't you gouge them out
If your ears can't listen
Lop them off your nut
How can you cry
After eating your own carcass?
How can you weep
After burying your own body?
Lord, how they smile each other blind
Ah, I can see paint smiling -
Smiling at my gold shoe
After eating your own carcass? How can you weep
After burying your own body?
Lord, how they smile each other blind
Ah, I can see paint smiling -
Smiling at my gold shoe
Beware of the sparkle-eyed smile!
Lord, what high feign games they play
Those gay chests - what inner hells they hide!
Mountains are too high
Oceans too deep, too wide
And I declare, cars are too sleek!
My eyes shall redden
But only like the red dawn:
Watchfully and piously, ever present:
Right on the melting nook,
Sleeping place of time,
I'll be present.
Limb over limb, mouth over mouth:
Pelvises that with gusto explode
into each other
Sweat, arms, twined, groans
In quivering human bodies
Passion overflows, fire-electric
And in times of non-union
Tongues wag and lusty eyes dully glaze
At shield-shaped gyrating hips
Life's yeastly portrayal -
the species must survive
But to you all men of the world, I ask:
You have entered many vaginas;
Have you ever entered any minds at all?
In a burst of sun,
I'll hold her hand
I'll brush her hair
I'll hold her waist
In a burst of sun,
I'll laugh with her
I'll sing her song
I'll squeeze her close
In a burst of sun
Her head will roll on my chest
She'll sigh and sigh
She will smile and smile
In a burst of sun
We will melt
Yes, it has to be love
And the sun will shine
Brighter than noon.
Bubbles in space blue in gaze
My face is soft I feel like a baby in yolk
My face is hard and scratched, I feel
Older than the mountain
Old man in a pram
I was not born in 1967;
You are silly if you think so
I was not born last year, in 1991 or the year before:
I was born before Moses, after Jesus, between Jimi Hendrix, Bhudda and Chikulamayembe
I was born in the morning after lunch,
Frothing wine, munkoyo and milk from my little trim mouth
I was born in the flash of a camera
The earth - oh, so cold
I am older than my mother, and both
of us are younger than your baby
Don't mind his nappies and tender bottom
We sing a church song a church wong a church....
Do not look at your watch
It'll tell you lies -
that is not the time
Do not look at my pate
It will tell you lies.
Do not look at my groin
It will tell you lies
Look, instead, at my -
ha ha ha ha
One night as I walked down the road
I saw a bright light
A lone bright shining light
Out in the dark trees
And this light it looked
So pure, so unblemished
And in the light I saw, myself
A dark saint standing nowhere
King of a lone kingdom
For my heart went reaching out
To the light but somehow
Was my fate hanging somewhere close
When I look up at the clouds
Do I see a reflection of me?
Or perhaps
Should I look a little closer
Somewhere in the broad beyond
Is there a guardian of my soul?
Tell me why then
I can only laugh in a certain way?
Tell me why then
I can only see in a certain way
Tell me why then
I can only sing a in a certain way
I have had tears, there's been too many
If I have had a heavy heart, it's been too many times
If I have had ulcers, there've been too many
Sugar's been too bitter
The sun too cold
Acid's been too sweet
Ice too hot
Too many times
Tell me now then
Did I just come
To bore a lot of people
Tell me now then
Did I just come
To clown for a lot of people
Tell me now
Did I just come
To chew a lot of chickens
Tell me what do I see
When a gay child softly weeps
What do I see
When a hard man gets broken
And the mountains stand by defiant
Storing their might for a use you can't see
Tell me why then
A song melted my heart
Tell me why then
A girl claimed my soul
Tell me why then
The sun holds me captive
Are there greater worlds to roam
Wider streets to cruise?
You can see
Milk can only spill in a certain way
A bell can ring only in a certain way
A ball can bounce only in a certain way
Would there be a bluer sky
To shelter under
Would there be cooler water
For all the parched throats
And tell me now
When my skin rips and my blood dries
Will I just lay back and count the stars?
Who will take my hand
When I need comfort most?
On whose great bosom shall I lay
My tired head full of cares
Whose song shall I sing
- Yours or mine?
Perhaps to the front
A brighter light will shine.
The rain weeps
Into troubled minds
Into tousled hair
The rain weeps
Onto the cracked earth
And seeds kick up a new life
Secrets blowing about
Old and new
Songs, rages, whisperings
The blood and the sweat
All that scorch in the sun
A clash of colours all ways
And the tree's secrets
The many men who came into the shade
To piss
And the many young couples who lean on it
For love
Bye byes at road junctions
Shiny boots in a military parade
And the women who sell by the road
So withdrawn, so patient
Enduring happily
The flash of new cars
The obstinate strength of cranes
The dozing mid-day bird lazily calls
All go in to give the throb
Of daily life
Milk spilt in the middle of the road
And a cat lapping it up
Spider webs across your window
Cockroach eggs in your collar
The insistent smell of frying kapenta
Pores weeping in the sun
And the young ladies all done up
Strangling in their chains of beads
Come on, come on, children
Inside, it's night
We can remember
Jesus Christ, Moses, Abraham
So much talked about
Important men;
Let's bow our heads and pray
But lice don't pray
They breakfast off the faithful
Bicycle wheels in shiny rotation
And that's how everything goes
Forward but really round and round
Like a bicycle wheel.
The bicycle wheel.