Direct Poetry from the Jonker Memorandum.
Comment.
The Jonker Memorandum is, as stated elsewhere, an Allegoric prose poem: meaning that
the prose part is written using poetic forms and patterns. And much is prefixed by a piece
of [so-called] ‘poetry’. The pieces that follow and are called by me ‘Direct’ are, essentially,
the punctuation dotted throughout the tale: as a form of Brechtian introduction.
Regarding the pieces contained herein; #6 & #39 are attributed to the poet/philosopher
Friedrich Nietzsche with thanks, and are from the script for my performance of that Poet’s
work at the Centenary Nietzsche Conference: Pretoria University in 2000. The script was in
part derived from the Portable Nietzsche. Viking edition: 1954: Edited by Walter Kaufman.
Other pieces elsewhere may contain words in quotation marks because the words are not
mine, but borrowed albeit not attributed because I’ve forgotten from where they were
absorbed.
Each piece [other than the two referred to above] is attributed to !NiK [being aka
Nicholas Jakari]. [Btw: the ! is a San sign: not a common or garden exclamation mark…
Rather it represents the San ‘Click’ sound, and is a symbol for my return in 1994 [referred
to elsewhere].
The numbers in Brackets after ! [00] for instance, identify the year in which the piece was
composed. In some cases the designation inside the brackets is simply [JM] meaning the
piece was specifically written for the place where it was used, when it was written
somewhere between ’94 and ’10 when the text was complete or ’14 when the Podcast series
was finished.
The name of the Story, the Jonker Memorandum, based on a tale told to the writer in a
random barroom conversation by an equally random, aging drunk Afrikaner man in a
downtown bar, is to honour the poet Ingrid Jonker who took her life in despair: never
believing that a world such as this represented by the tale was actually possible and:
nonetheless wrote words that moved souls
1.
The Enumerator’s summary.
The poor and the weak,
The strong and the meek
Were led like lambs to the
Reconstruction yards
Down
A long steel slide
Suspended in deepest space.
The frail and all those of indecisive
Disposition
Were driven to a new edge; the ledge
At the end of the universe
Fell off
And were encountered
No more…
!NiK[‘94]
2.
The State of the Nation.
I listened to our leader’s State of the Nation
Speech and couldn’t understand it
I read the critic’s review that
Said the
Citizens of
“Manenbug, Harrismith, Diepsloot, Hanover Park,
Phomolong and Crossroads
Couldn’t
Understand the speech either
And although I knew none of those
Places
I felt empowered: knowing none of us knew:
And that our president’s secret
Was safe….
!NiK[‘98]
2
3.
Cooking Turtles: Part One.
From “A Bundle of thoughts`’.
Off an old, Long Playing Record… now broken, and lost.
Cooking Turtles is a slow process of
Heating up the water
From cold and there
Will be a part
Where the creature becomes wonderfully
Invigorated.
Later when the water is boiling
The turtle is unaware that it has died: for
It had stopped
Living
Earlier.
!NiK[‘98]
4.
Notes off a wall inside a police station.
Bear in mind
The destruKtive konsequences
Of unrestrained self-interest
On a simple of
Unsophisicates
No!
No?
No - a simple of sophisticates,
Surely?
And
As they say
“A bullet in the spine
Will
Change your life”.
!NiK[05]
3
5
What happens when the Juggler
loses its footing
Kri-o-genia + Her n Me n Then
A break of light
Against the wall
Reveals the bar
‘tween me n you.
And here to keep me from you
A cross to bar the night;
To share the quiet solemnity: of
Our unimagined hope, held tight.
Beyond the squares
The bare fleshed veins
Etch out
Nature’s child
Stark with naked pain
And stroked with evening’s chill.
A howl across the darkness
Of a moment
Echoes off the barren seeds
Marked out by season’s change.
Now is the time
When warmth has gone
Our peace
Is held restricted
To the square yard of our minds.
!NiK[‘78]
4
6.
Hyperconsciousness & Freidrich Nietzsche.
“Could you create a god? Then
Do not speak to me of any gods. But you
Could well create the Overman.
Perhaps not yourselves my brothers
But unto fathers
And forefathers
Of the overman.
You could re-create yourselves:
And let this
Be your best creation.”
