Isabella moth
flitting past the post boxes --
I think of ashes
and the birthdays I will miss --
for your gifts, I cannot send

1976:
black boy, black boy,
we shot you --
nothing left
in your small, shiny black shoes;
your tidy school uniform

2013:
white boy, white boy,
we will not shoot you --
nothing right
in your big, broken black shoes;
your untidy school-form --

instead, we will not teach you

white boy, we will not teach you:
English is for black schools --

Madiba, Madiba:
the jacarandas of Pretoria are dying;
the mimosas in the bushveld
have taken the Acacia tree's name
and beneath the soil,
the roots of South Africa are still
growing, exactly the same?

Gusts, pushing and pulling,
tearing at the roofing,
rattling the window panes,
howling down the chimney, screeching around the corners of the house --

the house that always stands on number five,
no matter what the combination, the co-ordinates
nor which way the chicken feet turn,
keeping me awake at night,
lamenting La Mort . . .

But after the seventh year,
the wind and I
came to an agreement:

Crowing at fifty-two tantras an hour
was far too slow.

His forehead was a red dot.

My mind became an arrow.
My eyes became two daggers.
My mouth: a barrel
My voice: the bullets

and God; a Bull . . .

But he was a Coward:
a pat, she-a-thing his **** --
a red dot
between two black holes.

bitterness of iron:
remove the milk
in bate of oxen blood spills

a bovine scent coagulates --
two membranes,
five and nine in aluminium

warp the boiling point --
two hundred, ninety degrees Celsius,
left standing, half a day:
cardboard instruction sets carbon constriction

imprinting
burnt hair, burnt hooves  --
the taste of not eating
a liver, raw --

Where is the nameless face
carrying cups of coffee, bought
on a journey
somewhere, and nowhere et al . . .
kindreds, wrapped in the smell of decay:
the uncured hide around his hips,
or was it his wrists, never touching?

Blackened bird upon my brow;
Corvus Christi on my crown:

Could there be, oh could there be
Balm, sweet Balm in Galilee
Wild Roses grown in Gilead
White Daffodils on Sharon's sea . . .

The shores, the shores of Sharon's sea:
wingtips lapping cedar beams
leave no trail of murrey'd deeds;
tapping shoulders with your blades
rustling in the hollow reeds,
among the Seals of Solomon
Two Lovers, lost in Lebanon,
rose, to where the Stars of David bloom --

She in gules and He in vert . . .

Sable Bird upon our brows;
Corvus Christi on our crowns.

You pluck stars,
and hold them
in the palm of your hand:
shadow-birds are eating!

You mould suns,
and lift them
from the palms of your hands:
fire-birds are heaving!

You weave clouds,
and fold them
to the palms of your hands:
thunder-birds are beating . . .

You paint drops,
you blend them,
draw bows
and bend them
along the palms of your hands --

and I . . . ?
I love you, like Sky