SOME DAYS

Some days are so familiar
Hard as I look there is nothing to see
No compassion, no heart, no change
Just a distressingly arrogant contempt
In the best interests of those who will not think.

Some days I just want to lash out
I want to shake things up
And scream at the top of my lungs
Or just curl up and cry
Sometimes I just want to die.

Some days there is nothing to smile about
The laughter is forced and insincere
The freedom song strangled in my throat
The martyrs crucified in vain
As I look into your eyes and see the disdain.

Some days I need so much to behold beauty
Yet all I see is the growing decay
As you wipe the dirt from your feet
Leaving it behind as you enter your fortress
Mouthing your patronizing platitudes.

Some days I have all the answers
I know what it is that I need to say
But the sentences falter and remain unspoken
Silenced by the desperate clamour
Of distracted indifference.

Some days the sun just won’t shine
There is no daybreak and no gray light
And try as I might there is no respite
No understanding or acceptance or desire
Just an interminably desolate moment.

Some days your greed leaves me empty
Needing so badly to feed my dream
Needing just to dream; of a better place
Of justice and equality and a future
Of my next meal without worrying about starving.

And some days I do feel the love
Of an unknown brother and a sister far away
Of a fellow traveler passing on their way
A stranger with a heart and mind who is able to see
Reminding me to stop being indulgent.

NAMIBIA

This journey is rich with memories
A trip overflowing with my snatches of history
From the thick cream to the warm milk bread
The hot-springs and skin peeling sunburn
The sweltering city and the misty coast.

Now I return with another purpose
To shoot the breeze with a father
And siblings who now have partners and kids
To feel their smiles and taste their tears
To listen as they try to disguise their fears.

I needed to come once more
Just to meet and maybe to say a final farewell
To look out at their hazy horizons
Shimmering bright in the distance
Where new dreams are born.

WHEN WE WERE US...

It’s late at night as I sit here thinking of us. It’s minus ten outside and in here it’s minus you. I remember that first time we met we flirted; touching, kissing; fingers exploring. Even in the absence of a snapshot, the images are clear: I remember sharing a soul, the first time we made love for ever; the first time I broke your heart. I came back to you and you to me, that night of wind and fingers entwined and promises that would be broken.


The intensity of your gaze, the urgent pulse; an electric shock, you became I part of me and I of you. I will never forget.
The moments shared in obscure places, the rare public proclamations, the coffees and whiskeys and the sound of your voice as I listened, before I turned away again.

20 FACTS AND AN INTRO...

I am often amazed at the way in which people choose to interpret life – or more often, misinterpret it; but having said that I must hasten to add that I am under no illusion that how and what I think is the only valid view. I have to admit that my interpretation of reality can be – and often is – interpreted as lacking. I know this because I fail to take into account so many of the factors that so many people are convinced, is indispensable and integral to having an informed opinion.

By the same token, I am convinced that much of the complexity is merely presented to confuse and needlessly convolute issues which are in essence exceedingly simple.

Perhaps it is the simplicity itself that becomes the problem because we cannot believe that this life that the greatest minds through the ages have never completely unraveled cannot be anything less than bogglingly complex; or at least that is what we have been told to think.

One and one can create endless permutations – endless components of the complex, misdirection and confabulation.

We become the masters of our own delusion simply because we are unable to accept the truth, and we all know that truth is open to interpretation, or misinterpretation as the case may be…

1. We are all prejudiced
2. We are slaves controlled by corporate puppet-masters
3. Politics is a whorehouse under surveillance and politicians are the whores
4. Freedom has been reduced to a personal space
5. Religion is a foil that keeps the masses blind
6. There is no ultimate truth
7. Neither knowledge nor education guarantees intelligence
8. History hasn’t taught us how to be more human

NEW NOISE

I listen intently to this new noise: running water, birdsong, insects and dogs; random snatches of passing conversations; an occasional car or tractor or horse; and the valley breathing.

The story shifts to encompass wide-open spaces and the rushing inanity of urban threads are reduced to a receding mindlessness.