Thus Spake Zarathustra
Nietzsche
7.
Probable Possibility.
Was the core of reality
Really a place
Without light:
A howling soup of uncertainty
Without konstrukt or meaning?
So much for probability.
!NiK[00]
5
8
We’ve changed time.
We’ve changed time,
He said.
I’ll fight the rules
I will not succumb.
We do more in a day
Than our forefathers
Kould konsider
I’ll fight the changing
Of the rules
I will not succumb.
Doing in a week
I will not succumb
What our ancestors did
Perhaps
In a lifetime.
So we have compressed time
And burned out our ability
To keep up,
She chirped.
I’ll fight. I wont succumb…
I will not succumb.
Yes we have changed time
We’ve also sold off
Most of it
He concluded caustically.
!NiK[07]
6
9.
Systematizing parody
Do we systematize
Our everyday parodies
About the changing
Of time
To suit a vengeful purpose
That we allocated to
Our
Alphaman… to our
Alphapersons
!NiK[02]
10.
A
Shall we take a
little walkie
said the spider
to the fly…
The walkies are behind
Us
And I hope that
We don’t die.
!NiK[03]
11
Loadshedding: voices in the dark.
How do we make it rain?
We water the garden
Wash the car.
We wash the car
We wash the car
We wash the car
For Korinth Starr.
!NiK[JM]
7
12
The rain arrived
The rain arrived first
Before the lights came on.
When power goes
We have to talk to each other
Again.
And deal with truth…
Deal with silence.
The multiverse punishes us
Then
For intemperate acts
And also presents us
With
The opportunity
To
Experience
Disappointment.
Driven only by the
Certainty
That we rule
And to continue
Is to rule
On.
!NiK[JM]
8
13. Those who konstrukt rules.
I met a man who said he
Had been drinking with me
All night
But that the bottle was still full.
I met a gambler in denial
Who said he couldn’t
Remember
Drinking Bell’s
Or even why he gambled.
It’s the little things
He said
That gradually pisses you off
About a place:
The soap that you don’t
Find in the
Bathroom; the sun blinding your eyes as you
Drive east in
The morning
The fool who drives to the
Corner at
The edge
And waits there
To be fetched.
And the ambitious
Who block the road
With their egos.
Most of all it’s the issue
Of chairs
And how they should
Be
Placed.
!NiK[JM]
9
14. From the Testimonies
Whatever you do
To the web of life
Shall be returned to you
Twicefold.
And shall through all your lives.
The book of Shadrack: Navaho section.
So the Navaho say
Whatever you do
To the web
Of life
Will come back to
You.
Is that the same as fate?
Is that why we cannot
Wait
To be
Late.
The web of life is, it
Seems,
To be
Our
Tangled levy.
!NiK[JM]
10
15. Rape: The genocidal Crime.
Variations on some lines in the Jozi “Star” newspaper.
Wed 18/4/2012
“A crime that shames us all.”
It’s the crime of shame
And it is here to stay
Seven rapes per man
In a single day
Violently taken
In only one way.
“The tip of it all”
They lasciviously say,
To an ‘Ysberg of rape’
Oh yay…
Oh yay…
Deep down inside
A penetrating ray
Thrusting up, up, up:
Through the curds and the whey.
Rape… oh rape… a girl child a day
Rape, rape, rape your worries away.
Oh… rape, rape, rape to show you really care
Rape away the rage at all that isn’t fair.
Shame, shame, shame.
Do not stay
It’s just a little game so
Rape
Away
Rape away?
Rape:
Away.
!NiK[‘12]
Ysberg = iceberg. Afr:
11
16
Destiny.
Couples parade with
Earnest enthusiasm
To the fast moving Fox –
Trot
Frantically giving new
Urgency
To otherwise
Futile purpose.
Because?
That’s what we do.
[Book of Shadrack]
!NiK[JM]
17
From the 3rd Book of Shadrack
Exploit the minds
Of those who dress
In finery
And march to the tune
Ofsomewhereelse.
While we dance amongst
The fantasies
Of our abstract
Exigencies*
Dissecting
parts.
Dissecting
portions.
A gleaming
Screaming
Scrap from
Our quite
Unimagined
Caprice.**
!NiK[‘12]
*Exigencies: New Webster – intrinsic requirements or circumstantial necessities.
