~~~~~
lightning strikes --
a clear path before the rolling thunder
tears for you:
petals from our ink-heart tree . . .
~~~~~

(a conversational collaboration with Chris D Aechtner)


"remember the dream I had when we were 10?
(waves and waves of cornflowers everywhere)
about the boy and the closet?
(sunflowers, circle, glass house?....closet, yes)
cornflower blue
(the closet was cornflower blue?)
the light in that dream was cornflower blue
(the air, the atmospheric light?)
yes, especially in the closet

I had that dream for so long
I'll never forget
little boy blue and the kingfishers --
the blue and white china plates
with the bridge and the lovers; the two doves in the willow tree,
that made me look for japanese letters....horse.

the funny things we do as children

(you are writing a poem....)
catch the words, my love
(you already wrote a poem up there; bridge it together --
I dried cornflowers with dandelions in a blue and white book; but it wasn't a dream.
Well, in a way it was, because at the time, I was floating in the clouds)

he wore a blue and white striped top in my dream

and I remember him
when I look at the sky,
the clouds and the golden sun --

I caught the words!
(yes! did you string them all together?)*

not yet!"

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?

(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

You took me to the beach house
along Amaryllis Street

so I could pick up where you left off

crushing waves against the rocks
the high tide  
re-collecting in time-lapse images

how you had vanished up the dirt road of a lie
(sand between my teeth, on my tongue)
how I had buried bulbs of Amaryllis
in the wake of your goodbye

a casket of dormancy suspended
an unanchored buoyancy disposing of I
in seaweed trenches

besides

the Amaryllis bloomed  
a distant wreath of pink trumpet heads

splitting

pushing through the time-lapse
holograms of a shallow rhizome mind

A pair of crows streaks the skyline. I watch their graceful flight above bare treetops, concrete, and steel constructions, on a backdrop of exhaust fumes.

One crow alights after the other; their claws grip the bars of the signal tower a few feet away from where I wait for the next bus home. I wonder if they built their nest on that giant, manmade constellation of angles . . . From there they would have an exceptional view of the surrounding area, and few predators would dare to go up there.

"I found a dead crow, tangled in a wrought iron gate, once." His voice taps inside the nerve hollows of my mind, and I am unsure if the loud, clicking noises coming from the crows, and the perfectly synchronised squeaking of the bus' brakes, amplify or dampen his tone.

The bus driver greets with his usual, "Hello, Sweetie." I want him to be the bus driver, instead. He would never be late, he said. He wouldn't make me wait for what sometimes seems like an eternity. I mumble an almost-civil reply, biting back tears as I stumble forward against the pull of the engine to flop down on the nearest seat. I avoid eye contact with the other commuters; my gaze fixed to their reflections on the windowpane -- doppelgängers obscuring my vision -- a zeitgeist of movements . . . "Don't look at the window, look through it, silly . . . and don't miss me, I am just far away . . ." I always miss him more when he says that.

The coral trees are in full bloom, adding robust warmth to the faint copper glow of the winter sunset. Are their flowers the same vermilion colour as the 'fire tree' in his garden? Above the coral trees, I spot a pair of magnificent wings: a sacred ibis . . .

Fly south with me, Sacred Ibis. You are a goddess. White wings, neatly trimmed with a pearly black hem . . . when will you come down again, so I can show him what Isis really looks like? I won't be able to capture your image in flight, although he would love to see you like this -- spread-eagle . . .

The Ibis remains within view until we reach the nature reserve at the foot of the mountain. Here, the road forks into choices; I have but one -- keep left. The driver has a heavy foot and the next stop is mine. I get up from my seat and stumble down the narrow aisle towards the nearest exit, my hand tightening around a canary-yellow handlebar as I brace myself for the ****.

The hydraulic hiss of the opened doors spit at my heels. I leap from the bus, onto the pavement; my feet meet the concrete -- a long, silver-grey slab, slapped onto dry, red clay -- with a thud, dust settles on my coat in a whirlwind of the bus' departure.

Pigeons. Too many to count. They line the flat roofs of smog-stained, one- and two-storey buildings. Could they be soldiers? "No, my Love. Doves and pigeons are peacekeepers . . . and there is war in the Gaza Strip . . ." Yes, but what about the buildings? I walk on, thinking about the mourning dove he nursed; the one that followed his smoke rings . . .

We found an abandoned laughing dove squab last summer -- he, or she, made it. Sam was hand-reared, survived, and flew away on one of those bright summer's afternoons . . .

