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Johan Nel Sep 2019
Bo op 'n berg
Met my bobbejaan gedagtes wat terg
Die eggo van my mania skree terug
Wat soek jy hier?

Ek drink uit die rivier
Ek sink my oë in die rooi son
Ek **** alweer
Die donker wolke
Die reën wat kom

Ek laat my gedagtes so dans
Plek tot plek
Gras van Kees
En mens en vlees

Sny deur my
Woede en naaktheid
Die lag van 'n sekere malheid
En die sagtheid van jou moeder ken
En dan meer bring ek twee
Van my na die tafel in 'n oop gesprek
Met my leemtes en my onbeheerbare
Soeke na wat ek herken binne my donker gate
Ek dwaal verlate
In riviere van die samelewing
Die masjien wat liggies trap op ligte wat skyn en verdwyn
In die strate van spoed en bloed
Die woorde uit die bek van die dier
Die ongetemde kwaad van primate
Wat stoei met homself en sy produk en sy bestaan en sy wêreld en sy alles
Tot hy verval en wegkwyn
Verdwyn agter 'n swart gordyn bedoel vir die son en sterre
Waarheid en verlossing
Waar vind ek die antwoord vir alles?
© Johan Nel 2019.09.18 23:38
Johan Nel Jan 2019
I wish to impart my mind on a page
When I observe the stars and the sea
Then think I of the world as a cage
And dream I to live boundlessly

Free of convictions to which I sang along
Untethered from the maternal cord
Shed I this skin, what was right is now wrong
No need to preach anymore of the Lord

Sundays are for my heathen's slumber
The world, undiscovered possibility
Books will I read, absent of number
And live as Observer with no eternity
© Johan Nel 2019.01.22 21:52
Johan Nel Jan 2019
On a canvas filled with the lucid brush of the bright current stream
Fragmented strokes of faint nostalgia paint over the entropy of memories
Sometimes with the laughter of my childhood
To remember why I loved and who I lost
And tax my once innocent slate with the dark etches of growing up
Yet, in splatters of colour and black dye
I find the pleasure of reason and life
And a pallet with still so much to bleed
© Johan Nel 00:49 2019.01.15
  Jul 2018 Johan Nel
ryn
There was no one...
So I spoke as if a secret
into the wind.

I told it,

“You may blow your skeptic tune.
Your quiet whistles of doubt.”

“Exhale if you must,
upon the countenance of her face.
Run your invisible fingers
through her hair...
Taste her lips like you would
the surface of the lake in the sun-shy morns.”

“Then you would dispel all disbelief.
You would take these words I say,
and know why confide in you.
You would know why I had fallen.
And you would know why
you would then be my messenger...”

“So that you could word the song
I could never sing.
You could caress her face
when my fingers could not.
You could kiss and fill her lungs
with all that she needs when I am gone.”


.
Johan Nel Dec 2017
I came to sit beneath stars lit in the tangled dark
Mesmerised by the will of nature to nourish a growing life
Winged creatures wander into the unknown and dank
The final thread on the spool a lie of luring luminescence
An age-old story of beautiful despair
As the moth who flew into a deceiving moon
Every perfect existence eventually  rots in the soiled earth
Feeding the monster of time and reverberation
© Johan Nel 2017.12.26
Johan Nel Jul 2016
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
© Johan Nel (written in December 2015)
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