ghetto expell

My niggas wake up to this sad
sad thing
beat your heads and scream
cos the stone’s gone from the ring
punk ass playa is taking off
ditch the shit that’s smooth
he’s rolling in the rough
and all the punk mofos
that be talking tough
they will know the pain
when ive had enough
so leave them goods be on the rack
cos its all mine when im coming back

the homies and the babes can cry
growing in their cribs
all mine for the party time
ghetto flowers in the bloom of sun
our time begins when time’s had its run
but chuck my rags
junk my toys if you may
badass niggas
taking his game from here
theres shit washed down with the wine
some fellas are goners but they will be fine

so Jesus H. Christ this is the end
the nigga that held the pen has to fend for himself
then who puts new shit on the page
when ninja fighters at it again earning his bread
soft motherfuckers will catch their balls in rome
they clutch at straws but you know a nigga
when hes far from home
yes imma saying bye to these birds and bees
Ive gone down here and on my knees
So yes all the ladies line up to kiss these cheeks
Im waiting on your lips to be tipped
And my brothers come round with your arms of steel
I hate to go, want to love, can’t be shy to feel

vapour light

I
Say please
Don’t just yet say
Oh I’ll be gone
In a few days
So please let me
Please lets

Oh wait
Now ive forgotten what
I wanted to say
But don’t stop you
Continue and I’ll
Take only a few moments

But the clock
The clock
Ghost past death
How your hands
Hang at your sides
Weighed down and
Lifeless going away

II
This savage fiend
In one bound
Was across
The bush and
Battered my skull into
a chalky paste in red
before I knew it and
thank god I knew
the feeling one
has in love
having thus fallen
that the thrill the rush
the charging horses
all come home
in the loss of head
for beauty that
was never mine
and from which
there is no escape

III
I haven’t touched
Haven’t seen
Haven’t felt
For it will need
Flung over the horizon
first the bag
then the shoes
and lastly yourself
where the sea
meets the sky
is a wall
unto heaven
what I told them
back home I have
told myself
though it means
little to me
what wind
what vessel

IV
winding down
fall
an autumn day

barking dogs
in parking lots
knee-high breeches
must have got me
wrong to trickle down
that is to say
inundated and fading away

this afternoon
love can make
tomorrow we can
make love again

long shot

No I will speak
It is time
Not late but nigh
There is to be
No patience with
temporary delays
no bother if
there isn’t or is
an audience even
the subject matter can
be changed at will
till it is safe to declare
it is my mouth moving
and I can hear myself

while on the other side
they said
things went on
as usual
with the typical
menace of rodents
and children misguided
but not enough to
demand a piper anyway


the time has come to talk about disgrace. I can sense it. imagine a dog (its on the cover) dragging one limp hindleg behind itself. Short, tough brown coat, dead and dull. Tiny body, quivering frame. Whiny bark and wheezing breath (it is the one given up in the end; for its own good?).
Since I feel very strongly on the subject of dogs, all animals, and so dogs, I am here assuming that the only disgrace that took lives in disgrace was the one dogs are born into, or stumble into. Not caused mind, but suffered.
Although there is poignant description of their last moments and empathy in the philosophy of a dog lover which character #1 finally embraces, it makes me uncomfortable that poor dog lives and deaths form such an important trope for the writer in a story about erring individuals.
For its human actors lugging their cargoes of guilt to unknown destinations, the book closes with all, without an exception, not only staring into a void but also innocent of the road taken. So many stories that could have happy endings, only if. Point is, the human players get a shot at comeback, which is denied the dog (the last dog).
As for the tale, there is just the suggestion in it that what is needed of life is the talent of sureness but that it cannot be relied on is an undeniable premise that drives the plot.
Even then, what of the dog born with a game leg? Its handicap is disgrace, as is the situation of being weak against rude aggressors (to talk in euphemisms).
The writer has dipped into a giant carton of miseries and picked out costumes for his several characters. The intellectual misery of the professor, the romantic despair of the inamorata, the matrimonial hole in the second wife’s life, the sexual, almost existential, misery of the daughter and the historical guilt of being a white African which all of a sudden becomes an important bit in the drama. Suffering, where not a result of foibles which should be regretted, is painted as an outcome of causes more profound than ourselves.
But the story, (hopefully) for the dog if not for anyone else, was not intended as apologia for Nitzschean underlings. It is quite easy to see that but for the coming and going of pets all the main characters would continue with their lives with reasonable levels of freedom. Only that that freedom would need constantly to be salvaged from the very personal sense of compromise involved in give and take, even more so now that they are in disgrace.
Ultimately, it is only a state of mind that changes, comes down to earth, about how the power that one has is not so much a power to wield as the power to absorb the suffering there is, for suffering there is, like it or not, deserved or undeserved. Disgrace is then a human story pretty much and everything it should be: compassionate, caring, sympathetic, giving and all it ends up encompassing: a horror, a regret, a lesson, a punishment.
But the worldview proffered in the book is certainly deeper than a casual attempt at formulating a critique of disgrace into a defence of dogs.
But the poor dog, I am convinced, did not have to die. Would the story be less powerful that way? Did the writer debate with himself whether to keep the pup alive or to escort him to his deserts? In my opinion the protagonist’s disgrace wouldn’t have lessened had he kept him alive. There is no atonement, only suffering; that much is made clear by the narrator of david lourie’s life. Why must then the dog die? It is, I presume, to suggest that disgrace or no disgrace work is work. There is no help for disgrace, maybe just the taking it on the chin.