At the corner, I wait for the dust to settle further and the traffic light to turn green -- there are always those who don't need saving.

Turn right.

The Chinese maples are bare. Their deep-red autumn leaves have returned to the earth for redemption.

An Egyptian goose honks, calling his mate from the top of the church tower on the other side of the road. Perhaps, after so many chance encounters, he recognises me while he spreads his wings, flapping them slowly, without rising from his position, in what I imagine is a display of empathy.

I notice that I'm standing on the same patch of lawn where I found the barn owl's feather, months ago. Owl feathers ought to be kept in the dark, away from the day birds'. . . In the distance; I see the grove of pagoda trees that lead the way home -- beacons, providers and protectors. I follow. 

An assortment of feathers, haphazardly stuck into the wooden frame of the French doors, welcomes us home; fragments of unlocking and entering are placed on the dining table where we do everything.

Textbooks, dictionaries, software manuals, bird guides, the salt- and peppershakers -- guano has lost its value; it's all pink, organic Himalayan crystal salt, now. My children's empty cereal bowls were left on the table in the morning rush; they remind me of the years we have to catch up to -- I dissolve gunpowder pillulets under my tongue: Homeopathic medicine for this virus.

Balance -- like the flamingo, or the blue crane in the bird-guide-photos. On one leg, I reach for the light switch . . .

He glows in the weak ambiance -- electric bulbs cast a sepia vignette that invokes the scent of burning rose petals -- something akin to the gestalt of Rama, or a Buddha in blue . . .

Supper is a bland affair; I think of the Krishna temple I haven't visited in over a decade. How do they do it? Serve such exquisite meals on donations (feed the masses and the masses will feed you) . . .

Dishwater drips from my hands and runs down the inside of my arms as I absent-mindedly reach for the crow's feather, hidden in between the wrought iron candleholders on top of the grocery cupboard -- a gift or a donation?
 
I have donated my life to causes and movements, as a bird gifts its feathers to the earth, and to feather collectors, but will it be enough to sustain our future?

 

Aug/Sept 2014

I look at You
and I succumb,
I surrender:
all that I am
to all that is You

Sleep-walking, dream-gawking --

The daemons of centuries
sprawl out the hairs on their legs,
crawl into our skulls
through ears that hear
and bob their lobes
to the twang of sinew
threading together
the tongues of banshees
howling at the moon:

Leeches and ticks
crawl up our spine
when night mares gallop
through the swamp of maggots
crawling in the rye.

Eight and eight
still make one
when the knots are untied
and the gut is done:
All the unknowns,
the variable gales,
the possible parallels
and the impossible
imposters, two:
Fuel to the face of these fears

I look at You
and I succumb.
I surrender
to the daemons of centuries,
let them wash over in hues . . .

And I hold on,
because letting go,
this time,
is far more dangerous
than loving You

Is it not the death of eye
meeting death to eye
that ushers
Sacred offspring
out of the light
into the glowing arms of the womb?

Sleep-walking, dream-gawking --

I look at You
and I succumb.
I surrender:
all that I am
to all that is You

Said the aloe to the agave
Neighbour
here in a foreign soil
the old world meets the new

Said the agave to the aloe
they forget
once we were related
can hardly tell the difference still
the human eye is quite deceptive
and what to say about the human heart . . .

Said the aloe to the agave
my blood turns to heal the ill
my fibres pulp to an ageless skin . . .

Said the agave to the aloe
my blood turns to a song and dance
my fibres pulp to a rope and cloth . . .
but what do the humans offer us

Said the aloe to the agave
not much

Japanese temple trees no longer line the way home.
I left them behind.
But my mind still strolls that avenue,
and I still see
the light catching on the bare branches
and the sparse leaves of Autumn in The Grove.

The Woodhoopoes are still nesting
in the temple trees next to the gate
I don't enter anymore.
Their iridescent plumes
still shimmer green and blue
as their vermilion scimitar bills chatter
in the to-and-fro, to-and-fro
sway of their familial ritual.
What cacophony when one has won
itself a fat gecko—the chicks won't go hungry.

I left the haphazardly arranged feathers
in the wooden frame of the French doors
I no longer unlock and enter.

The two cereal bowls
left on the table
where we did everything
have been reduced
to one.
And the table simply is.  

Now I work among veteran soldiers—
Old Pigeons with crooked feet
caused by all the lines
they've crossed, all the twines
they've tangled with, but Pigeons,
they survive without their feet.

And instead of temple trees,
buildings line the way home—
concrete and steel constructions
among long ribbons of asphalt and . . .