My thoughts slowly calm and the assimilation begins, one moment at a time I become accustomed to the crisp, clear air and the smells of things barely tainted by the decay and destruction.

The fatigue of the journey weighs heavy in my limbs, but I know that I will soon be revived. I smile as I wonder how the story will begin.

THE ROAD

There is a road down which I used to walk
Many, many years ago in amazement and wonder
I used to see the other children playing
Care-free and with abandon
Under the watchful eyes of doting parents
And I wondered about mine.

There was that road down which I walked again
Many years ago in confusion and rage
Observing the crumbling facades
Corroded by time and neglect
Under the bitter yoke oppression
And I wondered about time.

Now that self-same road upon which I tread
Has been restored to it’s never before glory
As I am overcome by the familiar smiles of the aged
Mere children grown old before they’ve matured
By the blinkered wisdom of experience
And I wandered on, down the line.

Mosselbay - 24/12/2010

I awake to the sound of the Indian Ocean lapping lazily at the sandy shore. I’m still trying to fathom the journey that brought me here.


Thoughts of a full breakfast reduced to coffee and juice by an onslaught of cereal.
I sit looking out over a pristine white beach quietly observing; after a few wine-glasses of tepid Limousine brandy with gassy Coke Zero and only yearning thoughts of ice, I speak to a member of the staff and am given directions.

I stroll along the beach slowly filling, smoking on my way to town which is familiar even though it is my first visit. Holiday-makers!

Bananas and peanuts; and a roast chicken with fresh, baked bread; and vodka with juice and ice: the afternoon passes sipping away, watching. So many toned bronzed bodies; as many flabby and pale; everyone has children. Holiday-makers!

Scrimped and saved all year maybe; or more likely just saved or blowing the annual bonus; privileged, not in their whiteness but in their ability to afford a holiday at all: and yet they don’t see themselves as being privileged any longer, just holiday-makers enjoying the seasonal migration of the herd to dip their manicured and wrinkled toes into this salt water of their content.

A tipsy and toasted Christmas Eve drive into the unadorned heart of the community where old friends and neighbours become new acquaintances over a smoke and an uninspired conversation: the old days are alive in the dying moment, dying because the passage of time doesn’t ever change the grinding reality of impoverishment and drugs and the bemoanable truth of apathy.

The stars are dulled by ambient light as I lay in my narrow bed, drifting to the crash and thunderous hiss of the surf pounding away at the shoreline beyond my open window.

GROWTH

Perfect isolation
Calm and wild
Now that history recedes
To create new memories
Of yet another tomorrow
That will undoubtedly grow.

This familiar ocean
Always met anew
Deceptive beneath the surface
Dark unfathomable depths
Conceal untold mysteries
Untold secrets
Forgotten.

SAME-OLD, SAME-OLD

The reality has shifted

Yet it remains the same,

The landscape’s developed

Yet seemingly in vain

As the country struggles to breath

Beneath the yoke of greed

And callous avarice.

Laws that prohibit

Even a slight gesture

Walls keeping you safe

Oblivious, unable to register

Setting the stage

For another disaster.

Personal, political

The bitch gives birth

Little and large

We are all a part of tomorrow

Sorrows that stunt growth

A broken oath, a pact shattered

In denial.

THE SINGING LESSON

A place of healing
A space for cleansing
A moment of reflection
A time for introspection.

Removed from the rush
And the mindless madness
No suspicion or fear
No heartless callousness.

A place of birdsong
A space to create
A time of expression
With no thought of aggression.

Removed from the stifling striving
And the endless slog,
Embraced by nature
Learning the Mother’s song.

IMMORTALITY

Immortality my friends
Is not a reference to me
Of eternal life
Or never having to endure
Death:
No, immortality for me
Speaks of another state –
An altered fate
Where the love of the living
Lets our souls thrive;
Where the effect of giving
Sharing our honest expression
Keeps the love of the other
And the memories alive.

