she reclines,
sips lap sang souchong
from a cracked Delft mug
– brown, like river water
it tastes of smoke
The window behind her empties
Into a riot of roses.
Peonies spill onto soft grass.
The summer is insistent
Only the thin pane of glass keeps it at bay
She half-wishes there were curtains to draw
Against the white light that striates her papery-thin skin
The quiet of the house
Descends like a Cy Twombly wave
Thick, green and languid.
A crumpled lily leans from its vase,
submitting to its reflection
on the polished mahogany table.
Fragrant,
It dusts her hand golden with pollen
As she plucks off,
A drooping leaf.
09.07.08
Wednesday, July 9, 2008
Friday, July 4, 2008
Pool noodles
Delighted,
the child
Sweeps the surface of the water
With his pool noodle
And speaks of eel-fish
And the little boy who wrote his name
on the sea-shore -
who lost the words forever
When the tide came up -
The story that anchored him
warmly in his bed
the night before.
But the mother who stands in the shallows
Watching over him
Is in agony
Cannot stop herself
From scratching at her wounds
Does not know
How to calm the fury
And the fear
That rose up in
Her like a storm
When she stepped into the water.
The world
Ricochets
Around her
Like a headache
Exploding
Behind the eyes.
Long-lasting,
Inimical.
Fragments burnt into her memory
Like a virus on a hard drive
Impossible to delete
The love she did not find
The love she would give anything to keep.
The love
She thought she needed
The love she discovered was worth nothing at all.
To keep her hands from tearing at her own skin -
She reaches for the shaft of foam
Lets it float her
Through the memory of betrayal
And yet, still, always -
The longing to connect.
She wants the water to pool around her
as cool,
And clear as forgiveness.
She watches her son wield
His wand,
Like a wizard,
Summoning hope.
4.7.08
the child
Sweeps the surface of the water
With his pool noodle
And speaks of eel-fish
And the little boy who wrote his name
on the sea-shore -
who lost the words forever
When the tide came up -
The story that anchored him
warmly in his bed
the night before.
But the mother who stands in the shallows
Watching over him
Is in agony
Cannot stop herself
From scratching at her wounds
Does not know
How to calm the fury
And the fear
That rose up in
Her like a storm
When she stepped into the water.
The world
Ricochets
Around her
Like a headache
Exploding
Behind the eyes.
Long-lasting,
Inimical.
Fragments burnt into her memory
Like a virus on a hard drive
Impossible to delete
The love she did not find
The love she would give anything to keep.
The love
She thought she needed
The love she discovered was worth nothing at all.
To keep her hands from tearing at her own skin -
She reaches for the shaft of foam
Lets it float her
Through the memory of betrayal
And yet, still, always -
The longing to connect.
She wants the water to pool around her
as cool,
And clear as forgiveness.
She watches her son wield
His wand,
Like a wizard,
Summoning hope.
4.7.08
Tuesday, June 3, 2008
Poem on leaving SA
- ‘it wasn’t roaring, it was weeping’ (Bright Blue)
Country of contradictions
One that sheltered
the unknown foreigner -
then saw him
blaze his way into oblivion
Set aflame
By a lack
That aches into the bones of the angry
Irresolute -
I leave you –
Country that survived apartheid,
Country with the second highest murder rate in the world
knowing I must come back to you soon enough, and
somehow make a rough peace
with the constant fear you instil in me.
Yesterday,
I stood in the Post Office,
One of three whites
In a queue of black people
A red-eyed Zulu man was talking to his mate,
then he broke into song,
But half-heartedly –
His tone matched the face
Of the weary woman behind him,
Who wore a Mr Price denim skirt trailing raggedly onto
Her scuffed fake-leather slip-ons.
The poster behind the spruce Indian man who took my slip,
Spelled in loud red capitals,
MEN – UNITE AGAINST HIV,
The tattered edges curling inwards,
Later a headline catches my eye
‘6-year old Sheldean kicked her attacker between the legs/
Before he indecently assaulted her.”
