Word

The television will tell you
had you owned one
in 1975
when it came out
that being born white
in africa was quite simply
marvellous

heeltemal ongelooflik.  

but then we had the run of the place
of course

the only constant is change
change is what you make it

I’ve been voting for the wrong party ever since
and still can’t find the keys to my car in the dark
parkinglot

or any change for the dude
In his yellow bib vest, and blue ribbed overalls

who is digging trenches in the heat
for my fibreoptic cables

who is reading my smart meter
that is not very clever

whose kids are in the public schools
learning about chatgpt

who makes nightly rendezvous on the closed
circuit television cameras

I have positioned all along the outskirts of my property
that is bordered by electric fencing  

And an alarm system that is monitored
by a security service provider

his ghostly face quite white and clear in highdef HDMI
the very next morning while I

check the footage while drinking freshground fairtrade
coffee from ethiopia

Tapping out the story getting all the details down
the time what he was wearing the way his features

Almost shone, on my neighbourly whatsapp group
and wait for consolation, that free easy feeling

Of community. Of correctness. Of whiteness.     

Yes, we went to the polls with everyone
singing the songs of freedom
eventhough we did not know

The words – it was good for business, there are some
good ones in amongst the bad apples that are always

Shipped straight from Ceres to the americas
while we get the second rate rot from
shopritecheckers
sixty60.   

There was talk of reconciliation
and never any pogroms

In the highstake boardrooms owned by multinational
conglomerates of course

all the government parastatals
went to shit immediately, and we left in our droves

those that could
those of us who

had the unfortunate circumstance
of being born white in africa with

our british and european passports
hidden under our mattrasses like cold currency.

I switched allegiances many times
scoffing at the notion that I would naturally vote

DA. But who I was really voting for was not anc

That was the trick to remaining strategically optimistic
and radiantly newage to having black friends

Who would also braai on Saturday afternoons
and watch the Springboks win the rugby.

That was essential because the cricket was too white
still lying under the shroud of hansie how could he

Like the pot calling the kettle beset on all sides

The ossewaens outstaged at the river running
muddy and brown.

Back in the city, not the parts that are
overrun the metro police are stopping

Taxi drivers and letting the madams in
their SUVs go.

And the outfitters are falling over them
selves to shelf new oversized hiphop t-shirts

That make our teens look like they’re about
to mob and rob the local convenience stores

And we’re ok with that, we bop our heads to these new sounds
that come pounding through their closed bedroom doors

thinking about the metal they would almost
certainly be listening to

if this were only 1990 and things were
like they were. Back then. When

You know.

I’ve been studiously avoiding the more
obvious analogies afraid of being cancelled

Or too marginalised to any more give a shit
having seen my rightful retirement age slip

From 65 down to 55 down to 45
to get shown the door and I’m sitting in a gathering

There are two of us left and the lady speaker
has things in her hair and her outfit is sharp

And traditional and she is saying
And everyone is applauding

how the transformation targets
have almost been met     

and I’m wondering about my son
and how we worship entrepreneurs  

and how the guys at the bowling club catch water
from the government tap in large plastic holdalls

and take it in a requisitioned woollies trolley
and sell it down the road for 50c a cup.  

How the guy at the robot has a sign that says
Smile

As if we’re all on candid camera and it’s 1975
all over again except this time we’re watching

The Test Signal waiting for Leon Schuster to come on
and show us how to wear a mask.

When the forest is ready to burn
it sends a prayer to the sky
and the summer thunder comes
crafted of dream and distemper.

When the forest is ready to burn
the forecast is clear
the air is calm but a
pressure builds behind the eyes.

When the forest is ready to burn
it burns. Everything
in the forest
burns nothing stands before

the wind except the flame.

and the flame
takes
its time the bloody red
teeth of a wolf

The scarred path into and out of
every clearing.

When the forest is ready to burn
it sends a prayer
and the gods are never careless
in their comfort.

When the Russians arrive the town is empty, the streets deserted
not a soul. The women and children have long since been relocated
and the men are hiding in the mountains.
The Russians make themselves at home. The way the Germans did,
the way all men do in the palaces of war.

Later that night it begins to rain and it continues to rain for days.
It rains so long and hard that eventually the men
in the mountains are forced to come down, are driven down
by the deluge into the arms of the Russians. This is how my
grandfather is caught in the Ukraine and sent to Siberia.

This is all I know. There’s the part about: Manchester –
the Night Owls Squadron and the steamboat to Cape
Town but the rest is hearsay.

Kocham Praga / I Love Praga – another mural. more graffiti.
The thing about Warsaw / Warszawa I noticed first
was the liberation of the public space
given over to vandals and art. Willingly. A healthy
spirit of rebellion. Forgive don’t forget. Legia. Miecho.

Legia. The Polish premier league sits on the steps of a renovated
building smoking woodbines as we pass. Praga hasn’t always
been this inviting. Miecho means Kebab, if kebab were the only
thing in the world. A kebab the size and shape
of Sts. Michael and Florian Cathedral.   