CAN YOU FEEL IT

It’s late at night,
The laughter has dies down
Leaving behind just a nagging electric hum
And the sound of regular breathing;
Sleeping, drifting away.

So many thoughts to share
So many moments of inspiration
Such comfortable, comforting intimacy
So much said with fingers and eyes
So many words painting tender images.

Such intensity gazing out from within this moment
Looking into tomorrow’s future
Tomorrow’s smiles and tears
And the certain knowledge of continued laughter
Unselfconsciously with belly-aching abandon.

This day will become a new morning
That will turn into another night
Filled and fulfilled in the embrace
Of our time passing but lasting
Love growing old while staying young.

TALKING TO MYSELF

I journeyed slowly at the whim of the wind
Leaving behind one true love
Just to be consumed by the other
Leaving behind the urban asylum
To be alone with my madness.

I arrived to the sound of birdsong
And the breeze caressing the leaves
Greeted by a warm smile and a handshake
And the truth of a soul’s eyes
Speaking kind words of welcome
To comfort a weary stranger.

And in a matter of days
That seemed to encompass many lifetimes
The soul is completely refilled
By the scream of Mother Nature’s silence
I am able to converse with myself.

THE CANINE CONDUCTOR

In a lush green valley
Feet sinking into rich, black fertile earth
Leaves mottled yellow, red, turning brown
Drifting gently to brush the ground.

Khaki koppies capped with tufts of fragrant evergreen
Ancient rocks proudly displaying the cracking scars
The life giving muddy water flows after the rains
Sighing and grumbling along ancient riverbeds.

The wind-pumps are stilled
The leaves have stopped their whispered song
The grass is no longer dancing
Waiting for the orchestra to strike up its gusting refrain.

Then a solitary ray of sunshine
Warms the lands’ troubled heart
As all of life once again begins its chant
To the accompaniment of a lone dog’s bark.

SOMETIMES I CAN

Can you imagine a world
Untouched by greed and destruction
Where every effort is a part
Of a greater, living art?

Can you imagine the other
A distant sister or brother
Without fear and prejudice
As someone to love and care for?

Can you imagine yourself
Living to fulfill a different role
That encompasses more than your own security
A life of purpose untainted by impurity?

Can you imagine how it would be
If every one of us was a leader
Unchained and unscarred by preconception
Conscious and creating all that can be imagined?

Nieu-Bethesda

I seldom write poems about places

My poetry is inspired by the spaces

Seldom unique but always resonating

In my mind: with my soul.

Places are found in history and legend

Spaces we nurture in secret with a smile

And what it is for me is seldom what it is for you

Yet similar in what we profess to hold true.

The poems have been written

And the verses have been sung

The quiet, the calm, the peaceful charm,

The blanket of stars that don’t always shine.

I walk these paths now

Where a different history is mingled with the dust

Just faded clouds of memory in the distance

Changed and changing with every step.

This place is divided and set apart

The space is complete fulfilling this traveler’s heart

The people I’ve met whose smiles have touched

Beneath the surface there lurks so much.

So sad how many can gaze at beauty

With a jaundiced eye mired in iniquity

Perfection cannot exist in a bubble

Denial does not take away the trouble.

Yet hope perseveres in the flowing river

The crisp clean air and the humble giver

The stars that fill the firmament above

And the brilliant glow of selfless love.

So I thank you all as I find my place

Humble and honoured I share the space

Where the dreams of a hundred ghosts roam free

And the past and future are allowed to be.

LITTLE THINGS

It’s the fleeting smile at the crack of dawn

Standing amongst the crush of commuters

On your way to a job that you really don’t like

And your thoughts are at home cuddled up in bed.

It’s that random act of kindness during the lunch hour rush

When you finally get to the front of the queue

Only to discover that your money is in your desk drawer

And a stranger ends up buying your lunch.

It’s an anonymous word of encouragement

Just when you are about to give up

That makes you dig deep into an untapped reserve

That sees you across the finishing line with a flourish.

