SELECTED
POETRY
by Aryan Kaganof

'THE TRIP'

you were god's gift to mankind
you were the ultimate woman
you were everything i'd ever dreamed
ah there was just one problem babe
you couldn't keep your legs closed
for longer than six days

and my trip took seven

� Aryan Kaganof
Reproduced with permission

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'ASS TO MOUTH POEM'

while i was actually in her ass
i could not come
the next morning, in her pussy,
i had to fantasize about the ass to mouth in order to finish
the reality of the assfuck was that it merely served to provide a memory
that was infinitely more erotic than the event itself

� Aryan Kaganof
Reproduced with permission

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'THE SHADOW KNOWS'

your shadow never lied to me
your shadow never slept with another man
your shadow never left me watching the clock for it to appear

the best thing about you is your shadow
your shadow's eyes don't look the other way
when confronted with the evidence of where you've been

ah baby
i wish you could turn into your shadow
that way the bruises would not show

� Aryan Kaganof
Reproduced with permission

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'THE BITTER TASTE OF NO'

i called my ex up
for a free fuck
she didn't give it to me
so i went to the bo
and played pool instead
lost ten games straight
drank three cups of coffee
came home and slaughtered
this sacrificial poem

� Aryan Kaganof
Reproduced with permission

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'DEE DEE'

DeeDee wanted to inspire Captain Burger.
To be his muse.
It really was too ridiculous.
She was 25 years and 35 kilos over the hill.
He doodled her once to get a good review.
Which made him feel like a whore.
So he treated her like one.
But she seemed to get off on that.
Began hounding him.
She wanted punishment. He wanted peace.
She started sending him expensive gifts.
He returned them unopened.
She thought it was his way of flirting.
The situation reminded him of the
Clint Eastwood movie, Play Misty For Me.
He began to worry about getting a pair of scissors in his side.
Then she interviewed a new famous
Captain Burger. Transferred her obsession.
He never heard from her again.
He regretted the way he had treated her.
Missed her gifts, her attention.
Even missed her pendulous mammaries
and gruesome fat rolls.
It was all too ridiculous.
He bought himself a blow-up doll.
Called it DeeDee.

� Aryan Kaganof
Reproduced with permission

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'MARGE'

Marge drinks half a bottle of scotch a day.
Cheap scotch. She feels safe
in her goldfish bowl.
She drinks her red hungry.

�Food spoils the wine.
I�m a soft heart, I�m vulnerable
and I don�t tolerate fools.
Pisces buy love. Virgos can�t be bought.�

She hasn�t got the nerve to kill herself
and she hasn�t got the guts to live.
She was married for eighteen years
to Mister Ghandi.

�Virgos are givers, remember that.
In my protection of myself I�m discovering
who I am. You can only find out who you
are when you detach yourself from things.�

The whisky numbs her just enough
to ignore the hatred that her children feel
towards her and forget the anger that she
still feels towards her mother.

�A useless woman who never had a clue
how to raise us. All she knew was lace and
bel canto. A polyglot. All those languages,
but she never learned how to hug or say
�I love you.��

�I have a fear of being judged.
There are very few true people out there.
So what I must look for are frogs.�

She considers her life wasted. Useless.
Her goldfishbowl is shrinking.
She knows it. She knows everything.
�It�s very difficult to love somebody.�

� Aryan Kaganof
Reproduced with permission

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'JIHAD'

My name is Jihad Rashoon.
I was born in the ghost of a fungus.
When they took off the bandages
I expected to be able to see.
I just started laughing instead.
Darkness. Blackness.
I�m on a campaign to give up stimulants.
I do drink alcohol if I go out.
I don�t go out often.
I�ve been fucked without love
but never without rhythm.
My philosophy is, I have no philosophy.
When they took off the bandages
I expected to be able to hear.
I just started crying instead.
Silence. Blackness.
Music is not the same as sound.
I�m very interested in alternative medicine.
My mother�s name was Madiya.
I�ve always thought it odd and apposite
that the first three letters spelled Mad.
She wore pink crimpeline dresses.
Had pseudo seizures all the time.
A huge woman with a hectic stutter.
I�ve never seen anyone�s mouth move
so fast. Her birthday was January 13.
She slit her wrists on the 12th.
The day before she was born.
I appreciated the irony of that.
She had a wicked sense of humour.
When she wasn�t depressed.
She was mostly depressed.
I started my campaign to give up stimulants
after the funeral.
Mom used to smoke Camel Lights.
She was a Capricorn Monkey.

