Friday, December 14, 2012

Poem: House of Glass




It's okay to be my age
These days I don't tell myself
A lot of things about myself
Because I'm a bit afraid of the
Way I might react to the sound of my voice
The world makes a lot of noise
Sometimes I wish to be deaf
Sometimes I wish to be blind
I long not to feel
What it feels like to feel
Because I feel peculiar when I feel
The world traps me in sometimes
Hurls me toward the centre of my shadow
Face to face with my mind
Unsure what I will find
In my eyes
I don't know if I'd like the truth
I always hated being lied to
I don't know what I want from myself
I'm scared of my heart
That fragile thing that carries me
I'm scared of the thoughts
That consume the machines
By which I breathe and through
Which I think of you
My inner mirror
I don't want it to shatter
I dread the sound of glasses at war
Breaking like crystal raindrops slamming
Against each other in midair
I'm afraid of myself
Tamed by my shadow
Disciplined by my dreams
Like a wolf with an attitude


Copyright. 2012. Raeez Jacobs Poetry.



Thursday, November 15, 2012

Gaga Wisdom





"Some women choose to follow men, and some women choose to follow their dreams. If you're wondering which way to go, remember that your career will never wake up and tell you that it doesn't love you anymore." - Lady Gaga

Extract from short story: A Darker Shade of Grey


A Darker Shade of Grey
by
Raeez Jacobs

I feel like a packet full of smoke, choked on the top by chubby hands.
My mind is adrift so many thoughts, as if my head is a boardwalk for these soughts of things. Yet my mind is like the packet full of smoke; weightless and questionable. Scientifically. Philosophically. I never question it, because I hate getting things wrong, and my mind is the last thing I wan’t a fist fight with. This feeling has been scarce, and I can’t say I’ve missed it. Only I know it’s really familiar; I can be comfortable with it when I want to be, and I can be real uncomfortable with it too. I keep feeling as if my room is a platform, and a train would soon stop here, but all that materialises in the dimness, is a soccer-ball-sized puff of steam. The train is one of the things in my head, meant to represent something bigger than my inadequate imagination; something by which I become a quintessential dumbass. A piece of shit, son of a gun...call it whatever, the fact remains a fact.

The rain is just starting to fall, and I drown in every drop, like a meak speck of atmosphere. My eyes meet the wet road; the gravel from which steam rises, like a lane in a horror movie, and they stay there for hours. The clouds roll and the air darkens, as if more blackberry essence is being poured into the air by a servant of God. I think I can feel the wetness, yet I am indoors. I hear the rain make war on my zinc roof, and I know I’m not going to bother breaking my posture, to hell at deaf allies making so much noise above me.

 ©RaeezJacobs.2012.

Monday, November 5, 2012

[Poem] Toffee Skinned Goddess




Six-legged, nine arms
a goddess stuffed through
a dazzlig cincture
one-eyed in your shrine
choking on the brine
swirling like the twist
of a ballerina with sharp points
in the metro of your throat
jerking like a wind-smacked
postal pole with all your scarlet
letters turning upward like a UFO
and then raining down on you
like festive confetti
returned to sender
the repeat offender
calpable bender
with a little bit of she
in your masculinity
your skin is made of toffee
shining like vanilla floors when the
sun hits the windowpane
there ain’t no virgil going down
up your alley in your temple
but you feel the flame
feel the burn
as the torrent makes folds
and bangles of your loose
skin
you can’t grow accustomed
to the feeling
and your ears deafen
as you eavesdrop on the
screeching conversation between
your bone and your pulled muscle
that tear each other to shreds
while you try catch the drops of
confetti but they slip through
your fingers and disappear in the
palm of your hand

 ©RaeezJacobs. Poetry. 2012


[Poem] Of You- R. Jacobs



everything reminds me of you
when i think back
in the tape of my mind
i see you turning in my stereo

and i hear your lungs
pressing out the music
coming from your sweet mouth
with your hands changing
the way the wind felt on my cheeks

i see your eyes as i see
two headlights in the night
with the same anxious heart
of a lonely traveller

taking my jeans and smirk
down some pretty dangerous roads
getting into an old Chevy
with some sweet thing

who listened to Pour Some Sugar on Me
at the loudest volume
and made me sweat like
a slave in hell

with shackles at my shaking knees
rattling like possessed sea shells

hot and bothered
directly exposed to the heat

that all reminds me of you


©RaeezJacobs. Poetry. 2012

A piece of


-lambency jumps from the verses
your description glistens
you are the torch of my poetry
when the mist takes me hostage
you beautify my sordid miasma


Awkward Turtles and Romps


I’ve been contemplating getting a tattoo, for a long time now. I should
have been inked, around the time of my birthday (May 3, to be precise)
but somehow, it just never materialized as slated. Okay, I didn’t end up
getting it, because I was with a group of friends, gallivanting the streets
of Johannesburg, like tipsy-still-thirty gypsies. Literally, we were nomads.
but i won’t elaborate on that too much, since this piece is about ‘my tattoo’,
not about the alibis and setbacks. I remember the reaction I received, when
i reminded everyone that one of the stops (of the many) needed to be made
that day, should have been at the parlour; i could sense the disgruntlement,
although I do also understand that we were under immense pressure, to
find accommodation and settle in, having been on the road, literally, since
the night before.



