a poem by Riaan van Zyl

the poem sneaks in sandals
through my upper-middle class suburb
on a Friday night
like a musical note dissecting itself
as if all creation
was to be found
in
it
self
and for this reason
the poem is fully aware
(as the sun sets and people go about their Friday evening business, such as getting drunk)
that it is a poem,
that has no note out of its place
because it never had a place
in the,
well,
first place.
With this thought the poem suddenly panics at the possibility that it might implode on itself,
at the perfect still point between
the Heart Sutra
and the Sacred Heart of Christ
blood and snot and guts while praying the Rosary in the Lotus position:
see, the poem is no longer steeped in punk anger,
only occasionally dissatisfied
and slightly embarrassed
about its pretentious self-conscious pastoral spirituality
and the alternating opposites of pure bliss and naked anxiety
contained in its ECM collection.