Poem: Addiction- Raeez Jacobs

I'm so addicted to you

And I don't know why

I'm so stuck on you

The things you do

And the way you act

When you get shy and embarrassed 

Or when you say things

That make my world pause

And my muscles tighten in my skin

I'm addicted to what you mean

How you come between my consonants and my vowels

And reshape me to perfection

I'm addicted to the way you answer the night 

And converse with themorning 

Speaking wars from savage to abolished

You stop the demons in their tracks

And guard me from the things

That make my mind run amock in a mental frenzy

I'm addicted to the way you drive me crazy

Weakening my vogue and sending my soul off 

attached to the wings of the wind

Feeling akin with the atmosphere

I'm addicted to your touch and your history

To the way every moment with you

Is a lesson by which my heart

Is made to beat in the shade of your heart

I'm addicted to the way you

Insinuate omnipotence

That power by 

which

 i'm drawn 

Eternally to every 

place 

you adorn.

©RaeezJacobs. Poetry. 2013.

Poem: When The Show Is Over

Showbiz baby, you look pallid and haunted
emaciated and caved in, it's your core they taunted
now you're Z-shaped and demented

but nothing like Zeus
except every much as aggravated
incinerated within and you feel repeated
like a drama unable to follow nor look after
a script your linguistic limitation prohibits you
from seeing through

- to understand enough to cut the scenes
   in which you make no sense or in which 
you just round up an eight-gazed fool

ashamed in the lights, amid the social irony
facing every length of your infinite perjury
and glued to the index page of a book from history

-black and white-
color and odorless

with just a little emboss above your shoulders
as you turn to address the crowd
maybe your God Mama is a little proud
a little being the operative word

you cannot function without that veneration
and it resonates from nowhere
it's not your name up in air
bouncing like an orgy all over the theater
besides, you don't even know where you are
once again, this just happened to you
and that's not even excusable anymore

but no matter,

your reasons for
are just as
sudden and incomprehensible

you rattle in the overhead lights that the icons
glide through like cheetahs on LSD
or Pumas on Ecstasy
and fade in the rap of encore-jeers
just assume some posture anyway, take a bow
baby, cheers 


©Raeez Jacobs. Poetry, 2013. 

Amnesty International ArtsFest

Here's a video clip, of my poetry recital from the 2011 Amnesty International (Wits) Annual ArtsFest. The poem is called, Medusa. It remains one of my favourite poems, and I am very proud of the places its gone to, and the people it has revealed itself to. I suppose one focal aspect of poetry, is to do what a novel does, without all the chapters and tedious descriptions that span over 300 or so pages sometimes. Medusa is a metaphorical poem, aimed at the advent of the 'Corrective Rape' phenomena that unfolded egregiously in South Africa, first when the Banyana Banyana star was brutally slain for celebrating her sexuality, then the headlining murders of several other young, predominantly black lesbians in the country. The Caster Semanya debacle had just scratched open wounds, that many gender-rights activists had long feared would cause the fabric of society to disintegrate hysterically and unsparingly. The phenomena was interlinked with an assumption, or a misconception rather, by some black men and homophobic citizens, that raping a lesbian woman would cause her to come to the egress of her "newfound heterosexuality." In the poem, Medusa (a Goddess of the ancient greek times who was sent to live in the 'Hades' away from her privilege) is an allegorical figure of modern day torture, who is subjugated and compelled to accept a life of solitude, whilst simultaneously dealing with the fact that she had been defiled through the desecration of her body- she had been raped...corrective-ly.

Through the wall

Last night in the room together
and suddenly we start to feel
the weight of the word, forever
press down on our minds,
thoughts, assumptions, and
crippling existences

the very last hour
like this- arm in arm,
or whatever you would like to
call it
the final moments
of our union;
the split occurs here
suddenly, we know fear

and realise that, we had
never really been scared
before our amalgamated clocks
began to tick away
edging toward the end

it was meaningless and empty
back then
it was just about screaming
and exuding steam
like Victorian trains
stuck within concrete tubes
on the most tired day lived

no we know
both of us, twine as
moon and night
sun and day

what the world feels like
soon as emptiness begins to form
in the shape of each other's aura

so we hold each other so close
as if infinity would somehow
begin to move through
our joined arms
as if we could imprison each other
in the thing we were trying
to build

they won't understand
what happened to me
that night
the poet's fail at it
and so do the wise
but I can tell you do
by the way you bat your eyes


                                 -Raeez Jacobs

©RaeezJacobs.2012.Poetry

[Poem] Where the winds rape the shell

She wakes to the sound of nothing;

yet today, the world is her only song-

to which she- lone heart as a once-boat,

must travel beyond her path.

The Gods delude her, though even

she is excited by

their seasons, and how they force the tide

to reach a high, outside the window; where the winds rape the shell.

She speaks in one voice only; the tongue of the seas-

the mermaid upon the sand, like a goddess.

It is the feel of the town, and the breath of the

city through which her eyes

kiss the dawn.

-Raeez Jacobs

©Raeez Jacobs. 2012

Poem: The Slaying of The Butterfly

The Slaying of The Butterfly 

The fair sex- girl mouthed,
and mermaid formed
with the apple of Adam
and the hairs of some Beatrice
ranting about as paid locks
die by the floor of the heaving shoulder,
and the beads of overflowing sweat
as tides of angst by the ocean's despair
slam waves against the chest
where the soul breathes
causing the premature stare
into the darkness from which
even the bluest eye
cannot be averted.

- By Raeez Jacobs

© Raeez Jacobs. 2012. All Rights Reserved.

Poem: Mozart's Deplorable Masterpiece

Mozart's Deplorable Masterpiece

The song is still the same-
yesterday, splashed
with mental angst,
the piano danced as do
flames beneath a light patter
while the lyrics died
as plants do,
usually only
when no hands caress
their locks,
and stalks
or when they are
bequeathed to
gardens in the pit
of Hades,
the melody dwindled,
spiral-like
to the abyss
inside which those
of the unknown state
dance restlessly, clueless
and ever so bereft of
the road most taken.

- By Raeez Jacobs ™

© Raeez Jacobs. 2012. All Rights Reserved.

Poem: By the Eyes of the Blind

By the Eyes of the Blind

We don't mind sharing a bedroom,

naive one and I, while

all the circus world goes by

our window. In the darkness,

we share a bed, and coil ourselves

together, not for warmth;

coiling in our habitual ritual

the twain pains amalgamated

by sweaty palms, and wooden knees

we are a lady's ripped dress in

the dim moonlight,

barely moon-splashed

for any sight,

only seen by the blind eye,

just as we are the only lie,

together, so coiled

waiting to hear any sound

while the floor vacillates 

and our eyes spill

curses, reluctantly,

till the circus world goes by.

- By Raeez Jacobs

© Raeez Jacobs. 2012. All Rights Reserved.