I relented on the immediate need, and decided (promised myself)  that I could
just get it another time, and that it really wasn’t such a huge kettle of fish.
But albeit giving up, I remained aware of the rather irking fact that, I was not
always apt to save money, and that I would most likely be able to do my tattoo
six times over, with all the money I received, sporadically during the year, but
still wouldn’t end up inked, because of the former fact, of my disposition to
spend, foolhardily.

The 2012 year is about to end, and something I’ve wanted since the fall of the
previous year, might just remain a want until the break of the new year.
I don’t want that to happen. I am going to try with every corpuscle of
my being, to make this little dream become a reality before i carry, what should
be considered: ‘an expired dream’, into a year I’ve set aside for the
creation, development and emergence, of so many other ambitions, goals, etc.

For those who don’t know, the tattoo that I’ve been yearning to get on
my skin is; the outline (in bold and black, not beautiful lines) of a tattoo,
with it’s stout legs pushed out at its sides. The lack of detail has everything to
do with my simplicity, and also the symbolism of it;

the outer lines depict the shadow of the turtle
the boldness of the lines symbolise the texture (in a sense), lending
to the idea of strength (in relation to the turtle’s shell)-à the hard shell,
signifies the face of exterior strength, and also the length and breath of
the protection we assimilate, as defenses and to keep out what we
don’t welcome in. The line is like a wall, in other words, except that
we don’t live within the construct, we are it, and the walls are
bold and thick, emphasising that we have strong bodies and spirits, but
mostly that we are unimpressionable and our mental state is able
to perservere influence.

The turlte became sort of an influential ‘figure of fauna’ to me, around the
time i started enjoying my trips down marijuana avenue, with my crazy antics,
illusions and artistic paraphernalia like, viz. my poetry pads, pens, notebooks, and
imagined realities.  
The turtle was then used, to let one another know, if the other was already high. In that way,
we would all be cognisant of the state we were in. That was it, really. However, turtles had
long since stood out for me, because of how dissimilar they are to other animals, and how
their speed is criticised. I believe that, it was this criticism which somehow made me privy, of the
entitlement assumed, destructive criticism given, and the judgements handed out by humans, extending the criticism, control over, and judgement of other human beings to animals, in a global and evolving world. The turtle is almost like me, though I am anything but slow; I tend to slow down, casually, to peruse what’s happening around me, and I might even take a while to get going again. I’m comfortable in my shell- my outer experience, and it’s of great importance to me, because not only does it encase my organs, but it’s a point by which I am perceived, socially. Irrespective of whether such a perception affects me or not, my physical appearance matters to me, not only for partial veneration and admiration from others, but it’s also something I can contain and construct my qualia (innate reality); my mental world is concealed, and kept private through my outer frame. Exactly, the way turtles are concealed within their shells.

Example of Turtle Outline for tattoo

Picture from my birthday weekend, with Azizza and Chanelle


Friday, October 19, 2012

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


Sunday, October 14, 2012

Poem: Between Hearts


Your heart and Mine

between your heart and mine,
there is a space of,
bewilderment and wonder

there are questions,
becoming edgy,
between your heart and mine

there is no other disagreement,
but our own fear, brewing
between, your heart and mine

time flows, as it should flow,
and feelings go,
where feelings usually go,
between your heart and mine

now-
the stars don’t shine, the torches never glow,
yet, there was once a spark
between your heart and mine
lit up, like an amusement park

an arm away
from an embrace,
an hour away
from your gate,
your world is an open
book,
my world, is
your story
and there, are no errors,

between your heart and mine

tensions are nascent,

between your heart and mine,
and neandethal feelings
are discarded,
but beautiful things remain,

while compliments fill
the balloons floating,
from your heart, to mine,
so they burst from airs and graces

there is a
silenced secret,
and suppressed
emotion, twirling
in the space, between your heart and mine

there are words, questions,
curiosities, lights waiting to glow,
answers, desires,
and events, between your heart and mine


there are things to
anticipate, dream-of,
and decipher, between our hearts;
there are unspoken languages,
contrived laws, and a collision,
of red hot feelings- crashing into each other,

like two planets merging-
worlds diverging, between
our aching hearts,

and

gravity flows, eternally
through the vents
of my heart,
into yours,

so both our hearts,
are calmed, void o’ fury,
and unintimidated by
the love jury,

and both our hearts,
are carried by,
the force of nature

we never show it,
though it is live;
there are performances,
on the stages, in the
spotlight,
between your heart and mine,
hence, we become so broadway that,
no thick line
can cross out, the way we feel;
turning through the Hollywood wheel,
we’ve got fame out our feet,
and take to the arts, for theraphy;
beneath a creavity canopy