My name is Jihad Rashoon.
I�m not a man. Basically I�m a blank page.
My father never had a father.
He put a curse on me
when I was seven years old.
I�ve been going in for trauma debriefing
every Wednesday afternoon since the
funeral.
Alcohol causes a lot of the world�s
problems. Lack of alcohol causes
even more.
Revenge is what the whole fucken world
runs on. Rohypnol only works nicely when
it�s done in combination with alcohol.

Otherwise you just fall asleep.
My problem with drugs is drug culture.
I did coke once. To belong.
Someone slipped me a nexus at a rave.
I got very frenetic. Drank too much.
Didn�t know what was going on.
The first time I took LSD I was nine.
It felt really safe.

When they took off the bandages
I expected to be able to speak.
Fuck reconciliation.
Basically Jihad is always the best approach.

Doctor Beckett told me to write down
everything that seems appropriate
or important. She has nice tits. Big.
I would like to call her by her first name.
Mickey. She told me that would be
inappropriate. I�m sometimes confused by
the regulations. But there isn�t really any
sense in complaining. They only end up
using it against you. It�s hard not to focus
on her tits when she sits opposite me.
Tits that big are incongruous with being a
doctor. I don't think she realises how
untherapeutic her presence is.

My mother Madiya Rashoon used to tell me
that she could mix with beggars and kings.
Unfortunately it was her lot to only ever
meet beggars. It used to irritate and
embarrass me when her accent would
change depending on who she was talking
to. Nowadays I do the same.
My voice is a virus that infects my body.

How often I prayed for Madiya to die!
I felt no greater emotion as a child than
hatred for God because of his steadfast
refusal to answer my daily petition and rid
me of that blighted woman.
In time I ceased to believe in God�s
existence and replaced in my heart my
hatred of deity with my hatred for her.

My dad is a used beret salesman.
He always says, �everything is a miracle!
Look in the mirror, that�s a miracle!�
When Madiya got Judge Steyn to raise the
monthly maintenance amount he took dad
aside and whispered, �I�m sorry to tell you
Mr. Rashoon but you are the victim of legal
blackmail.� It�s not that Dad hates me, it�s
just that he wished I�d never been born.

When I asked him what the meaning of life
was he said, �I believe in not believing. I
believe in no-thing.� It sort of made sense.
We all have to believe in something.
Not believing is something too.
In the same way that nothing is something.
We just don�t know what.
Quite frankly I don�t care.
This thing about communication
is a lot of horse-shit.
Action, that�s what counts.
Action.

When my Dad saw Madiya standing in the kitchen with the carving knife
he unbuttoned his shirt,
exposed his paunch and his minimal patch of chest hair tangled about his sagging breasts
and he barked at her,
�If you want to stab, STAB!�
Then she went into the bathroom.
He and I sat together for a long while in front of the tv with the sound on mute,
watching the cricket and listening to her screams. The tv numbed us. Like always.
It numbed us so much we didn�t even know we were bored.
It was hours and hours later that she stopped making noises.
Stopped working that infernal mouth of hers.

The cricket was over.
The late night news was over.
There was just snow swirling on the screen.
Dad and I sat in the strangely glowing space lit only by the numinosity of the tv screen.
Silent and semi-somnolent we looked like sculptural deities,
Bodhisattva and Vaisravana, the Lung Men of China.
We were both beyond pity.
We simply didn�t care anymore.
Madiya had gone under in order for us to go over.

Dr. Beckett wants me to be more explicit about the games.
I want to call her Mickey.
Everybody wants something.
She has nice tits.
Big.