I read he wept when he showed law officers
The field where he killed her,
The dry yellow Highveld grass
As coarse as his stubble on her face
As she lay there, futilely fighting back -
The cold earth her only witness.
Here,
In this country,
My son’s father
Put my hand
On the head of our baby
As he passed through my darkness
Into the world of light.
To take his first breath of Durban air.
Slippery, strange,
- The most delicate anchoring.
A winter sky burned bright blue
behind the hospital’s darkened windows.
Although
I feel alien
Here,
A rose-bush
In a grove of cycads.
Sometimes,
I think,
I want
My ashes
Scattered across the Chibini Valley
Where I have meditated so often
At the Buddhist Retreat Centre
and a Wild Plum tree planted
to remember me
in the forest that grows along its edge.
3.6
Country of contradictions
One that sheltered
the unknown foreigner -
then saw him
blaze his way into oblivion
Set aflame
By a lack
That aches into the bones of the angry
Irresolute -
I leave you –
Country that survived apartheid,
Country with the second highest murder rate in the world
knowing I must come back to you soon enough, and
somehow make a rough peace
with the constant fear you instil in me.
Yesterday,
I stood in the Post Office,
One of three whites
In a queue of black people
A red-eyed Zulu man was talking to his mate,
then he broke into song,
But half-heartedly –
His tone matched the face
Of the weary woman behind him,
Who wore a Mr Price denim skirt trailing raggedly onto
Her scuffed fake-leather slip-ons.
The poster behind the spruce Indian man who took my slip,
Spelled in loud red capitals,
MEN – UNITE AGAINST HIV,
The tattered edges curling inwards,
Later a headline catches my eye
‘6-year old Sheldean kicked her attacker between the legs/
Before he indecently assaulted her.”
I read he wept when he showed law officers
The field where he killed her,
The dry yellow Highveld grass
As coarse as his stubble on her face
As she lay there, futilely fighting back -
The cold earth her only witness.
Here,
In this country,
My son’s father
Put my hand
On the head of our baby
As he passed through my darkness
Into the world of light.
To take his first breath of Durban air.
Slippery, strange,
- The most delicate anchoring.
A winter sky burned bright blue
behind the hospital’s darkened windows.
Although
I feel alien
Here,
A rose-bush
In a grove of cycads.
Sometimes,
I think,
I want
My ashes
Scattered across the Chibini Valley
Where I have meditated so often
At the Buddhist Retreat Centre
and a Wild Plum tree planted
to remember me
in the forest that grows along its edge.
3.6
Saturday, May 31, 2008
Phantasm
─ ‘this one goes out to the one I love/
this one goes out to the one I’ve left behind’ – REM
the oppressiveness of Saturday afternoons
air in empty layers
traps houses, walls, gardens in a lethargy of propriety.
Even the dog is listless.
He sprawls ragged in the hollow left below the strelitzia palm.
the washing machine churns
purposefully
but around it the silence seeps
like a slow toxin
there is no breeze to stir the leaves of the wild ginger plant
its creamy flower droops, edged by a roughness of brown.
The room has abandoned itself -
there is nobody here.
the woman at the computer writing
is a cipher –
she does not really exist –
touch her
and your hand will pass straight through her,
as if she were smoke,
mist,
something vanishing fast.
Becoming nothing.
31.5
this one goes out to the one I’ve left behind’ – REM
the oppressiveness of Saturday afternoons
air in empty layers
traps houses, walls, gardens in a lethargy of propriety.
Even the dog is listless.
He sprawls ragged in the hollow left below the strelitzia palm.
the washing machine churns
purposefully
but around it the silence seeps
like a slow toxin
there is no breeze to stir the leaves of the wild ginger plant
its creamy flower droops, edged by a roughness of brown.
The room has abandoned itself -
there is nobody here.
the woman at the computer writing
is a cipher –
she does not really exist –
touch her
and your hand will pass straight through her,
as if she were smoke,
mist,
something vanishing fast.
Becoming nothing.
31.5
Friday, May 30, 2008
Threadwords
She threads words
through the scraps of her life
like a hunter
piecing together skins
from rabbits he has killed -
fashioning a quilt for his rough bed.