From a distance,
up on the third storey,
it looks like a jungle out there,
but no, on the ground,
up close, it is just human.

I still keep the Owl's feather away from the day-birds',
but I no longer collect more feathers.

No, instead, I tuck symbolic quills behind my ear.

Sagittarius serpentarius

The image of the Secretarybird towers
over the rest of the symbols
on the Official Documents I peruse.
Contracts.
I walk away, tucking the quill.

In the land of the blind, there is a one-eyed rule:
close the other eye.  

I feel the rhythm of keys beneath icy fingers,
eyes tearing from the glare of the monitor,
retracted quills rising—  
unseen antennae erected on the back of my neck—
a human lie detector.

Type, type, type:
repudiation,
subrogation,
violation . . .

Hit the letters with the power of the word.

Noisy little twitter-bird to my left,
on top of her office chair,
she’s raucous like a hysterical Mynah:

"****-****-****-****...**** everything!!!"

Absconding the scene,
I stamp, stamp, stamp
AR numbers, CAS numbers, verified.

The African masks behind my workstation:
ugly metaphors for who I really am.

Sagittarius serpentarius

A Marching Eagle,
the Devil's Horse,
the Secretarybird;
sitting in a concrete cage,
my youngest would've died of starvation,
so I let her fly a long way from home,
but nonetheless home
with her Lily-Pad-Walker father.

Jesus-bird,

With legs like a crane but scalier,
a Marching Eagle doesn't walk on water.
It stands close to the grassland fire,
waiting for its prey.
Then stomping.
Then crushing bones.
Then swallowing whole.

Balance is unnecessary.
Just bend and kick,

backwards.

Saqr-et-tair: hawk-bird, hunter-bird.

He said his heart was a dreaming Red Hawk
whose eyes he wouldn't let me see,
and Bukowski's heart was a Blue Bird of pain.
I said I didn't know
what sort of bird lived in mine,
but it dreamt the same dream:
giant wings
breaking out of its ribbed cage . . .
long runway . . .
long runway. . .
then slow, deep *****
of----------of-----------of------------of----------------of
bad weather and . . .

I fear the day it tires of dreaming.

Offices. Soldiers. Pigeons.

I slip gunpowder pillulets under my tongue:
Homeopathic medicine for this virus.

There is a Barn Owl in my mirror,
steamed up. I dream
a ****** of Crows
alights on my brow,
but I am too feverish to catch them.
Too weak.
I dream a ****** of Crows
rising from the loquat tree
where my eldest was born,

across the road . . .

I watch them
from the third storey of a collection of cages,
and I know
this building
is a cold-hearted-thirty-three-eyed-soldier
with a dog tag for a tongue,
and a contract
bound to the crooked feet of the Pigeons I didn't feed.

Ashes in lashes,
Dust becomes rust

Enter this Temple,
in You I trust

Three stones at the altar
Five moors to the creek
Seven days for hunting
Nine chains that peak

Ironclad crosses
the blood that seeps,
red through this armour,
wounds what weeps

Sweep, bright bunting,
sweep, now sweep. . .

The Clouds cry, a-wanting
the belfries be steep.

Bring lilies to my chamber,
rest roses at my feet.
Milk for the thistle,
blue moon for the heath.

Sweet are the meadows,
Don Ironclad sheath
Chained to Her crown,
The Dag Dei will breathe

But I hold the Sun
when You call out my name
I feel Your kisses
in the warm spring rain

Enter this Temple,
enter it full,
From the grove, the forest --
my Lord, my Rule

an apparition in our grade one classroom door
obscured save for the halo around your head
. . . must've been the sunlight

playing with the curves of your curls
you said I wrote sentences
that would've made your grade threes weep . . .
and I was someone I didn't know existed before

someone who could write more than curved lines and straight lines
someone who played with words at break
while the other children ate protein-packed sandwiches

between chalkboard dust-clouds and sweeping up pencil shavings
I stayed in for athletics, looked through the classroom window,
searched the oak tree outside for a vision of the painted elf
I un-tacked from a perpetual race on the circular classroom weather board

see, I couldn't run with only one healthy kidney
when I just came out of hospital
where doctors cleaned their instruments in kidney-shaped dishes
my friend, June, still slept in the next hospital bed --
I hoped she wouldn't die the way Maria did --
while I read Jack and the Beanstalk

Mrs Louw asked how I had learnt to read English
I couldn't tell her -- it was something that just happened
the same way I discovered I despised steak and kidney pies
because I couldn't eat my own sickness

