Trying to fit into their ways in answer
To the imploding impulses that daily
That daily scatter and course violently through my veins
Like rats on a riotous rampage,
I revolted against the raging tide separating me from romance.

Armed only with an obstinate oar,
I waded and spun in absent, bereft waters,
Scrolling loveless letters lost in illusion,
Fondling friends and family like a fiery foe,
Offering only cheap chocolates as comforting condolences.

Riddled with rejection,
Two testing alternatives availed:
Find refuge in the land of the plutonic
Or challenge death alone on the choppy deluge.
Here’s to being the best friend a woman could ask for.

Wisped back from the ocean overlooking
Highway scenery separating bliss from bruises,
The Rock and I headed hillside,
Back to the fold of familiarity and frowning faces.

“When I was your age, we used to shoot pigeons,” he recalled.
“Something for fun – nothing more.”
Foul feelings furrowed far, leapt from the heart into the mind’s field.
I retorted, “Killing for fun? So, you might as well **** men for fun –
They’re as numerous as pigeons!”

Shocked, he shot a searing sideward glance,
Rock to rude boy.
He took hold of his seed with a summoning to silence.

Touring the tides of truth,
I was tossed in the current of straight-talk, pounding against the cliff face.
Fearing not Libra’s blindness in her determination
That the injustice of my tongue has tipped moral scales.

Grinding along its age-old axis which knows of approaching death,
The world pivots on a baby’s breath.
The Rock beholds his baby as a plinth,
Its lungs lamenting the loss of a leisurely labyrinth.
Highwaymen hit the open road in rattling carriages,
Bibbed and drooling with mouths welcoming meat wedges.

In the mind’s meandering pathway
And the incubator cot’s cold corridors,
I sought to take away
Routine’s rasp and all of its bores.
No toy to be found. The whirling wheels left vapors
On highway tracks, chafing the skin of tarmac like sandpaper.

Only as the Old Bull lifted me from my minute home
And took me for a restful roam
Did I see the tempting toy in Guy’s den.
Now ground to a refueling halt, I skated to the highwaymen.

The wicked candle of cindered vacations
Invites in the aroma of specials shopping
For school stationary, short-sleeve shirts
And books with which to bury boyhood.

Once scattered now reassembled,
All were dressed like occupants of a warm, neat nest,
Not a plume lent to a rebellious rise.
Barbered and beautiful in balm,
All gleamed gorgeously, save for your humble, sprouting speaker.

Naturally averse to clipping claws
And vehemently opposed to malting manes,
I slipped through the scorching Serengeti to school,
Rugged and sharp in every stride,
Intent only on ******* on the porch of prissy pigeons.

Horrified, they weighed up my Transylvanian talons,
Convinced such manifestations hail from heretic or heathen heritage.
Looking at my lumped locks with gentrified gall,
They whispered low squawks, suspecting lice.

Two metallic hand-held instruments housed in pouches and boxes
Brought my feline rebellion to its guillotined end.

The agile man stooped low in its bow,
But made no apology for his lack of yellow suspenders.
Our motley crew congregated somewhere in his left armpit,
Crickets announcing the day’s blaze.

Diners decorated with bibs,
We now awaited word as to the specials.
An aproned crustacean chaperoned us
To our linen-smothered tables.
Pincers stretched forward to place the menus,
Count Devon tramped Mr. Crabby into a mushy patty,
Much to the jest of roaring King Henry.

Glancing over the rest,
Mr. Crabby’s twitching eyes found mine,
Conveying only this: Get out,
While you still can. Man fears my pincers,
Yet they are harmless compared to him, the venomous mincer.

As the light creeps through the soft, stained glass,
Marking the coming end of cindered days,
We roamed like Roman pilgrims,
Able to preach salvation only to a wooden audience
Of Turbo Peter Rabbit and company.

A leisurely loiter later led us to
The girls’ hostel,
Fully-kitted with a Telkom payphone.
Pick up, push buttons, pout lips.
Waves of rings stopped with an answer.
“Yes, operator. Reverse charge, please. To myself.”

“Hello?” pulsed the less than gingerly
Grown up greeting his shed self.
“Hello, you – me. You see, we are one,
Grafted together to the vile vine
Of man’s megalomaniac enslaving of mind and meaning.
You’re an adult now – be free, unlike me.
Remain ruled and you will pay a far greater price than this call.”
Drop down, dig deep, don’t discuss.

Worn rough from the sandpaper of your searing sight,
I resolved, “No more!”
No more gifts,
No more time spent in the cave of torture,
Hoping for the berk of your love to anchor in my heart.
No – not ever.

Still, the oil of your oestregen
Oozed in my veins,
Morphing the yonder of youth into a base, bashing beat,
Commercialising you
As ******* legs *******.
Your coyness choked Cupid’s chances.

Right, then. It went like this –
You were on the field with friends
So I spotted your unguarded satchel,
Bright blue and brown,
Still dressed in the mist of your perfume,
Beckoning me into its *****.

Accepting,
I lunged forward,
Clutching and fondling it.
Brown-noser Duduzile saw me, told me you were angry.
All I could offer was one explanation –
“I was shooing a grasshopper away.” I hate you.