At seven thousand feet and looking back, running lights
blacked out under the wings and America waiting,
a year of my life disappears at midnight,
the sky a deep viridian, the houselights below
small as match heads burned down to embers.
Has this year made me a better lover?
Will I understand something of hardship,
of loss, will a lover sense this
in my kiss or touch? What do I know
of redemption or sacrifice, what will have
to say of the dead – that it was worth it,
that any of it made sense?
I have no words to speak of war.
I never dug the graves in Talafar.
I never held the mother crying in Ramadi.
I never lifted my friend’s body
when they carried him home.
I have only the shadows under the leaves
to take with me, the quiet of the desert,
the low fog of Balad, orange groves
with ice forming on the rinds of fruit.
I have a woman crying in my ear,
late at night when the stars go dim,
moonlight and sand as a resonance
of the dust of bones, and nothing more.
from ‘Here Bullet’ - a MUST-READ
Friday, October 31, 2008
Friday, October 24, 2008
Regaining Self
‘Get up, stand up and climb the rope of hope
and open up again’ – Etheridge (from ‘Lucky’)
Last night dreams of a blue-eyed man, insistent, intent –
leading me along a city street, past
wild buskers singing the day into being.
Today, the rain gone, I sit on the verandah,
devouring Metelerkamp, who wrote a book-poem about her affair.
The sun as fierce as the poet growing her hands back,
as eager as my dream man, animus,
to lead me beyond the darkness of the house into the light.
Blue sky mirrors his azure eyes, and the poetry like flame
declaims itself across a dry hillside.
She speaks of becoming simpler : perhaps this is my gift,
my ability to distil, clarify, to sense the power beneath?
‘Hey, hey, hey’ sings Etheridge, later, night having fallen
‘I am a child’ – raucous, rough, different from me,
she who chooses to love women.
I – the abandoned one – who sought to restore
what was taken from me – the lost soul who, only once,
traded the same kind of sex for comfort,
before realising too late, her mistake,
I too can confess to indiscretions.
Then, my heart hurt as if I had twisted a knife into it.
I was shoved to the margins before I even realised
I had left the centre.
Now I work hard to reclaim an identity I did not consciously reject.
Foucault’s Panopticon reaches straight into the all-seeing sky.
‘Big Brother is watching,’ and beware those who would
wander into the shadows.
Sexuality’s a continuum, and love’s a sliding rule
But the feelings take me into a world
where bravado and logic do not apply.
Where reaching for his hand feels as all-consuming,
as holding a small baby who looks at me with
the strange unknowing eyes
of the helpless, of the still-to-be-loved.
24.10
and open up again’ – Etheridge (from ‘Lucky’)
Last night dreams of a blue-eyed man, insistent, intent –
leading me along a city street, past
wild buskers singing the day into being.
Today, the rain gone, I sit on the verandah,
devouring Metelerkamp, who wrote a book-poem about her affair.
The sun as fierce as the poet growing her hands back,
as eager as my dream man, animus,
to lead me beyond the darkness of the house into the light.
Blue sky mirrors his azure eyes, and the poetry like flame
declaims itself across a dry hillside.
She speaks of becoming simpler : perhaps this is my gift,
my ability to distil, clarify, to sense the power beneath?
‘Hey, hey, hey’ sings Etheridge, later, night having fallen
‘I am a child’ – raucous, rough, different from me,
she who chooses to love women.
I – the abandoned one – who sought to restore
what was taken from me – the lost soul who, only once,
traded the same kind of sex for comfort,
before realising too late, her mistake,
I too can confess to indiscretions.
Then, my heart hurt as if I had twisted a knife into it.
I was shoved to the margins before I even realised
I had left the centre.
Now I work hard to reclaim an identity I did not consciously reject.
Foucault’s Panopticon reaches straight into the all-seeing sky.
‘Big Brother is watching,’ and beware those who would
wander into the shadows.
Sexuality’s a continuum, and love’s a sliding rule
But the feelings take me into a world
where bravado and logic do not apply.
Where reaching for his hand feels as all-consuming,
as holding a small baby who looks at me with
the strange unknowing eyes
of the helpless, of the still-to-be-loved.
24.10
Thursday, October 23, 2008
Monday, October 20, 2008
Defining love
Is love
finding solidity in emptiness:
a balustrade beneath the hand?
Or is it
the boy in the car seat behind you,
as you drive up roads known and unknown,
asking ‘where is God?’
Is he love?
Where is love?
The night you married his father
your stomach seven-months big with child,
you wept, as if you knew
the ruby would fall from your golden ring,
like the promises you made each other,
lost now.
When the baby, sluiced into the world
through your waters,
was given to you, red-faced, squalling
to hold close to your milky breast -
was that love you felt?
And, as the world was honed
to the body of another lover – after the divorce;
holding himself still within your deepest part,
was that love, you whispered in his ear?
As, filled with gratitude,
you came and came and came
legs wrapped around him
like jasmine tendrils on a trellis?