She is ready at last
For the task
Of remembering and dismembering
Crude, bloody, comfortless
With no guarantees.
The light of the sun
That falls on her
Is sharp
Merciless
It needles her
Like the quest for truth
Dark glasses cannot allay it.
It will be felt.
It must pierce.
A sleepier self
Wants to close her eyes,
bask spread-eagled
oblivious
But the watcher
Strung-out on adrenalin
Is pointing to the clock,
Skewed from too much delay, like the one in Dali’s painting.
Its incessant tick sounds in her ears
as deafening as tinnitus.
There is so little time,
She mutters
Her skin parches across her face
With a new dryness.
‘You, you, you,’
said the poet in her dream,
like an archer drawing a bow.
A sister
Asks her
To be who she is
who is she
to deny her?
30.5
through the scraps of her life
like a hunter
piecing together skins
from rabbits he has killed -
fashioning a quilt for his rough bed.
She is ready at last
For the task
Of remembering and dismembering
Crude, bloody, comfortless
With no guarantees.
The light of the sun
That falls on her
Is sharp
Merciless
It needles her
Like the quest for truth
Dark glasses cannot allay it.
It will be felt.
It must pierce.
A sleepier self
Wants to close her eyes,
bask spread-eagled
oblivious
But the watcher
Strung-out on adrenalin
Is pointing to the clock,
Skewed from too much delay, like the one in Dali’s painting.
Its incessant tick sounds in her ears
as deafening as tinnitus.
There is so little time,
She mutters
Her skin parches across her face
With a new dryness.
‘You, you, you,’
said the poet in her dream,
like an archer drawing a bow.
A sister
Asks her
To be who she is
who is she
to deny her?
30.5
From the verandah
Together they watch the honey-bee
Nose its way into a pinkness of flower
The wild ginger leaves around it droop.
Songololos sit starkly, privately, still
- red against grey bark
One inches its way across a precipice of broken branch.
Another edges between the folded lips of a tree trunk.
She stands, stunned
By the weight of her knowing,
Leans against the balustrade as if it were the only one in the world
She has no time to lose.
If she let go
she would fall into the forest,
she would drown in its tangle.
The breath of the morning
is cool,
it sings through the foliage like a lament.
In the foreground,
a paw paw tree
sways in the wind irresolutely.
Bare of fruit,
its pale yellow tubes need seeding.
She is afraid of her herself
Of her want
- like sugar-cane fields on fire
Fierce, loud, hot.
- sticks cracking in the blaze.
She is an ocean of feeling
Bounded by the real.
Now, her child clutches at her thigh,
asking to be lifted up.
The horizon watches with a steely-grey keenness
as she holds him to her body,
like an anchor.
Nose its way into a pinkness of flower
The wild ginger leaves around it droop.
Songololos sit starkly, privately, still
- red against grey bark
One inches its way across a precipice of broken branch.
Another edges between the folded lips of a tree trunk.
She stands, stunned
By the weight of her knowing,
Leans against the balustrade as if it were the only one in the world
She has no time to lose.
If she let go
she would fall into the forest,
she would drown in its tangle.
The breath of the morning
is cool,
it sings through the foliage like a lament.
In the foreground,
a paw paw tree
sways in the wind irresolutely.
Bare of fruit,
its pale yellow tubes need seeding.
She is afraid of her herself
Of her want
- like sugar-cane fields on fire
Fierce, loud, hot.
- sticks cracking in the blaze.
She is an ocean of feeling
Bounded by the real.
Now, her child clutches at her thigh,
asking to be lifted up.
The horizon watches with a steely-grey keenness
as she holds him to her body,
like an anchor.
Dammed up
She is a dam
In a remote river valley,
Made fuller by floodwaters from an earthquake
Further up, where the mountains are
- heavy, she waits -
pregnant with the fear
of what opening the sluice gates
will birth.
30.5
In a remote river valley,
Made fuller by floodwaters from an earthquake
Further up, where the mountains are
- heavy, she waits -
pregnant with the fear
of what opening the sluice gates
will birth.
30.5
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