** Caprice: New Webster – mere fancy.
12
18
Inkambabeyibuza*
from: ‘The Notes of Joy’
You can be a part
Of the power
Or apart
From the power;
Parceling tradition
Or facing madness.
Never
Believing that anyone
Could believe.
So ‘Inkambabeyibuza’:
“By this scar then,
You
Shall
Remember me
And this”.
![‘08]

Inkambabeyibuza… IsiZulu. Means what it says.
19. Remembering
When we did not
Remember
To remember
What we thought
We should
Remember
We found ourselves
Unable to grasp
At straws
Or see the broken
Doors:
We found we had
Forgotten why
We chose to
Do
The things we
Chose
To
do.
!NiK[JM]
13
20. Return to the Virtuality game.
Don’t talk to me of ghosts
For there are none
I don’t believe this to be a rock
This is a rock
And when I am not here the rock remains
I’m sure…
Aren’t i?
Our world is
Not
A Vision
Dronkverdriet*
To which we aspire it is not the knowledge that we
Have represented to ourselves
In a form
Awaitingrearrangement.
History/Herstory/Theirstory/Ourstory:
It’sallintheblankspaces.
Is there existence if no one records it?
Are we as ephemeral as the rock?
Do we matter?
Why?
!NiK[Circa ‘06]
*Dronkverdriet: Afrikaans. Maudlin drunk.
14
21. Indicators
The bang on the front of
The head
The warning tremble of
Thought
That preceded it
When I walked that way
With the load.
And then… to forget: in
That same instant
To forget:
And be so brutally
Reminded.
You were told!
We warned you when you
Went this way before!
Retention rulz….
!NiK[‘12]
15
22. With regard to Mr. Thomas
Tremor shakes off me
With every change of way
While you react with
Panic?
And break you down
To pray?
Or do you prey?
So: you do not go fiercely
Into that good day
Tremor shakes off
You… tremor shakes
Off you
With every change
Of way…
You do react with panic
Though
And do
Break you down…
To
Pray.
Prey.
!NiK[‘12]
16
23.
The Apocalypse came and went:
Legends of Urdos.
What if the people in the stories
In which the committed rapists lived
Were able to Emote
At some
Level
Likefishthatdailyswarm
To a feeding place:
In search of nourishment.
Does
That figment of the
Imagination
Carry with it the
Residual information
That caused it to be formed?
Is it accessible?
And so:
When people follow leaders
As shadows follow
Owners then all are blind
Following the virtuous certainties
Of faith: a deep conviction
That certainty
Is ruled by uncertainty,
Which is itself
Certain.
!NiK[04]
17
24. Ellis says…
“On running the Mile
there comes a point
at which the
pacemustpickup
in order that one may sprint
toward
the
finish
line
and reach it,
notwithstanding stumbles.
!NiK[JM]
25. Oram Mangosti
Should you say you
Cannot go on
Moving forward
Then perhaps
It is because
You
Are unable
To forget…
Inkambabeyibuza… by
This scar
Then
You shall
Remember
Me.
!NiK[JM]
18
26. The thing about the wind
The thing about the wind
Was the timing:
There was none.
As soon as you knew
Or thought you knew
You no longer
Knew
And a cycle preceded a
Cycle
Or in shortening
Became
Interspersed:
So we say
Go
Now
!NiK[JM]
19
27. Zen zat was ze way.
I am ze way of zen
It’s what I do
I believe every thing
And
No
Thing.
Every thing so that i
Should not
Inadvertently
Miss
The
Truth.
And No
Thing
So that I can
Understand
Certainty.
!NiK[‘08]
28. What’s in the dark.
A byte is eight bits
And a bit is a binary digit:
A zero or a one.
And this Unicode stuff?
Ah… that is a lot bigger… binary processed
Into
Hothexadecimals.
!NiK[‘00]
20
29. Chips in the game.
The dazzling disc called
Moon
Hid itself in plain sight
Behind a swiftly flowing veil:
Rain soaked shards
Of
Nimbus.
!NiK[JM’0]1
30. Dekonstruktions
From: Random Notes….
I am beginning to grasp
At the secular nature
Of consciousness.
