Medium Matured Pomes
A selection from recent years that aren't available elsewhere
Here you go. A bit more poetry. Really you should check my audio releases on simricyarrow.bandcamp.com However, here’s some I’ve not got round to recording but have performed on various occasions over the years since my only actual book of pomes and my first album back in 2012. I may still publish these in hard copy one day under the title, ‘Thoroughly Cute Futures’. But that is, of course, just one possible future…
The News at 20:24
Good evening and welcome to the news at 20:24
In the head-over-heels lines tonight, the Minister of Mice announces that there will be no economy this year, but an unlimited supply of wizardry in ceremony.
The Holy-Heart-Health Dept warns of a wildly contagious outbreak of belly-based laughter rippling from the soft contours of the south-west.
Eyewitnesses report sighting Loneliness and Melancholy finally fleeing town en route to their true station in life – keeping the polar caps frozen.
Last year there was heavy traffic on the highways to New Dreaming, but the invention of cosmic rockets to everywhere fuelled entirely by vigorous hugging has already lifted spirits to a higher jet stream.
Muggle meteorologists are perplexed by the complete disappearance of the low pressure Western depression, along with all forms of internal repression, left-brain compression, burnt-bulldog aggression, and shame-filled confession, besides an explosion of creative exploration
though those in the know are linking this to an epidemic of brazen innocence and marauding hordes of dancing giggle-bombers wearing turquoise Turkish togas,
on which note stylists are said to be astonished at the rising fashion for passion married only to loving presence.
So let’s switch off the distractions from our positive directions and breathe out all those morose and comatose yester-notions
all those green and bubbly bug-eyed fears that ‘there is not enough for me too’
that ‘the infinity of time and space cannot fulfill all my secret wishes for expression and belonging’ –
breathe them out!
Let’s find the sacred rhythms in the forest-forged centrifuge which our wise and gentle yesterselves prayed into existence just for this moment
Let’s taste the loose-hip juice that is our open-lipped reward for all those centuries of cathedral cold storage by our ancestral incarnations
Let’s sing a night-sky oratorio punctuated by starburst drumbeats, with a liberated libretto echo of our finest Madiba-jive micro-macro mantras blended with orchid-orgasm artistry and essential oil of freedom birthed from the choirs of yellowwoods in our tingling soil-skin
Let’s touch the fat-funk field of extended intensity that floats in each one of us and between each two of us and through each three of us as we awake to the sprouting shimmering visions of a thoroughly cute future in every eye we meet and every heart we feel and every thigh we heat
and we sense it right now if we wraggle-taggle bunch of divinities so choose
dripping through our bones and washing in flutey fruity tones out towards the rolling waves of tomorrow and the outer octaves of the great galactic keyboard
in ever-expanded epic adoration of our oh so very credible co-creation
aware of the special roles played by every impish being seen and soon-to-be seen
aware of the mighty tomorrow-waves of laughter from Pachamama, our global goddess referee, who declares, incidentally, in tonight’s final report, that in this year’s fixtures there will be no rules and no goals worth penetrating to the core
except the pursuit of deeply raucous, spirally inventive, subtly outrageous, compassionately naked, sensually flamboyant happiness for all players
We hereby inaugurate the International Year of World Pleasure with a solemn commitment to its regeneration on an annual basis. We the people say: Let the games begin!
On Embodiment
There comes a moment in every individual voyage
aboard our cosmically hurtling gorgeous globe
when we wonder –
What is this embodied existence? Why did we choose this?
and the answers do not arrive through balancing classically enlightened equations
upon the heads of our ancestors
but rather through the boldness of deep-strata quantum exploration
listening to the wild silent sounds of the wise electrons in our always-vibrating cells
shining upon them the fine fingertip photons of a sensual divine dawning
awakening the channels of synaptic connection so that we remember
our deeply-nourished roots, our potent-thinking bellies, our massive glittering hearts
which flow with the ancient messy mystery we call love
igniting the engine of the creativity generator that’s bubbling
into the new possibilities of higher spiral life-forms as yet undreamed
and today, these expansive answers grow best
through conscious curious communion
communication soul to soul, in a space of allowing and permission
seriously playful, with every movement a prayer.
