Young Vogsol Sun

I have forgotten the feeling of delighted surprise
experienced on reading about Prostetnic Vogon
Jeltz from the planet Vogsphere where evolution
gave up on the horrible green creatures from the
primeval seas under a young Vogsol sun

I’m laughing, magic all around while the cynical
Douglas Adam recounts the terrible Vogon history
the unhappy millennia until Vogons became the
backbone of the Galactic Civil Service; yes, our
Civil Service is Vogonite also

Just as my entranced eyes refocus, I read about the
Dentrassis, an unruly tribe of gourmands, a wild but
pleasant bunch – sounds just like my colleagues and
me when we go camping for a new Mission and
Vision Statement experience, I’m lost

Floating from my seat, trying to work while my spirit
is dwelling in a Vogonite universe, to annoy Vogons:
Feed their grandmothers to the Ravenous Bugblatter
Beast of Traal, no, I must laugh aloud, then the most
important thing: Never allow Vogons

To read poetry to you - there goes all my pretensions
of trying to write poetry, enamoured of the Vogonites
Vogon poetry is the chosen genre for myself, oh, I
cannot work when this delicious delight is waiting
to be experienced, giving up all attempts

To look busy, I fall into a reverie…


“The Ultimate Hitchhiker’s Guide” Douglas Adams
Omnibus edition, Wings Books, 1996
Quotes taken from pages 33, 34 & 38


ORIGINAL:

I have forgotten the feeling of delighted surprise
and fascinated horror experienced on reading
about Prostetnic Vogon Jeltz from the planet
Vogsphere where evolution gave up on these
horrible green creatures from the primeval
seas under a young Vogsol sun

I’m laughing, magical dust sifting down while the
cynical Douglas Adam voice recounts the terrible
events in Vogon history, the unhappy millennia
until Vogons became the backbone of the Galactic
Civil Service – yes, our Civil Service is Vogonite
also, just as my entranced mind calms down

A description of the Dentrassis completes the process
of bewitchment, an unruly tribe of gourmands, a wild
but pleasant bunch – sounds just like my colleagues
and me when we go camping for a new Mission and
Vision Statement experience, I’m lost, floating from
my seat in the restaurant where I’ve been reading

Trying to work in the office while my spirit is dwelling
in a Vogonite universe, the best way to annoy Vogons:
Feed their grandmothers to the Ravenous Bugblatter
Beast of Traal, no, I must laugh aloud, and then the
most important thing: Never allow Vogons to read
poetry to you - there goes all my pretensions

Of trying to write poetry myself, I am enamoured of
the Vogonites, Vogon poetry is the chosen genre
for myself, oh, I cannot work when this delicious
delight is waiting to be experienced, I give up all
attempts to look busy and fall into a reverie…


“The Ultimate Hitchhiker’s Guide” Douglas Adams
Omnibus edition, Wings Books, 1996
Quotes taken from pages 33, 34 & 38

Voice I Knew So Well

Today I pressed my face into my document
started working on it like a drunk soldier in a
mad regiment, then small signs indicated my
feelings were not yet dead, though I cried
about losing my mind

Sinking lower I kept typing away, words of pain
expressed in a sad context, yet I was beyond it
as a voice I knew so well kept me aloft, did not
leave me to fall into the treacle well where
progress is always reversed

Though I tried to sink down some more, velvet
feelings encircled my heart and pulled me up,
despair recognised and exorcised, old dreams
rushing back, fantasies came to my aid,
a friendly voice

Became the ointment I needed and lacked
that is what special people are for, someone
who accepts that I need special help to get
through the cold emptiness of a life without
fun and games...

Dead Inside

If I don’t tell anybody how horrible I feel, they won’t
get angry, they won’t blame me, nobody will know
how impossible I find it to read meaningless words
I should complete the job without bothering any-
one with my thoughts and I will get the job
done – right?

Wrong, I cannot go on, my quiet rebellion makes
me ill, I’ve got to proclaim this: It is IMPOSSIBLE
to work while I am falling through a bottomless
hole with no end, no goal, no joy, no happiness
I cannot recall a single story or fairy tale
for inspiration

The harder I try, the deeper I sink, it is a quagmire
of empty attempts to survive things I don’t under-
stand, I cannot force the pain down, sitting like a
frozen robot, making Marvin, the paranoid android
seem like a happy clown in comparison, I need to
shout my lament

Only after giving vent to the bewilderment driving me
mad, I shall try again to hide my suffering: If it is true
we create the circumstances of our lives ourselves,
why did I choose to torture myself with a black hole
in my head that never allows any intelligence to
escape, feeling guilty