Is this what I mean?
Or did the message alter from
The hand
Up
To the brain or… perhaps…
Vice versa.
Did the paper change it?
Or the pen?
Or did i?
And
Why?
!NiK[JM’00]
31. Regarding Intellectuals – Guilty as Charged.
Oh vanities of intellectuals, and pride
Before a fall
Sovereignty and self-determination help
A girl
Walk tall.
Oh vanities of intellectuals, pride
Before a tumble.
Sovereign self-determinant so
A girl shouldn’t grumble.
!NiK[JM’00]
21
32. Excerpt from “All tax is theft”…
A response to a strident call from a Stakhanovite style apparatchik for “poems about the
economy” made in the context of confiscatory “take it all back” tax proposals. 29/05/00
Taxes, levies, history, herstory
Computers, smartphones,
Investors, strikes, footballers
And murder: plus the concept
Of delete
Consciousness…
The world of today
Is the world of
Delete – consciousness?
Nay – I never heard of that!
Those who live today
Are not the same
As those
People who lived here yesterday
The people of today have deleted
The people of
Yesterday
From their consciousness in
Order to
Cope with today…
[Podcast ends here… balance of original
follows should you choose i.e. it is ex-Jonker.]
Yes in order to cope with today…
To demand of the world of today that it should pay for the
Deeds of yesterday
Is an idea that can only
Begin to work should people decide to love
A Demander today.
It is no longer enough to be loved
Then
It has to be now.
On the Dow, the product must have
Credibility,
And unspeakably sharp and acute
Marketing methods to get good attention
22
That attracts velvet paws
And a favourable mention.
Ok.
The idea of taxing anyone
Especially
As a form of reparation
Is a demand
That must be analysed
In the context of what happened to
Other similar taxes in the growing of the nation:
The general state of the tax inflation
Process.
The treatment of corrupt tax thieving officials
Caught, as it were, during recess:
Generally what the
Taxpayer gets after the promises have been
Deducted from the bill;
Instead of “fuck you, stand back,
I haven’t emptied the till”.
Securing invested money: that is
Securing other people’s money, honey
Extends through risk evaluation
To the limits of gradation, mixed
To bland computerized credulity
Impacts upon the premium
We have to pay
For nice clean offshore money:
Instead of dirty honey, hey
Where the Anti-Kollektive Kolektas
Karry Kalashnikovs and K….
All tax is theft. Especially those bereft and
Confiscatory deductions
Like capital gains disruptions
Those are scary to all those mary’s
Who seriously dispose with
“Other people’s” woes, by handling their cash
To demo overwhelming dash:
At the same time, with great care,
Beneath an open stare.
Investors are owners of money.
They are not politicians or something
Else funny
It may be in doubt they are human at all;
Concepts wired up
With a screen for a wall to show memory:
23
Spewing out models of risk
And uncertainty.
Measuring the loot of the world’s
Aging billions:
Cash that adds up to hundreds of trillions.
What you did last month doesn’t matter a jot
It’s what’s happening now that counts for the lot.
When a butterfly tumbles
And falls in Peru
The red card is flagged from computer to you. The
Risk model says the risk
Factors have altered:
That risk you took last week has now
Gone and faltered
So follow instructions: delete from the programme
That order we called
And that hold put on Put
The rate must go u[p
Or the cash go on out.
Perceived expectations: perceived quantum
Risk
Modified market uncertainties
Frisk
Down our hopes
Batters our fears
Causes the money to stop
And change gears.
Perennial problems perplex perceived risk.
Confusion of outcomes presents the most risk
To one who man’s mountains of money: to plan and to
Do and to follow things through to
The end:
That should always be happy.
Should this Hollywood twitch
Suffer a glitch… should heaven transform into hell
When success equals misery,
Inconsolable outrage,
Mixed in with
Anger
As
Well.
Then confusion will reign
The markets feel pain
And the cash is
away
before
Losseswillclaimallthegain.
24
In other words: in the world of money
Something is done; that is not at all funny:
A result is achieved, expected or not.
There are no relative gains
For corporate aims
But returns, as predicted.
Should results be in doubt,
Then someone with clout
Changes course,
Before loss is addictive.
