By Rob Szabo
worn taxi tyres
shed slush
in waves
we trawl, breaching
winter
the fractal seraphim
soundless in descent
bestow high glory
on the squalid
corrugated iron
of mini markets
naked poplars
roadside
reach upward
the arms
of
drowning
men
***
"Vitruvian Man" � Port Elizabeth 2005
By Rob Szabo
Consciousness bright,
Sterile.
Television mounted
On a steel bracket.
Traffic in Johannesburg with Muso.
I am the soldier in white.
The backless gown precludes escape.
Memory of Schoenmaker
And the retrousse Jewish
Nose.
Outside is brick and concrete.
Plastic boxes inside.
Nil by mouth.
A blue plastic bucket
Of warm urine.
***
"Post conception" � Grahamstown 2005
By Rob Szabo
It begins in white light, grasping
Drunkenly for oblivion.
My finger tips brush
The prize and are burned.
And then there is a great and interminable weight
As if my ribs have been shackled with great chains.
And below me, vast teams of men are pulling
I feel myself descend, howling through the ether.
I land unclothed but for
A sweeping melancholy.
Frightened and gibbering
I bite and scratch any that show love.
Here in the undergrowth,
The world revolves unreal,
Spreading green and familiar
Tendrils into my very joints.
I climb high into the canopy
And let go, throw my body
Completely into verse
And pray that the strings
Of syntax
Will hold me
Like a swaddled child.
***
"Canonical "
By Rob Szabo
What faces are these?
Still young,
Uncreased.
There is somehow
A crack that opens
In bohemia
And splits the
Bourgeois
Down the middle
I am a trough
Of memory
Splashed
Onto the dust
By the hogs.
***
"Melancholy "
By Rob Szabo
A rotating blue sphere
That refracts white light
In an echoing
Crystal room
Human forms
Are frozen
In the walls
Absurdity swirls
Outside
Like a red storm
Only in meaning
Can we mourn.
My body
Is frozen
I should dress,
Arm myself,
And stride outward.
But I am watching
The red fumes
Rising from the
Base of the door.