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The full moon shines
through the canopy,
and she lets out a sigh
as the blue beams of light
wash everything under
the lost midnight sky.

A soft din in the forest
echoes with a chorus
of chirping crickets
and howling locusts
as she stretches out
atop fallen foliage.

Love flows as a river
through souls grown
ever thinner
and cleans us both
with liquid quicksilver,
in the forest tonight.
I am a leaf, shed, homeless,
drifting in through a hole in the carpentry --
a skeleton among skeleton relatives,
dusting the shuffle-worn surface
of our mother's planked-out chest.
25/07/2016
this palate is an anvil
this tongue a hammer
forging the edges of words
reversed
21/07/2016
(rough translation)*

debt
debt
debtor

tonight it howls
in tumbleweed tongues
beaten about and windblown
over a barren, over-there road
a dust-tongue stretches
licking skeletons
all the way to feet of the silver hills
that lie in the moon of the Little Karoo

debt
debt
debt in vein

Mother is a stranger
just standing there and sipping tea
in another woman’s blue kitchen

debt
debt
debt in her

all staring at the cracks
reflecting on the windowpane
the fragile earth’s
dismembered

but

the rain will come
my child
the rain will come
prophesy the rust-red clouds

all bellowing in the wind

Mother will stand
unequivocal
as untamed buffalo grass --
rooted and valid
skuld
skuld
skuldenaar

dit suis vanaand
in tolbos tale
rond-en-wind-ge-foeter
oor ‘n dor doer pad
‘n uitgestrekte stoftong
lek geraamtes
tot aan die silwer koppies
in die Klein Karoo se maan

skuld
skuld
skuld–in–aar

is Ma ‘n vreemdeling
wat staan en tee drink
in ‘n ander vrou
se blou kombuis

skuld
skuld
skuld–in–haar

al starend na die krake
weerspieël die vensterglas
‘n aarde broos
verbrokkel

maar

die reën sal kom
my kind
die reën sal kom
profeteer die roes–rooi wolke

al loeiend in die wind

sal Ma staan
onmiskenbaar
soos ongetemde buffelsgras
gewortel en gegrond
-------------------------------------
13/02/2016
we are the ancient ones
rooted in the earth
heads rustling in the sky
moss growing on our trunks
on our limbs

conductors of our pulse
over this distance
this faraway
closeness

and should they fell you
I shall feed you honey
from our underground network
should you not sprout again
I shall build a hive in your trunk
buzzing with life
and should the hive desert you
leave you petrified
I shall unfurl beneath you
cradling your vintage pages
26/04/2016
(20 minute poetry)

This,
is like walking through glue and when you look at a book you all judge by its colour or cover and you look at each other the same.

Name me one or two who have not set with the Sun and gelled with the glue and I know there are many.

'If anyone knows of a just impediment' claws for the pause and the applause may cause you to bow.

How to recapture the lusting for living among the hard faced uncaring because between the giving and taking the wire's electric.

We get the scene set and ready to go, this is like formula one but taking it easy and warming up slow,
I don't know and I doubt you do too if the cover's the problem and if so who do we turn to?

I cram so much in my saddlebags and I water the horse.
West of the Pecos which could be anywhere,
if I try really hard and click my heels it feels like
I'm back in
Kansas.
Deep within the average stone lies a perfectly symmetrical form, creation of a being for which love is often adorned.  

In between the finer lines exists a calculated summation, the dreams within a tattered mind step far from elation.

Imagination grips the sidewalk as if there never was a path, still too lost in the numbers to even do the math.

Where does a sidewalk end if it merely bends into a fulcrum, because standing still is not an outcome.

So we must break the coal mold to expose the diamond, to greet a dark world with our light fully shining.
 Oct 2015 Chris D Aechtner
Frisk
to watch myself shrink down small enough to enter
into the crack of your doorway made me realize a
lot about how i stretched myself out just to have
memories that were almost phantasmagoric. the
beauty naturally made way for the beast, letting the
claws grip her by the throat. it was almost like wild
flowers shedding their petals for winter. it wasn't
a choice to place myself behind the barrel of the gun.
it was a matter of being a martyr, just to live with
something to believe in. now that i think about it,
the signs were all there. the gut feeling of uncertainty
always sat in my stomach uncomfortably even when
i sat her down, told her how important i saw her, and
she lied straight to my ******* face. it was a matter of
not seeing what was always there behind the scenes.
when i met you, i had that same phantasmagoric
feeling about you. not for one second have i ever
doubted you, nor have i doubted every single time
i got to see you. that was the big difference. i've
been reaching for things that are dead for so long,
i've forgotten how to be alive. thanks for being a
teacher of sorts, to teach me how to live again.
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