When bosses complain, cash workers feel pain
And the outcome is bad for the homeowner’s loan and the girl
Who was Jill becomes Jane.
Alt.F1 delete part one: next transaction please.
!NiK[‘00]
Episode 59
This entire piece originally was used in “Random Notes”.
The introduction only the was used
in the story of the Jonker Memorandum.
25
33. Tear down the house.
With kompliments to R.J. Mugabe [aka Bob the
Roz] – One who kept his word.
Fragment from Lemuria.
Between the desert fathers
And the measurement problem
There remains something
About a grave
That never saw father time
Felled
Upon a leaf
A vera causa
To the very stuff of Poetry.
!NiK[JM’00]
34. Regarding a Planetary catastrophe.
Ring a ring of roses
All fall down
One-down two-down
All on to our noses.
!NiK[JM’99]
26
35. Open Season
We thought the storms
Came yesterday
But they came again
Today
And things are broken
And everything’s gone – again.
Where have they all
Gone mama?
Where have you all gone?
!NiK[JM’12]
36
Alldays
Running on a road to Alldays
When what happens is
Not what happens:
Searching for the things we thought
We had;
Finding things we didn’t want
Then finding … do we
Really
Know
Anything at all?
!NiK[‘10]
27
37. Memories of an Apocalypse
I was taking a Thai massage
When news that the
World had
Ended
Came through on the
Radio.
Go North said the
Disembodied voice
Through the static clamour
Of mass
Homicidal
Panic.
Why North? Why?
North was gone
South was too.
There are graves in
The mist
Here
Just waiting for
You.
!NiK[‘12]
38. Baobab musings
I’m neither a joiner
Nor a hand’s upper
Either
Of these
May differ
According to circumStances.
But nonetheless
We will take
The journey
To its
End.
!NiK[‘07]
28
39. Loadshedding again.
“This life as you live it now and
have lived it you will have
to live again times
without number.”…
F. Nietzsche
40
Investigations into meat and aging
graveyards
Ageing graveyards [or are they?]
Aging graveyards.
Does it matter?
We never fear those
Whose wrath
Cannot move us
To
Terror
!NiK[JM’06]
41. Justwhenwethink….
Just when we think it’s
Time to come in from the
Dark
The light loses its
Exuberance and
We struggle to
Remember
What we want to
Remember
!NiK[JM’06]
29
42. Collusive coverage.
The spider has had to run for cover.
Its web was
Wantonly
Wasted when those,
Who travelled with unTested hypothesis
Of broad unearned
Merit crashed
Through the
Door
Demanding arbitRary affirmAtion.
So write us some funds
Brother Yakove
Write us some
Kind
Konsideration for the time
We had to
Wait
For
Our
Turn to bid upon
Our own
Preferential
Apportionment.
Squaring our participation with your
Grotesque
Admission.
So write us some funds
Cousin Yakove
So we can forget:
Write now.
!NiK[’13]
30
43. Nozik meets Starr.
According to the man
Called
Robert Nozik
Individuals have rights
And
There
Are
Things no other individual
Or group of individuals can do
To them
Without violating those rights:
Ding dong.
Does this mean? We thought,
That when we penalize
Those who exercise their
Right to rape
And to murder
That we therefore
Unnaturally oppress those persons.
Or do two rights therefore
Permit
A
Wrong.
!NiK[JM]
31
44.
Waar der Schterre loop.
Primeval memory: - Auslaande ballad.
We are the masters of the soil
You are but its slaves.
On reading “Tilling the Soil”: - David Day
****************************
When the first settlers came here,
To this region
Those who were here already
Or claimed a hunter’s
Affinity
With the
Place
Scorned their slavery to the soil
That could
Feed them
Without toil
And so: they found it was taken
From them.
Now that they have it back
It was again
Found that
What they wanted
Was gone and
Could no longer
Subsist
For them.
They sought freedom and
Found
The cost
Of
Living.
!NiK[‘13]
32
45. When you are tired …
When you are
Ready
To be
Lunch
To be lunch.
When you are tired
You are ready to be lunch.
!NiK [‘13]
46. On Market Piranhas
“Money is a way of thought”
[Oswald Spengler]
A market fundamentalist would be likely
To say that the only real
Truth in the known
Multiverse is the moving average
On a Stock
Market index.