It’s the look of understanding that bridges the divide

As you teeter on the brink of depression

Bringing relief amid the heartache and tears

And your soul’s sigh is transformed into a smile.

It’s the acknowledgement when you feel most unappreciated

The whispered words or the gentle touch

The phone call and the email or that letter in the mail

Or the jaunty knock of an unexpected visitor

It’s the hand of friendship and the compassion gesture

The simple little things that remind me that I am not alone.

INADEQUATE!

Green is such an inadequate word

Unable to describe the colours I see before me

The adjectives and superlatives fail to capture;

The shades and hues are far too real to express

And when seen like this across a windswept spring-scape

The best I can do is say: “I wish you were here!”

One word is inadequate

Unable to describe the abundant nuances of the seemingly mundane

A whisper that can be described in a hundred different ways

Without ever conveying what was not said

And I look at everything happening around me

The best I can do is say: “I wish you could see this!”

Inadequate is the word that best describes

How we continually fail to perceive that our will has been reduced

Reduced to a race of unseeing watchers, mere spectators

Unable to embrace our potential for fear of failure

And I hear your facts and stats and scriptures and lies

The best I can do is say: “I wish you would think before you talk!”

All of these inadequate words

That fail to illuminate what could have been an adventure

Stringing sentences together like a chain-link handrail

To which we hold with all of our might

As we allow ourselves to be led, unthinking

Along a potholed path into the gloomy, treacherous future.

CAN I AFFORD IT?

I was conceived in the blistering heat of the golden African sun; born beneath a celestial field of diamonds; with the silvery, full moon illuminating the darkness of a pristine nocturnal African landscape.

But I was raised and became another kind of man in the bowels of the earth, mining precious metals which seldom adorn the mantel above my hearth; the back-breaking labour under a yoke of tyranny to furrow and sow and reap a harvest that doesn’t fill my stomach; my life reduced to a disposable human resource in the employ of a brutal, relentless economy whose bounty is made tenable by my sweat; my future and the future of my children, sacrificed to secure success for strangers who will never know my name.

I cannot afford to own land; or build a home; yet I must pay for my child’s education: mostly I barely survive, but I do take comfort in the fact that there are so many who have even less than me and in that abject certainty I end up owning my lot and my suffering.

But with that harsh reality, comes an uncompromised clarity – a sensitivity.

Detached, I am able to really see. I am able to see myself for whom and what I really am; I see us all beyond the constricting confines of stereotype and statistics and an imposed identity that we are all constantly persuaded to assume: no longer am I just one of countless millions living below or upon the breadline, on the street or in a shack or a sub-standard block-house where the cold wind keens through the single chink in the night’s armour; the cracked and crumbling walls, frames with cardboard windows and beneath the leaning door.

I am able to see what is happening in the world, what is happening to our ailing humanity; I see what is going on and what has gone wrong; and while we fight these fragmented, meaningless wars against enemies and demons that we’ve been sold, there is another beast watching unseen – unseeing – gloating as its omnipotence swells, sustained by avarice and the wilful ignorance as we bare witness but miserably, doggedly doubt the veracity of the evidence. That we are the unthinking, suffragists that fuel the fires of this capitalist democracy that we inherited through negotiation between urbane warlords with their own interests at heart; a settlement in which small men have become leaders through coercion and corruption, ensuring that my lot remains unchanged.

I still warm my brittle bones under the golden African sun, I still lie prostrate beneath the celestial blanket of diamonds which is my forefathers’ gaze, upon the rich fertile soil: embracing all of my wealth; the irrepressible spirit of my African soul.

This African soil where the dust of my ancestral memory lies decaying with parents and sons and daughters, buried beneath the convenient text-book lies: the powdery flaking white-wash ineffectually trying to conceal the story of an age of African prosperity.

Sometimes as I watch you turn away – unable to face the facts – I wonder ‘what is the price I have to pay for your dignity?

“Can I afford it?”