The dutiful incantations
at the end of phone calls
are approximations …
you have the airport farewells down pat.
But what do you tell your boy
when he asks
‘who do you love?’
what do you say?
20.10
finding solidity in emptiness:
a balustrade beneath the hand?
Or is it
the boy in the car seat behind you,
as you drive up roads known and unknown,
asking ‘where is God?’
Is he love?
Where is love?
The night you married his father
your stomach seven-months big with child,
you wept, as if you knew
the ruby would fall from your golden ring,
like the promises you made each other,
lost now.
When the baby, sluiced into the world
through your waters,
was given to you, red-faced, squalling
to hold close to your milky breast -
was that love you felt?
And, as the world was honed
to the body of another lover – after the divorce;
holding himself still within your deepest part,
was that love, you whispered in his ear?
As, filled with gratitude,
you came and came and came
legs wrapped around him
like jasmine tendrils on a trellis?
The dutiful incantations
at the end of phone calls
are approximations …
you have the airport farewells down pat.
But what do you tell your boy
when he asks
‘who do you love?’
what do you say?
20.10
I am
This windswept day, I am a grimy truck, Sisyphean,
carrying a burden of quarried rocks,
rough-hewn, heavy,
up the M14.
Just before dawn, I will return,
racheting gears downhill, my engine juddering into
the ears of dreaming children,
curled under duvets, murmuring in their sleep.
Today, I am the small bird
that thudded into the windowpane,
the bird whose red blood leaked out of its beak
as it lay gasping on the verandah tiles,
the bird I strangled, judging it too late for saving.
Now, I am the boy kicking his feet out from under
the swing at the gallery
who sees his shadow beneath him on the hard-bitten ground,
and says: ‘I am there, and here too’.
I buried the dead bird
in a hole I dug in the earth,
too close maybe
to the dark-leaved arrow of a new sapling.
My face crumpled like
a torn page
in the hand of a harsh poet.
My tears rained down.
Grief tugged at my throat,
like a baby at his mother’s nipple,
asking for her love.
20.10
carrying a burden of quarried rocks,
rough-hewn, heavy,
up the M14.
Just before dawn, I will return,
racheting gears downhill, my engine juddering into
the ears of dreaming children,
curled under duvets, murmuring in their sleep.
Today, I am the small bird
that thudded into the windowpane,
the bird whose red blood leaked out of its beak
as it lay gasping on the verandah tiles,
the bird I strangled, judging it too late for saving.
Now, I am the boy kicking his feet out from under
the swing at the gallery
who sees his shadow beneath him on the hard-bitten ground,
and says: ‘I am there, and here too’.
I buried the dead bird
in a hole I dug in the earth,
too close maybe
to the dark-leaved arrow of a new sapling.
My face crumpled like
a torn page
in the hand of a harsh poet.
My tears rained down.
Grief tugged at my throat,
like a baby at his mother’s nipple,
asking for her love.
20.10
Friday, October 17, 2008
Wednesday, October 15, 2008
Prism
Like a crazed mirror ball
in a seedy dance hall,
her computer facets reality into
off-kiltre traces of flickering light.
Other peoples’ truths tilt and pitch
against the grubby velvet backdrop of the South African everyday.
Too loud
the stories pound in her ears
like overplayed rock and roll songs
from a lacklustre band.
Online news,
spills like faeces
from a blocked toilet.
The ground underfoot is as slippery as wet linoleum.
She processes the words,
but cannot quantify
the hurt.
They found:
broken bottles, two used condoms, bloodied clothes,
next to the body of the thirteen year old girl from Soweto,
whose skull had been crushed in.
‘One-year old found murdered under the bed.’
The headlines leer
and the copy
paws at her like a sick old man.
‘At the river’s edge/
The raped boys watched the man slit their friend’s throat/
after he asked ‘who wants to die first?' ’
Texts compete for degrees of atrocity.
‘The police are checking for signs,of sexual assault/
although blood was found between her thighs’.
Understanding motivation (the sociology of deprivation)
and rationalising cycles of abuse (a legacy of anger),
always the rankness of poverty,
hiding behind the stage lights,
does not assuage the fear.
Raw like the ragged riff of an electric guitar
in a minor key,
it slides into entropy.
The frantic beat
of horror
keeping
syncopated time.
15.10
in a seedy dance hall,
her computer facets reality into
off-kiltre traces of flickering light.
Other peoples’ truths tilt and pitch
against the grubby velvet backdrop of the South African everyday.
Too loud
the stories pound in her ears
like overplayed rock and roll songs
from a lacklustre band.
Online news,
spills like faeces
from a blocked toilet.
The ground underfoot is as slippery as wet linoleum.
She processes the words,
but cannot quantify
the hurt.
They found:
broken bottles, two used condoms, bloodied clothes,
next to the body of the thirteen year old girl from Soweto,
whose skull had been crushed in.
‘One-year old found murdered under the bed.’
The headlines leer
and the copy
paws at her like a sick old man.
