i look at her
and she is goddess 
loop and knot 
 
i look away
and she's ocean sky flow
breather of this breath 

i look within
and i am at her feet
removing her sandals 

i look without
and i'm depth ebb
space silenced

part
sign-language

the centaur
attends
the mermaid’s

crucifixion...

some of my hair

was cut
for being
blind

some of it
became

a scarecrow’s
purse

i.

dusk melts into walls
and corners,
the sun begins to dip,
below the earth
little islands of
light and shadow.

ii.

the light softens,
carries us towards
the sentry keeper
of the blue earth
the night’s noble
gaze.

iii.

rose-wood and indigo,
immense cloud
washed-out like
faded denim,
stars in summer’s hollowy skies.

iv.

as dark as a tinted window
the land breaks free
from the sun, dissolves
into shadows bent
into a thousand shapes
and altitudes
like softening rivers
of the mind.

v.

uncovered, the night
forgets it flowers and its
prisms, relents to magical
seas of black ink.

i.

deep down, I’ve always wanted my brother to knit as if he too would be beheaded

ii.

mother chokes

on the pill
the dream’s
light switch

iii.

I have also seen
the opposite

a ghost
into
a person

iv.

the late swimmer, the fossil

moves god
to brush

slipped glyph.
this and that; wracked
in some silly, heady
packrat skyscraper
of leaning light.

then's flicker of vague regret hangs around, because life.
because letting go is never really, ever, fully possible.
misremembrance -now- retracing my..

it was
as though
you had written,
signed and
sealed those
few words
themselves,
with your own
blood and bone

and yet i
can-
not recognize
my own
penmanship
anymore,

nor this, here,
outstretched hand.

howamievenhere?

*because a winged thing, other,
has this history
by the tail,

and your thoughts are not your own

Teen die hange van die berge-nag
Speel die donker op die ligte sag
Die kalm daal op die chaos-stad
Van klank en mense op elke kronkel pad
Dit voer jou mee in 'n sterre mat

In skoon lug met 'n oop kop
Kan gedagtes net vloei en skrop
Aan dinge wat is en kom
Aan mens wees, goed en krom
Aan die eenvoud en dit wat verstom

Woorde lê in 'n niks-wees dwaal
Dis rou, dit is maar net  -  dis kaal
Net om die stemme wat skree te verlos
Dinge wat 'n uitlaat soek in die kosmos
Dit het ink gevind, soos vuur in fynbos

who wants to share
they’ve seen
but the mask
of god

I admit, I confess

as a painter
of chameleons

the art of the bruise

is lost