TIME TO FEEL

Rain clouds gather

Rolling from the horizon

Carried by a brisk, moist breeze

Ruffling the feathers of birds

A story being written.

No walls, no traffic

Just the sounds of abundant life

Without the cacophonous clamour

Of modern, city living

With pollutant smog.

Time to be

Time to feel

Space to breath and think

About the magic

Sitting beneath a tree.

THE TEN COMMANDMENTS REVISITED IN THE 21ST CENTURY...

1. God is supposed to have said: I am the Lord your God, you shall have no other gods before me, you shall not make for yourself an idol…

Now imagine if your wife, or husband should say the same thing, what would you think?

I am your wife/husband, you will not look at other women/men, and you will not think that anyone else is more good looking or sexy than me!

2. Do not use the Lord’s name in vain…

Interpreted could mean: Don’t call me I’ll call you! / Don’t backchat! / Don’t even think about it!

3. Remember the Sabbath and keep it holy…

Stop drinking, tomorrow’s work!

4. Honour your father and your mother…

If you know who they are!

5. You shall not kill or murder…

Unless the MF deserves it or you have armed troops who can do it for you!

6. You shall not commit adultery…

Unless he/she is too damn hot and then make sure you are not caught and don’t take any diseases home with you. And don’t make more babies; and use a fucking condom!

7. You shall not steal…

Unless its public funds and or an African country’s natural resources and its people!

8. You shall not bear false witness against your neighbour…

Unless you have a couple of friends who are willing to bear false witness with you!

9. You shall not covet your neighbour’s wife…

Unless she begs you and he is not at home; your neighbour’s husband on the other hand is a whole different kettle of fish altogether. And use a fucking condom!

10. You shall not covet anything that belongs to your neighbour…

So stop trying to keep up with the fucking Joneses!

UNTIL SUCH TIME...

Humanity is crippled

Limbs lying broken with shattered bones exposed

Ripped flesh, wounds gaping and rent

Spilled blood soaking the earth

Flaked skin blown away.

We turn away

Unable to comprehend

Not willing, refusing

To take it all in, to accept

We condone the raging hatred.

The words we use are of peace and love

Our actions the syntax of another idiom

An alternate tongue that informs our apathy

Forked and venomous, dangerous

Buried beneath tombs of a castrated knowledge.

Desensitized, cold and far removed

Looking in through the double-glazed glass

Not quite seeing the muted inaction

Breathing, the vapour, the curtains closed

Closed doors, closed minds, terminally unthinking.

Still-born, stunted thoughts un-living

The pretty decay of in-substance

Turning away again

Convinced that nothing’s happening

Dancing in a crowd after the band’s stopped playing.

Graceless epileptics’ grotesque antics

Twisting and twirling and scaring the children

Unwilling to stop or drop the baton

Unable to do what really matters

Un-named, unconscious and faceless.

Not willing, not able

Unthinking, not stable

Holding desperately onto outdated views

A concept of faith that’s intrinsically skewed

Believing the lies while the executioner smiles.

Until such time that we all wake up; that we all face up

To the unavoidable fact that we’re just playing bit parts in a terminal farce

Fulfilling our roles with a gormless aplomb while humanity dies around us

We will continue to look at real life as if it’s a screen-saver

Pointing a crooked finger at an indistinct reflection, convinced that its entertainment.

"What is this place?" - From The Exodus Motel...

Sarge : Officially this place doesn't have a name, everyone just calls it ERF twenty-seven, but I like to think of it as the Exodus Motel. Don't you like the sound of it? The Exodus Motel... It sounds like the title of a movie or something, right? (HE CHUCKLES AND TAKES OUT A CIGARETTE.)

Braam : Please blow the smoke the other way, I don't smoke...

Sarge : (HE EXHALES IN BRAAM'S DIRECTION) Sure thing captain...

Braam : (SWIPING TO CLEAR THE AIR) Why do you call this place the exodus motel?

Sarge : Exodus, a noun meaning a departure of many people. Motel, a noun meaning a roadside hotel for motorists; you mean you can't put one and one together?