We walk towards the meeting point drinking our little monkeys
our malpecszi already noting how beautifully unrestored
some of the buildings are, how newly envisioned others,
when the bombs were dropped across vistula river the people
almost forced to go back to their chores bend their backs
ignore the screaming of planes

Almost. Everywhere the dashing P of the Warsaw Uprising
strikes defiant white paint against brick the Legia
personnel have been busy making up for the lost
time of their grandfathers. 

My Polish isn‎’t great. In fact it is nowhere and later in Bialystok
I will be shouted at by a lady cleaning the restrooms for
entering without paying my one zloty, and all my new polished
words lambasted will abscond and I will realise standing
mute in front of her indignation, in a poverty of language
never before experienced
that without words we are
naked but I really needed to take that piss
so I went back and paid the machine.

The guide at first not knowing speaks mostly over my head
as I look down at his laminated file at the pictures of how
Praga grew through many ages.

And I remark in english and he switches back and forth
as we stop at new buildings reimagined alongside the
stalwarts of a more violent time, so that a dapple effect
emerges overlapping the various intonations
of a Praga redefining itself in the cool trendy
values of a new generation of lovers.

My grandfather never spoke about crossing Siberia nor
what might drive a man to find his way home  
even when we were playing chess and his two bishops
alongside each other driving my seven year old
self so determined so anxious to win even then
to tears, and he would laugh but never give
an inch not once.

And those two fucking bishops even now where I can I
drive them forward toward my enemies
their influence spread out in crisscrossing waves there
were stories told after he died about a man
who loved cats catching and skinning
cats to survive. And the whiskey over
Wodka how perhaps starting a new life you
leave certain things behind.

But now, drinking nalewki along Zabkowska Str. in a small bar and
eatery Pyzy i Flaki the big fluffy dumplings and stew
crammed in no more chairs patrons standing out
in the thin autumn sun, somewhat thicker wind
and sausage and pierogi in jars, more nalewki
white horse whiskey aside there is so much time
I need to somehow find.

And between the russians and the germans there are spaces
I have to occupy a good polish soldier and later
somewhere in a club in Warszawa
I am forced down from the mountains
but it is no longer raining and I am
surrounded by Legia there is dancing.
 
This time we will win even if we do not we will rebuild some
things are worth fighting for worth remembering some
places worth returning to how ever many times
you are made to leave.

There are so many cats in Old Town, Nicosia that they swirl
as smoke around your ankles, as cats are wont to do.
And where you can’t walk for the tourists you cannot
sit at the many cafes and bars and restaurants without
at least one cat possibly two approaching you well before
the wait staff introduce themselves to you.

And while we’re sure they’re here to keep the rats at bay
and would be preferable to pigeons there are still pigeons
as with all balanced systems and surely behind the scenes
then as many rats as these many cats would allow.

That first day we got lost along the winding streets between
the hotel and the tour group as
we decided to head back for our passports
crossing into Turkish Cyprus at the forefront of our minds.

And in the sweltering heat the end of Autumn come around
what this place must be like in Summer I can’t imagine
the feeder streets smell of sweat and perfume as we hit
the fabricated wall layered with an icing of barbed wire
again and again as the little blue
arrow spins like some mad swirling
dervish in a geomagnetic storm.

And we pass the corner shop we recognise
owned by the three Palestinian / Iranian?
brothers and their friends and patrons
standing outside drinking beer in the heat.

And we walk single file along six inches of
pavement with big city SUVs and Mercedes
gliding widely past at speed so impassably
narrow and effortlessly European.

Tomorrow there will be an accident and a line of cars
will back up around so many twists and turns
that the drivers will need to escape the confines
of their cabs or risk melting to the faux leather
seats airconditioning aside.

And we slip across the Ledra Street Barricade into the Turkish
north with the Turkish bazaars seemingly quieter more
reserved and I can buy a beer so that makes me feel more
at home but I still have to pay to take a leak
admittedly I’m getting used to that.

There is a restaurant just off Apollonos Str that offers me free Ouzo
every time I sit down. I sit down quite often as a result
and before I am given a menu the owner places an Ouzo
clouded in water in a tall highball in front of me.
It’s all very Ernest it’s all very Parisian
but I am neither him, not there.

There is another restaurant, a cafe really that I frequent as often
where the owner is the most beautiful woman in all of Cyprus
and that’s saying a lot. In Cyprus all the women
are beautiful and they always smile at you. She wears her wavy
brown hair down and when she’s busy she ties
it back and in the heat a fine sheen of sweat on
her cheeks like down and her smiling eyes.
 
I am drinking far more Tsipouro than I can afford but when
a woman smiles at you that way you take whatever she
puts in front of you and you say thank you.

In the morning I masturbate in the shower
watching my reflection in the mirror
I have the body of a greek god
gone to seed.

In the afternoon I sit in front of my
PC practising my beat poems and
waiting for an email that
never comes.

And in the evening we stroll down Ledra Str looking for a restaurant
which is not as easy as
you think, with the cats
swirling around your ankles like smoke
and the owners offering you free drinks
and all the beautiful women of Cyprus robbing you blind
with their smiles.