there is a silenced,
longstanding, robust,
and an unblemished aura
circling and flappin’
through the rings and clouds,
in the ambience
between your heart and mine

there is a whole
other world, no man alive
could build, with his
bare hands or heavy tools;
constructed in, the urban setting,
between your heart and mine
I know I’ll be fine,
and you will be too

because each and every one,
of your heartbeats,
reassure and console me;
every second of your life, adds
another mintute to mine...
implying that, there is one ending
between your heart and mine,
therefore, we will perish, identically,
then together in the underworld, we will
continue to be

as only you could
see, what everyone
else was blind to;

my breaking points-
moral hypotheses; experiments,
to see what would happen,
should i witness you fade,
becoming so paranoid

that,

for days,i swam through my horoscope,
as if there were chemicals,
on the page,
that could cease, whatever
the stars perceived as trauma,
or as if i could dive, straight into hope,
desperately trying to make time
become less fractious, and
praying, for emotional traffic, to flow
freely in the passages between
your heart and mine
as if the soul of the sign,
and the astrologer’s orotund prediction,
would make it less malice,
and more milignant

operative upon
our own train ride,
with nothing to hide,
in our hearts; goin’ round the track,
‘til we came back, with our
Heads, pregnant, heavily, with
ideas, and things to say
and it was then, the tunnel
was formed,
between your heart and mine
so that you could, walk-in
on my lies, and see them, before
they were even formed,
so that i could sleep, in the hazel
duvet ,of your eyes, covered by
your lashes, soft as feather


you knew how i ascended, and
descended, like
interrupted surprises or ecstasy,
when you were too scarce
for me, to dial your number,
and sit still, with your voice
caressing the inside of my ear-
you altered by the seams,
and we graduated from an era;

an age of unseen,
enchanting, and different
ways, or diverse shades,
of the same day,
making all the difference;
testing me, and tempting me,
to submit my body, and soul-
clinging to a celestial pole

but,

strength differed now;
the cavity in which it bred,
had it purling- stirring,
all the miseries, under the bed,

power wanted to

mimic the head,

and slice through, what should
not have been said, while all the heart did,
was try, not to make, the eyes see-
that it was sadly,
bucking away, against a
few dislocated ribs,
in the lampshade
shaped chamber

because, it was too
afraid of the conscious,
bereft-of-thorough-thought, kind of mental state,
we adopted, when we were suffocated by fate;
casting out meaningless anger, and hate,
while meandering, shyly,
between your heart and mine

we depended upon,
abusing each other,
and once, i was still holding on,
and trapped
in your shadow, when you
turned to go;

abandoning me- leavin’ me
to hang there, raped by
rough, autumn air,
in the orgy of wind, smaking
me, from side to side,

‘til i erased that
thick line, separating,
your heart from mine

and decreased
the distance,
between your our hearts,
because there could be no

gaps or cracks,


between your heart and mine
                                                                   -Raeez Jacobs

©RaeezJacobs.2012.Poetry 
















Gorgeous Award

In retrosepct, Britney Spears has never surfaced as the kind of celebrity who filled the 'best-dressed' or 'most fashionable' sections of our many fashion mags and ezines out there. She has always been plonked into the opposite section; 'worst-dressed' and 'what were you thinking', since her inception in the late 90s. Over the years, Britney has had a selection of outfits that have been glamorous and fabulous, like the skin tight and revealing little number she wore to the NRJ award in 2002 or that lace mini dress, she dorned to the VMAs a year earlier. There have been some questionable outfits, like the orange and purple mess for the billboard awards in 2000.
Britney Spears in see-through, mini dress at 2001 MTV Video Music Awards


at the 2000 Billboard Music Award in this very eyebrow raising outfit 

Ever since becoming a judge on X factor and her illustrious shoot with ELLE in Septermber, Britney has been looking good, and fashion honcho's have been marvelling at her panache selection of dresses, and other outfits recently. Britney has matured, in more ways than one and more than just her sexual appeal is highlighted when thinking of her. This Britney is classic, yet laid back. This Britney is empowering; a Femme Fatale whose role is neither in the fashion world, nor in the twisted world of sexual attraction, but inside a world, where control comes having experience, and where looking good doesn't need to be emphasized, for the attraction of followers, looking good is just about looking and feeling good. Essentially.


Rocking the Cover of Elle's September 2012 issue.

FAVOURITE: Britney at City of Hope Gala 2012, October 20 in Los Angeles in this chic Halston  dress and Alexis Bittar Jewelery.


Various looks for the X Factor 2012.


At the Grammy's tribute to Whitney Houston, 2 nights ago in this Gray Level Courture dress
As a fan, I am extremely proud to see Britney in such a positive place, and around so many good people, who aren't there to exploit or take advantage of her. Her life has been ameliorated, and she has returned to grabbing all the right headlines. Keep it warm, light, and positive Ms. Spears