corporeal, hell yes

If im not superman
Im fearless
If not the cyclone
Im the agile stem
In the face of terror
And defeat
I meet my fate with
an expectant face
and for all that
Im a tourist
I buy a necklace
A hat, a scarf
And you think
I am in love
But I am


Now that we know or are sure we don’t care whats eating gilbert grape I wondered seeing certain film whether there is casuistry and stoic tonic for pornstars. So, what makes the pornstar swallow? I was wondering if there isn’t charitable counsel and moral support amongst pornographic actors. For the content of films, and the social context in which we must view them, is strongly suggestive of an element of dark pathos and but for the irrepressible spirit it would be hard to believe that pornography is only partially as dehumanizing as it looks. But insofar as sex is control I can claim that all control is dirty. Or imagine the cheek of one 60+ man, with two dawdling khaki-clads having the temerity to tell us off ju premises. Their ju? But mine too. At least the field, I thought I could always safely think. But no. Much as it troubles my conscience that perhaps I was part of the recklessness that invoked this retribution, I am no less traumatized by this sudden loss of paradise. For paradise is of course not what or where I think it is, obviously; it is for all time to come a patch of earth one calls own and the way to the future, is, has been, the complete democratization of that territory that finally we may own without owning, enjoy without endowing. Still, even if the cause being served was a just one, there was a distinct us and them feel to the entire unceremonious eviction episode made more galling by 4-no. gate’s guardian’s sneer about us having wrapped up rather prematurely for the evening. hmmph.

+3 — you gentlemen from jadavpur?
Gang — none o’ us from ju.
+3 — then you shall have to pack up this moment, and leave.
Gang — why (an enfeebled plea)
+3 — because y’all aren’t from jadavpur and this field is for jadavpur students.
Gang — fields for playing. No?

+3 have moved on and because this certain group had a solitary university flagbearer they survived dismissal but were moping in some kind of limbo as we conducted our weary, our system beaten, our poor, our huddled masses yearning to breathe free outside the uni premises with the decorum of fatalists, cynics and philosophers upon children’s future. It’s an to each his own world.

tasselskirtsabacustrapezereddawn

I
Let me think
Have ever our
Eyes met and
Some ethereal
Music came on
The tv or any
Machine that
Was playing
so oblivious
of us yet
so swayed by
the moment

II
Of course between
The lines you have
Drawn your line
And now count to
Make four out of
Twice two though
I wonder why
Clutching the sheet
You tear through
the corridor is it
the careless me
or the careless you

III
maybe if
you spoke
to me as
you were
falling free
through
the dome
that’s when
you could
be calm
enough to
see that we
are in air
long enough and
moreover
you have dived
with me
I haven’t
dived alone

IV
This desperation does not
Sit well with the spirit
Of upbringing wherein
The peasant whets the scythe
With revolution in air

that where it disappears

I
Slow poison
Is that what i
Am injecting
Into the system
For a death delayed
That I can record
With the slow
Internal combustion
How gently
the fire spreads with
what savage relish
it licks through my veins
how mine is
sublimation at the end
every sinew every tendon
aflame
a deliberate pact
with an infernal pain
a cry of anguish
pity, shame
a mad cry of lust
passion, rage
the poison takes effect
im caught in my game


II
Have me wonder
Why should this
Arm twist to churn
Tongue twisters as
Confessions of
A post-romantic nature
Fictions of a surreal kind
To bring to thought
Provender and hope
To the world at large
Since suddenly
Tongue tied there
Is a vacuum
In the stomach
When the time comes
To offer to them that
Would appreciate
Something to clasp, grip hard
The wood is hollow
only conducts sound
makes it louder
not in each tap ample
the strength of the fibre
and every sound
lives in fear
of crumpling, collapsing
in the silence of despair

When all it
Would take are
The same words
I practice pulling
out of a hat

mens sana in corpore sano or hollow noise in grandiose echoes

Its rabid rabid rabid
The habit and the sermon
The garb and the grabbing
the mirror and the greenlight
the window too the sly glances
and the sidewards eyes
skimming the top on earthly ties
and hacking at the roots night
and day to free up space
tinder and beams to
warm, light, provide
volumes, bales, reams and
shelter musty clothes in rusty trunks
preserve words, clues, histories
viable mysteries marinated in credulity
the house the body the attic of the mind
living one life and dying in the same
ignores that eventuality and claims
the clothes, the style, the opinion
are all personal, signature, souvenir
and unredeemed by the union of souls
the individual plays the universal role

sturm und drang

Cannot be
Has not been
Will not be
Sustained
Wait a second
Tie a knot and
stretch forth on
a wild goose chase
an excellent cook
of chicken that
come home to roost
says pinudas rancour hides
what love divides
it is a deeper pain
cast in a well of shame
and sinning once
all over again
grinding the pestle
into a paste of guilt
on the mortar of blame
lord protect the flock
from dubious vales
and lead them into one
that has in its heart
a clear blue lake