Karoo Concerto
Every pebble on the ancient ocean’s floor
Tells myths from distant galaxies
And as we lie and spy the milky rivers in the sky
We taste salty saga songs upon the minstrel wind of memory
In this cradle of our sensual selves
This vast expanse of crusty womb
This belly that's been brewing our curiosity since our
Ancestors first crawled and sniffed and scratched on the forgiving rocks
And dreamt their scorpion fairy tails and breathed the photons through their skin
Here, our children still will cast their rods into the pans
And catch a genie from the future in a starship in a bottle
Grown from dripping silica mixed with succulent stone-plant juice
And they will wail the lullabies of legavaans until the
Dust bunnies prick up their thorny ears
Now it's true, for every birthing belly of creation
There must be some kind of intestinal substation
Where the secret streams percolate in melodies of alchemy
Transforming the mineral mysteries of the deep
And as a curious byproduct of this geological brilliance
Comes a special kind of frackable flatulence best left down below
So with our surface-dwelling drumbeats we can celebrate
That cosmic chalice of consciousness we call the Karoo
Brothers, sisters, no need for blindness to the sun's intense abundance
Sisters, brothers, no need for amnesia about our umbilical origins here
Teach the men in hard hats to dance their hearts in the desert
And they'll remember beneath their toes the truth their grandmas buried there
And we'll all fly upon the untapped power of our collective genius
Drilling only into the infinite potential of our souls
A beautifully beastly tale
Once upon a pine ring sat a crazy cheesy cat
Smiling smoke rings through the opening of his wide-brimmed tipi hat
While the fungal souls around him munched on minerals and mud
He brewed tunes with feisty tones for jazz was flowing in his blood
Once the matted mountain herbs swayed breathily in time
Syncopations of geology sounded out in secret kloofs
A grysbok sprang with soft intent through diminished crystal chords
Accompanied in minor keys as winter streams poured forth
Somewhere an ancestral bear was whirled into this rhyme
Bringing honeyed magic harmonies from rivers in the clouds
A roaring clawing bassline jive returning from long dreams
Dripping dreadlocked forest fairy tales and bulging at the seams
Outside a snuffling ratel rooted deep into the groove
That emerged in sympathy with a sunkissed soil revolution
And as he hummed along in baritone an ocean echo rang
Over the waves and over the shore and over the troubled land
For the whales hear the sacred sonatas in our human hearts
Hear our elemental counterpoint, hear our rocky rhythms
Hear our luscious vine-lines, hear our mammal whoops and cries
Hear our slinky lizard dances, hear our high soprano flights
These cosmic trumpeters hidden ’neath the foam are blowing out
Angelic animal oratorios, sonar medicine for our bones
So breathe in their natural musical love and let’s shapeshift as one
For this organic reverb ripples out through all the days to come
Desert Island Dance, Centuries After Crusoe
while rain wrestles icicles from my beard of contemplation
while pigeons coo and guano-coat my tonsured scalp
I lotus-sit and sense the quickened pulse of the earth within
while sandblast swirls draw fierce sonatas from our stoep-chimes
while passing ships snort smoke and leave curses in their wake
we lean and pirhouette into airy imprints left by nimble toe-curves
while dogs howl at moon-rabbits and eager trees murmur
while silent webs trap wanderers and ant nests grow unchecked
the sharp edges of our personal walls soften and blur beside the fire
then in that weeping land we help the elders find their long-lost feet
there in night's darkest zone we howl our hidden voices
while our children in their dreams
can stay safely lush-winged
till the first rays spark healing and trust
till the day dawns and finds us
unclothed still
but decorated with thick lines of cremation ash
and drinking from streams of dew the night made
while the serpents of the morning crawl freely
sleepily composting our fears
The Miner’s Dream
once again we pirates came
seeking buried treacle-troves
but the finds were cannon-grey pebbled starched
squeezed poured and fixed
into a dead thought-weight concrete-slurry
toxic to touch
our scintillating sapphires
trapping the stars then trapped in turn
in forged bands and swords and trinkets
holding history and hopes for eternity