Others might argue that there are so many
Variations
On a moving average
That nothing matters
And that the idea of
Truth
Is
An
Illusion.
In close-up the Index lurches
With majestic
Hard-driven
Velocity
In repose… pools of Piranha
Sweeping with uniform movement
Breaking
Up
Breaking
Down: threshing their wake
Rippling their spine
Konstantly Klenzing… rejuvenating
A veritable ebb and flow
Warp and weft.
The purest of the pure would call
The Index itself
Truth:
That the moving gobbling average
Merely predicts the
Truth
Whatever it may be.
!NiK[‘02]
33
47. Fibonacci’s Financial Flaws
All debt, she said
Is a right against
The future.
So I thought of Fibonacci
And his rentals
On the seconds of time
Borrowed from
Somewhen
Where
To feed our present ratio
Cow.
And knew by all that moved
That the future must
Start
To pay Rent:
Now.
!NiK[13]
34
48. The legend of Korinth Starr
They – you know who ‘they’ are?
‘They’ think they live in a tent
Where no one pays rent
For the space that they take
From the place they call Sent
Now and again.
Now, again the future is stretched
So it reaches the past
A paradox sweep
That leaves us aghast
A quantum leap
And mortgaged deep our vast
Existence now and now again
And again now to a thirty third
Time over again.
So the future now
Must pay rent now
To save us then
To save us when
To save us again
When we save
Amen.
!NiK[‘13]
49.
Untitled
A loser would not wait to be mated
Knowing the end to be inevitable
The machine would resign.
!NiK[“01}
35
50.
Reasoning Revelations [201]
Praxeological thoughts following perusal of a rationalist critique
Praxeological
Thoughts
Following
Perusal
Of
A secretly
Clandestine
Rant
Reason unlocks the door to transformation
Reason staggers; confounded by transformation.
They felt the great fear then
Those that waited
In
Judgement
Of the
Poet’s
Conclusions: delivered
Without simplicity of…
Fractions of…
Delusions…
That actions
May
Be lib
Er
Ated
From re-actions…
And a call
For
Restitution
That it should not be
Destitution
!NiK[‘13]
36
51. Escaping
Those little boxes were not
So little
Each one fitted
A person
And those that didn’t
Want one
Could wear sackcloth
Or even ashen finery
Just
Before
Sunrise
Instead.
!NiK[‘12]
52. What wasn’t imagined?
It was known that time curls
Around things and shows
Us what we already know
As something that we didn’t.
When we foresee that which
We didn’t dare to
Perceive then
We know that what
We see
Was not imagined.
!NiK[JM’01]
37
53. On finding crumpled up notes
I can only say
That memory
Is
Selective
The pencil with
Which
I write
This
Will
Fade
Soon
And when i
Find
This note
Crumpled
Into a pocket
In a few months
It will have beCome
Un
In
Telligible
Like my recollection of writing it
Thus therefore to such
Scribblings
On the submersion [?] of money
And other curious,
Felicitations: like
Does Dawkins
Meet Dworkin’s
Memes
Prompting rape* [ukudlwengula… IsiZulu]]
Memes
Prompting
Gryp.** [To ‘grab’ lasciviously: Afrikaans]
Memes being ancient
Themes
From then to
Now
38
Jumbled and carelessly
Discarded
Straightened not enforced
With
Rigid
Regime where
Write meets
Wong
Where rite and
Wrong go
Badly shod
Go
Ding
Dong
U Pong
Odd!
!NiK[‘09]
54. Resting on a cliff
Eastern folk saying/proverb Chi-Na
Of the many dozen ways to
Get out of
Trouble
The best
Is
To
Go
!NiK[‘JM]
for Chi-Na
39
55. A limitation of mind
Everything is ‘gonna’ be all right
All right?
As long as you keep
Holding tight
To your vision
Of you
When you
Thought you
Might
No
Longer
Be
Real
Or even in sight
And you know then
That the impossible
Was
Only
A limitation
!NiK[‘13]
Of
Mind.
56. Endings
When you are no
Longer here
And no longer
Around: then peace
Is
Konstant.
!NiK[‘’98]
Thus endeth the ‘Jonker’ set.
40