About liking the wrong things, I gave them up, no more
fun books, no more fantasies, thinking it would force me
to do my official work well – now I cannot do anything,
even fun things are too difficult, I cannot do what I dis-
like nor reach for forbidden delights since they are
gone – I can do NOTHING –

Surely this is perfect preparation for death; I used to
live like this when I was small, without hope, ready
to give up life because duty was instilled into me,
life has come full circle, I am as dead inside as
I used to be as a child…

Storyteller’s Voice Gone

Finally, after a long, long time, we saw our friends
again, met new people, Bets resembling Shirley
while Dirk is a bit like Witte, Jannie a stern father
Dylan a mischievous boy, Nathan an adorable baby

When I explained about the importance of stories
and beads on invisible strings, Bets said I was too
busy, too restless for her, but she remembered the
story of the magic pencil we read at school

She also knows Staal Burger, then Lieb played music
by Amanda Strydom, reminding me that Ay Marieke,
Marieke was my favourite song, we argued about the
merits of Hennie Aucamp versus Koos DuPlessis

I insisted that Winternag by Eugene N Marias was the
most beautiful poem ever written - Lieb preferred Lost
Wanderers* by Koos DuPlessis to Mabalel or The Rain
Dance* in Dwaalstories* by Marais, as we pulled away

I recited Oh River Deep And Dark* – song of Juanita
Perreira in Magoeba’ Lions* - finishing with The Lonely
Girl’s Song* - the storyteller’s voice gone, the wind
crying because it is all alone…


*Lost Wanderers = Kinders van die Wind
*The Rain Dance = Die Dans van die Reen – Lied van Jan Konterdans
*Dwaalstories = Stories told by Jan Konterdans
*Oh River Deep And Dark = O Diep Rivier
*Magoeba’ Lions = Die Leeus van Magoeba – Eugene Marais
*The Lonely Girl’s Song = Wat word van die meisie wat
altyd alleen bly? Sy hoor nie meer die koms van die jagters
nie, die stem van die storieverteller is dood, en die wind
huil altyd om hy alleen is….

Heaven is Mine

Pessimism is hell, on the down part of life’s
escalator looking at pessimistic theories in
detail, pessimists create hell for themselves

When there is progress, they see degeneration,
when there is steady state, they see stagnation,
when things change, they fear extinction

When looking at the high age of the universe and
evidence of previous global catastrophes when all
was lost, just to find we are still here, I realize

There is nothing to fear, we are still going strong, new
life continually being born, nothing man has ever done
managed to destroy the earth, not even nuclear war

Even when previous civilisations were lost, new ones took
their place, pessimists cry about everything lost without
realizing that new things take their place all the time

Though I hate being exposed to their corrosive ideas, I
smile in joy, having been victimised in my youth when
pessimism was the staple of life, I have learnt

Simply by accepting the universe as benevolent and
not seeing it as a vale of tears, I left the hell of pessimism
and started living in the heaven of optimism

The world is a product of the mind and one day all will find
hell is a mind-state thought up by pessimists who want to
force humanity into despair

Following the evidence and theories of optimists, heaven
is mine, up the down escalator I go, good-bye!

Up the Down Escalator – Why the Global Pessimists
are Wrong, Charles Leadbeater, Penguin Books, 2003

Missile of a Spirit

There is no help for it, I have to admit
attempting to exist in a somnambulistic
state of spiritual bliss is not working any
better than a state of arrogant happiness

I tried to preserve my peaceful state of mind
by tippy-toeing around things that irk me from
time to time, spent the evenings lying in your
lap in front of the TV, smiling in vacant apathy
hoping dutifulness will carry me right through
my morbid document

No such luck, already the chains of reality are
strangling my spirit, I need a change of mind –
right to my underground aggressive state – to
carry me through the smallness of my life, I
have to find a grand vision, inflate my soul
with the fantasy of a grand mission

Just being a government official who cannot
fly as Douglas Adams described Arthur could
like Angela Langsbury does in Bedknobs and
Broomsticks, like Esmerelda Weatherwax
in Witches Abroad, like Mary Poppins
does all the time

Is not good enough for my adventure-
loving, challenge-seeking missile of
a spirit, sitting here is like
being buried alive...

Filigree-Finesse

Words of filigree-finesse touching
my heart like the sweetest caress:
when pain is intense, pleasure in-
tensifies commensurately

As spiritual entities when we imagine
light as waves our consciousness and
beliefs determine the outcome of
world events by setting expectations

Thinking of waves, light appears as such
repeating the exercise while visualizing
light as separate particles, discrete
points appear on the other side

Believing our feelings unsafe, we block our
power, we are free to believe anything we
wish, everything being a reflection of
our own consciousness

Choosing to be at peace with everyone and
everything we make peace with ourselves
words of filigree-finesse, so beautiful
my soul comes to rest…