‘At the river’s edge/
The raped boys watched the man slit their friend’s throat/
after he asked ‘who wants to die first?' ’
Texts compete for degrees of atrocity.
‘The police are checking for signs,of sexual assault/
although blood was found between her thighs’.
Understanding motivation (the sociology of deprivation)
and rationalising cycles of abuse (a legacy of anger),
always the rankness of poverty,
hiding behind the stage lights,
does not assuage the fear.
Raw like the ragged riff of an electric guitar
in a minor key,
it slides into entropy.
The frantic beat
of horror
keeping
syncopated time.
15.10
Tuesday, October 14, 2008
Monday, October 13, 2008
Child's song
Christmas in England, and her sister, a prim porcelain doll,
is given a shiny satin dress with puffed sleeves.
She gets a red hard-covered book, and a rainbow-coloured pencil.
Their girlish voices pipe
the child’s ditty her sister learnt at their new school.
There once lived a man/
he had a funny name/
his legs were long and his feet were small/
and he could not walk at all.’
She scrawls her first fumbling poem about a minstrel,
singing a song of the times ‘beyond.’
Even at eight, she is dreaming of escape.
Lonely letters slide across the page,
looking for love.
‘He had a wife/
did this funny man/
her legs were long and her feet were small/
and she could not walk at all.’
She draws a sombre Victorian woman in a black dress and cap,
her back turned away from a febrile tree.
In the gloom the family plays Cluedo,
she lets her father win.
Later, running in the park, he leaves her far behind.
‘He had children/
one and two/
their legs were long/
and their feet were small/
and they could not walk at all.’
The demons that you fight now,
a quarter of a century later,
are only paper tigers.
Yet still you rage for the unseen child,
reaching into the centre of loss,
finding nothing.
17.10
is given a shiny satin dress with puffed sleeves.
She gets a red hard-covered book, and a rainbow-coloured pencil.
Their girlish voices pipe
the child’s ditty her sister learnt at their new school.
There once lived a man/
he had a funny name/
his legs were long and his feet were small/
and he could not walk at all.’
She scrawls her first fumbling poem about a minstrel,
singing a song of the times ‘beyond.’
Even at eight, she is dreaming of escape.
Lonely letters slide across the page,
looking for love.
‘He had a wife/
did this funny man/
her legs were long and her feet were small/
and she could not walk at all.’
She draws a sombre Victorian woman in a black dress and cap,
her back turned away from a febrile tree.
In the gloom the family plays Cluedo,
she lets her father win.
Later, running in the park, he leaves her far behind.
‘He had children/
one and two/
their legs were long/
and their feet were small/
and they could not walk at all.’
The demons that you fight now,
a quarter of a century later,
are only paper tigers.
Yet still you rage for the unseen child,
reaching into the centre of loss,
finding nothing.
17.10
Friday, October 3, 2008
Menage-a-trois
Lost in talk, we walk down the hill
towards a river of road.
The capsicum pot-plant holds its strange red fruit aloft
as you bear it awkwardly in your hands,
speaking of your wife, and how you owe her flowers.
Carting my own star-jasmine, tethered to a wooden stick,
and furtive dhania, to the car – we came separately –
I feel the raspberry cheesecake we just shared at the café above the nursery,
sit heavy in my stomach. like woe.
You wheel your car around
– and with a careful wave, drive off –
leaving me, hot-faced, heavy –
scrabbling to collect the coins that just fell out of my purse
into the gravel in the gutter.
Like a CD track that has gotten stuck
she plays out the old old song –
‘the girl at the window/
waited all day for her father to come home/
thought that if she flirted with him/
he might love her more.’
At the table beneath the spreading fig tree,
I let you see my black bra-strap slip
from behind my green-yoked dress.
Felt your glance stroke my hair,
as you told me about paying your bond (and hers).
Trading my beauty
for the brief feeling of being seen
is like letting myself be
Sampson
and you
and your wife, Delilah.
My strength,
shorn,
to a sorry pile of stones.
3.10
towards a river of road.
The capsicum pot-plant holds its strange red fruit aloft
as you bear it awkwardly in your hands,
speaking of your wife, and how you owe her flowers.
Carting my own star-jasmine, tethered to a wooden stick,
and furtive dhania, to the car – we came separately –
I feel the raspberry cheesecake we just shared at the café above the nursery,
sit heavy in my stomach. like woe.
You wheel your car around
– and with a careful wave, drive off –
leaving me, hot-faced, heavy –
scrabbling to collect the coins that just fell out of my purse
into the gravel in the gutter.
Like a CD track that has gotten stuck
she plays out the old old song –
‘the girl at the window/
waited all day for her father to come home/
thought that if she flirted with him/
he might love her more.’
At the table beneath the spreading fig tree,
I let you see my black bra-strap slip
from behind my green-yoked dress.
Felt your glance stroke my hair,
as you told me about paying your bond (and hers).
Trading my beauty
for the brief feeling of being seen
is like letting myself be
Sampson
and you
and your wife, Delilah.
My strength,
shorn,
to a sorry pile of stones.
3.10
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