� Aryan Kaganof
Reproduced with permission

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'BARCELONA'

here we are again waiting for cortados and cocaine
at the restaurant pata negra the barcelona
connection came in at noon jesus didn�t
die at
calvary
he lived until 120 worked as a waiter
at the restaurant pata negra he served cortados
and cocaine to the devil and a multitude of whores

now rosario wants to go to the club
metro so we get a cab at la rambla 58
where the transsexuals all wait for the monkey
then on up to the olympic stadium it takes about
an hour to score i can�t speak spanish and none
of the thugs speaks english so it�s lots of
hand gestures and eventually i have to
split my stash with a guy who�s
wielding a very long knife

back at the hotel
we watch porno
channel and do
the grams and
then it�s midnight
her birthday and
we fuck to cele-
brate and she comes
and she says�you�re
wonderful� and
that makes me
feel good and
when we leave
barcelona
the next
day it is
with
regret

� Aryan Kaganof
Reproduced with permission

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'TRUE LOVE'

First he gave her
What she didn�t need
Then he punished her
For not being grateful
Demanded proof
Of her so-called loving

She stuck with him
Because of his problems
That way she never had
To solve her own

She shrugs and mumbles
�At least I�m not alone.�

� Aryan Kaganof
Reproduced with permission

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'THE FLOOD'

Ship�s going down,
Ship�s going down. This
Ship is surely sinking. Neon
Light�s flickering. The purser�s
Lips are tight. Surabaya Johnny�s
Got his back to the wall. There�s a
Message for Pablo Neruda at the re-
ception desk, it�s from Eddie Constantine,
It says, �I studied political silence but Never quite made the grade� Tropp-
mann doesn�t care, he�s got Dirty
With him. They�re floating down
La Rambla chanting, �Our father
Which art in heaven forgive us
Our daily needles as we for-
give them without condoms�
Lazare�s at the airport where
She�s meeting No One Chomsky �
They�re just good friends. She�s not
Interested in Swedish massage. Wants
Him to explain linguistics to her. He says,
�Fasten your seatbelt this aircraft is landing
There�s a razor blade under your seat in case
You get cold
Feet�

� Aryan Kaganof
Reproduced with permission

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'THE OTHER'

Book me in to the House of Strangers
I need a break from Lamentations
Save me a seat at the Table of Candles
Why did all the other guests get up and leave?
Was it something I said?

Here�s a mirror
Look at yourself
You�re not the Man in the Moon anymore
You�ve become the
Other

The one you used to pretend
Not to scorn

Go back to your Valley of dark Lamentations
There is no shiny altar for you here
In this Temple of Rubble and Strangers
No balm
Not the kind you need

Then Judith brought out the platter
Adorned with Holofernes� head
Delilah shaved it
Samson scalped it
Moses garnished the tray with freshly-picked bullrushes

As for me?
I ordered a double

A little later Saul ran in with the exegesis,
changed his name to Paul
Talitha jumped up on her hind legs
Yelled out �Praise the Lord�
Peter denied he knew the Boss, not once
not twice
but thrice
Judas was busy counting his sheckels

As for me?
I ordered another double

� Aryan Kaganof
Reproduced with permission

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'BEETHOVEN'

On the phone
from
across the world
she said
�I feel nothing for you.�

I asked her
to
say it again
she said it again
laughed
added
�I�m listening to cool music.�
put the receiver next to
the speaker

It was Beethoven

� Aryan Kaganof
Reproduced with permission

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'THE TRADE'

Here are the drugs
Here is the gold
Here is the status you seek

Take them
They�re yours for the keep

Leave your soul in the box at the door

� Aryan Kaganof
Reproduced with permission

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'TEN PAGES'

The first page was a page of Crude Reflections
The second page was a page of Cruel Rejections
The third page had the lyrics to the House of
Lamentations
The fourth page was a page of Unanswered
Questions
The fifth page was a page of Diagonally
Slanting
Sentences
Gradually
Diminishing
In size and
Legibility
Until the sixth page blazed
And the seventh page harmonized
But the eighth page got stuck in the ATM
And the ninth page committed suicide
After reading the front page of
Tomorrow's newspaper

� Aryan Kaganof
Reproduced with permission

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