rustled out their uneasy emerald tunes
besides a new and oily melting-meeting
unbending angry plastic, moulding our mildew-minds
the mantel-crust Medusa spits her warning
for who are we to scratch-snatch her layers of memories
we who fail to listen to her strong song
while rock and pebble and simple dust
hear and record the churning of aeons
far away from our ogre-size trowels
our hundred-metre hoes
our nugget-hungry harrows
piercing the sleeping metal-rivers far below
rock and pebble and simple dust
remember the fine-slide wrestle-dance
of hidden strata
when we meet the earth with our carbon-feet
feel the fossil-future in our bones
twist spine and hips twixt teeth and lips
rock and pebble and simple dust
roll over the brutal body-heaps of those
who insist that all be inert and separate
connected once more to the solid goblin-rumbles we
come to better know our own mud-strength
our ancestral foothill-prints
our veiled marbles
our caves of mysteries
our frozen secrets
and to our once more core-charged meetings come
rock and pebble and simple dust
sighing the tears of ancient floods and firebursts
of icy serpent-tempests
rock and pebble and simple dust
pushing and vibrating and insisting
with the wisdom of rubies
that all is pulsatingly deliciously possible
in this volcanic moment
Shooting Stars
On return to Africa
With the idle vastness of the sky
It is finally clear that the curious shooting stars
That attempt to grab our attention
Away from Mantis visions and planet-sized myths
Are in truth distant minor celebrities
Of whom we here know nothing.
Clarity and Hilarity
if yesterday at sunset
all our drama queen selves saw was
a tired clown nose brought low by
Market Forces and other Dark Side burdens
today once again the sun rose
and rows of roses pealed out their rainbow carols
if, even so, this morning only the
double-edged enchantments of espresso
eased the growing pains of our inboxes
the sun still beams out noon-sized smiles
and beneath our heels and toes
Pachamama’s magic mantras beat our wise tones
for worms and beetles and
humble humans
who, hopping through humorous humus
remember our 45rpm roots and tendrils
and slow-dance smooch our own soulful cells
slip-gliding into a sun-charged glass of inner bubbly
life can feel fulfilled or filled full
either way, the cosmic bladder is calling us to
follow the urge to flow
now
now
shake out those wild wireless wings and
shapeshift on the stage this moment-mind creates
with gestures folly-full of jester joy
a never-ending encore applauded by angels and agapanthas
and trust that this loving breath we
bark and bleat and beautifully blast into the night
is stretching hearts and lungs and fingers all around us
into a newly sculpted dawn
for sure as spring daisies and spring tides
and chuckling spring chickens
and bladder-stretching mountain springs
tomorrow that fat sun will rise
more golden
than ever before in human history
giggling at an extra-audible frequency
whenever we choose to tune in
D’you Believe in Jubilation
beyond us the wrinkled rinkhals
is rising in revolution
above us the air swirls silently,
with forgotten tantrum-town tunes
below us the disco-beats of dassies drive
the plants to dance a summer fullness new
inside us there’s a salty-streamed jubilee-jewel
growing into a sweet-pea poet’s pulse
blue like the wind through an upturned desert tortoiseshell
green as a mountain morning in your nose
owl-eye yellow
red with the tongues of fireflies
rippling saucily over a nickel-tickle or two until
the melody at last commences
it’s been a while crafting
it’s been a while minting
it’s been a crazy while a-coming
and when it sounds
we heed the call to prayer of mother earth’s muezzin
we feel our teeth tinkling
to the crystal bell song-couplets of émigré blue cranes
and know that here
from the global state of emergency
there emerges a whale-chorus in our
merging magical soul-soft shoes
which sap-rises to our imperial impish crowns
full of the circulating maturing wisdom of well-seasoned oak
full of rich tribute from our inside tribes
as we coax ourselves into sovereign splendour
even the mosquito’s whine becomes
a welcome old friend in need of a stiff drink
magnanimous, unshakeable, bright-eyed and bushy-souled
we shine our darshan
and hum our stories out of every limb so that
this, our deep-fried grooving
this, our angel-breeding horn section
this, our memory-moulding blueprint-moment
fuels the freedom of the ever-feasting future
blessed by the rhythms of the holy hillside here