Time swirls above me
in the dead of coldest night,
when the witching hour brings you
in copper cloud's delight,

So I can feel you moving,
touch the quivers of my skin,
bursting through the cascades
of the naked storm within

Rushing you inside me
pushing deeper,
deeper in,
tasting salt in tongues
when the droplets cleave the wind

And the boundaries
cease between us:
dissolve where sweat begins.
Torrents sweep in waves
coursing through the joining Syn

Face to face we rise
from the pipes of Pan
within
breathing mist together
as the bird songs wreathe
a ring
of foliage and of flowers
around ancient stones
and altars,

Where all the others leave us
their carrion
in the garbage,
we take Raven with us
and soar
above the bloodlines,
the glisten of the kin

Raising new horizons,
we feel the morning spin,
hatching suns beneath us
in the shadow of our wings,
un-folding life together,
ten-folding on forever ...
and ever ...

Within.

Gabriel,
blow your trumpet in my ear
so I may hear
the rise of lilies
Marching down my throat

Naked ladies and daffodils
King proteas and petunias
Spinach, celery and rocket

For the venus fly-trap has lost her teeth
in semi-nation feasting --

My gut is a gaza-strip:
holier than seven maries
times eleven matzot, squared

Who would raise the dandelion and the khaki-bos,
Who would shield the cornflower and the joseph's coat
in semi-nation trepidation

My gut is a gaza-strip
My nerves: a dead sea . . .

But Gabriel,
blow your trumpet in my ear again
so I can see
the significance of shattering


14 August, 2014

late blossom in the loquat tree --
I reach for the autumn sky

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?

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.

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.

He is the preacher's son;
I am the weapons keeper's daughter.

He stood in the blood of the holy ghost;
I stood in the blood of a man's own slaughter.

Did you take the holy water?

I am the weapons keeper's daughter;
I stand in the ghost of man's own slaughter;
He is the preacher's son, standing in the ghost of the holy One.

Did you take the ****** water?

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

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.

I shall be
small --
a particle of dust

carried

colliding

collecting

in a tiny sandstorm
with other particles of dust
individually laced
through the eye of Eve's Needle
Cactus, sharp, squinting
against the light

a dash

on a waxed dune

a nuance

-- infinitely small

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.

His skull
like the ivory of a shattered tusk
smooth
hard
the still-moist dull gleam of cream
lining the torn-apart flesh

Clean

Look inside the head
its void
the most inner part exposed

The white of the bone

Free from the marrow of the chaos
the thoughts inside contained

Clean

The hollow warmth of its hue

You won't see
where the bullet burst
through the top of his head
like a boiled potato
lying in its skin
gashed across
and squeezed on all sides

If you look at the white of the bone

Closer, closer

Just look at the white of the bone

In the hours of your discontent
Cut through the lining of my womb --

Each gush a new red lotus
In the snow white tub
Of all our winters
Water thins the Blood
Blood taints Water
  
In the hours of your discontent
Linger in the scent of iron petals

Flaccid limbs around your neck--
An embrace
A noose
A loosened tourniquet

In the hours of your discontent . . .

her umbrella
unfolding in the rain --
my flower gift

my love,
the earth blooms
in warmth,
your soft touch
sowed the seed . . .

this palate is an anvil
this tongue a hammer
forging the edges of words
reversed

farewell tears
falling to the ground --
autumn leaves

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

a tree grows
where my journey ends --
in the soil

a clenched fist  
on the leash of a rabid beast --
karma?

yellow petals, turning to the sun --
perhaps they think I fear their beauty

the sun rises
through rough, bare branches
as the ice melts . . .

limbs quiver the covers
in your embrace

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

farewell tears
falling to the ground --
autumn leaves

rainbow arches
above two lovers --
high in the sky

Through the alcove window
in the arms of pines
a spectre in the dark appeared to me
on the sighs of slumbering night sounds
no feet could touch the ground

Gliding down the mountain *****
no feet to touch the ground
the spectre fell onto her knees
clawing moss and dirt and things unseen

Arms outstretched
her shoulders shuddered
an array of exclamations
contorted in her screams
she ripped apart the tender parts
that daylight must not see

She wailed for emptiness
She wailed for sleep
She wailed for peace that never comes
to a spectre in the witching hour
who beats the earth with fists of fire
and clenches things unseen

No comfort in the arms of pines
for the spectre on her knees
out in the midnight drizzle  
no comfort here for me

And so I know that spectre
that spectre on her knees
can only be the ghost
the ghost you left in me