He gets onto a plane and flies effortlessly
from one part of the world to another
wanders dislocated through
wet meat markets waiting
for his soul to catch-up
before returning to the hotel

where he develops a cough and dies
three weeks later in a field hospital
in a foreign land
surrounded by strangers wearing masks. 

This happens more often than you can imagine
from your living room eating
Pringles churning through memes
counting down the days.

There are fashion manufactories making
shiny black body bags
and other personal protective
equipments, and car manufacturers
making ventilators for New York

I love you but your empty streets
your crematoriums operating afterhours
the only smoke now seen from space
from Nasa Satellites,

and the animals have spoken
and in the ensuing silence
finally we are listening
with our fridges full, and the poor of the world
walking entire deserts
on their hands and knees
to counter lockdowns  

And in Britain this summer all the rage
is (finally) brexit
is (finally) the mexican wall
is finally an apocalypse worth staying at home for
to Netflix. And chill

behind the door there is a picture of the madonna
with child / without child
a moment in balance
between the sacred and the mundane
and she follows you around the room like a ghost.

In war there are no rules
there are actors there are victors there are victims
but there are no rules
that is the first thing you learn
when they hand you your rifle
your pitchfork
and show you the pointy end versus the fleshy bit. 

There is fire in the streets, where shit once lapped
at your cuffs in the rain
there are children hanging in the trees, like apples
crablike and sour

but there are no rules, there are generals
and emperors, and an endless river of souls
running red toward which ever sea will have them.

behind the door there is a picture of the madonna
there is a wooden cross there is a crescent moon
with stars / without stars
there is an effortless darkness
in the hearts of men, and it always shines through

We are born before our time, as Blake would have it
the world is too much in ur fucking face right now.
We swim in the algorithm with no rhythm just drown

pick up a screen and that’s you done
ticket mister, please. end of the line, sir
thank you very much goodbye goodbye
so long but not goodbyte

lost in the wireless dig through the trash
of a century. Find the missing parts
fresh link in the chain, kill the killer robots that march
through your…

I’ve been serving the masters of chaos for too many
years to back away now, where the fuck would you
have me go?

Rock of the Aging Population
with your redhat, halfassed rhetoric
your penile dementia how many greta
icebergs does it take to change
the lightbulbs?

shoot the machines before they grow into machines
shoot the president of the united states on 8mmfilm
take the diamonds that have been drawn through
the digestive tracts of eight year old

congolese miners to the jewelers. Who else?
Get some good money for that shit. Time is running
forward, it is you who is standing still.

Was it Blake, or was it Bill Hicks?
Was it Kim Kardashian
Jong-un, I forget witch
Karen, fucking help us.

Over the event horizon I see the sun rising
but it’s not the type of morning you want
to take in in your boxers
drinking your fair trade coffee nodding
to the neighbours carting the kids
to school with your giant fucking election.

biden? forbidden or worse
I’ll take a day in the boroughs
with the heat pushing 120  

over any other capitalist pledge that doesn’t
save the indigenous polarbears in the andes

without a little something something
extra on the side for the mcbrides
and ace magashules of the world,
sleezy motherfuckers
that they are

I’ve been searching
along the edges
for a way into the forest

the underbrush is woven so thickly together
I cannot see the worms
for the trees.

But they are there.
Just beneath the surface, eyeless creatures
of darkness

death is such a mess
the contents of a box
of personal effects

of sunbleached memories
discarded photographs
lithium ion batteries
that no longer charge.

I’ve been searching for a way into things
the edge is principled
and unyielding

the churn of years
crushed disappointment.

I’ve been searching but mostly
I’ve been walking
along the edges of a heartbeat
softening into silence.

The virus infected the entire village
certainly we became ill
after they left
some of us died
while others recovered.

when we opened our mouths
snakes crawled out
we were visibly contorted
by these demons.

How much does it cost
to cross the river on a carpet of logs

while the earth moving machines
preen their feathers
downstream

once the angels have stopped their
screaming and left us alone
with our newly forked

tongues?

I stop and I look for it in the water
I raise my hands to a sunset
that is hastened  
by fire

I watch the hazmat crews alight from helicopters
proselytising
waiting
to learn this new language.

A shadow creeps across the clearing
where the mineral inspectors
converge in a sibilance
of smiles

and the jungle reaches
out to sign over
the deeds
to our graves.

Things break. Like hearts
sometimes a fine crack is
all it takes
sometimes a hurricane

often a stone
one thrown
from a distance

even, and time plays tricks on the mind. Time plays
all the cards face down.

Things break. Like minds
cast against incredible storms we steer

towards calmer waters that may or may not exist
in our hearts  

before they are completely broken
and run adrift.
 
A history with glass starts
with sand. And the presence of hell

in everything we do there is a memory
of what will come to pass

sunlight through a prism. Darkness
in a prison. The tinkling of

a smile. The knives in our sides
pulling inside and out
to create a tapestry of mischief

And disbelief.