Braam : (HE FROWNS CONFUSEDLY FOR A MOMENT.) I don't understand...

Sarge : Well obviously, it’s not quite a motel in that you are not exactly a motorist right now, but I sort of like the whole roadside reference...

Braam : What are you talking about?

Sarge : The Exodus Motel, the last stop on the road to your destiny! That's almost pure poetry for you...

Gwi tells Sasha about Love - Gwi's Version of Why he had to Retire on the Thirteenth Morning....

“Everyone deserves to find happiness my dove, but it is pure foolishness to expect to find it through someone else. It’s the same with love; everyone always says how much they love whoever else, but no one actually can tell you exactly what they mean because the whole concept of being in love is pure vanity. “

“That’s a bit harsh.”

“Not really if you think about it. I mean take the words I love you. If you break it down, you can write an autobiographical thesis about just who ‘I’ is. Only then can you move on to love because love doesn’t exist autonomously somewhere out there; it only exists within the individual. So without a true knowledge of the self to begin with, you cannot even begin to define what love is and what it means to love or to be in love. And then, after all of that, you have to start from the very beginning to get to know the person you claim to be in love with. It’s insane and quite presumptuous to even begin to imagine that it is truly possible to remove your own needs and wants so much that it is not a defining part of any relationship. I mean you don’t say to someone, you are loved by me: you say I love you. I first, then you afterwards: that’s just how it is.”

Excerpt from Gwi's Version of why he had to Retire on the Thirteenth Morning...

And so the lost souls arrive at the gate without a clue. Bereft of substance and presence, desperate for answers which only they can provide and yet they persist with their futile enquiries. Has it always been like this? How sad; how sorry: what is life without the certain prospect of death? And yet it remains a surprise to the unsuspecting fools, these corruptors of words who remain fumbling in the dark because they cannot explain what it is that they think or feel with all of their pretty words dressed up in their deceptive Sunday best. And I must just be patient, lest I in my haste condemn their souls to eternal damnation.

SILVER AND GOLD

The day fades unhurriedly

To the accompaniment of a riotous avian symphony

While the setting sun explodes

Its crimson hues violently tainting the clouds

The breeze expires, finally exhausted

A cacophonous quiet embracing the dying day.

Like the dawn, the dusk is a time of reflection

A time given to a different calm, of contemplation

But the mother tonight has different designs

As from behind a hill with a wisp of cloud there rises

On the Eastern horizon a silvery, gold-tinted moon.

Smiling demurely like a self-conscious lover, teasing

Delicate, revealing, suggestive charms; the night’s eye watching.

COURAGEOUS COWARDS

The willfully ignorant

Opinionated and ill-informed

Soullessly faithful

The blinkered believers

Deceptively constructed

The arrogantly educated

Rhetorically intelligent

The conversational acrobats

The guiltless jugglers

Socially irresponsible

Thoughtless fakes

Mindless followers

The unquestioning masses

The unthinking public

Blissfully unconcerned

Endlessly forgiving

Pathetically accepting

The foolishly brave

Collectively audacious

Separately bowed

Individually impotent

The grinning shadows

The skeletal remains

A crippled society

Singularly unjust

Blindly intolerant

Complacently complicit

Courageous cowards

Selfishly inhumane.

BRUTHERS EN SUSTERS...

Bruda’s en susta’s

Ons sit hier en bek verkoep

Nog one-way bymekaa met die ding

Wat moet sukkel om te kan is.

Ek en djy is mos vol gedagtes

Ma’ eintlik is ons koppe kla’ vrot

Met al die kak wat ons gesien het

En al daai’s waa’ die oë toe was.

Tong en lip is nog altyd’ie n bewystuk nie

Die ouens sal volraak met jou trap

En daar waar djy ‘n nwata dala

Sal ek jou nogal reg help.

Want alles kom op een ding nee

Die laaities se liewens wat ons raak.

The end of the tale...

 And as the first draft of this Tale of Extra Ordinary Madness draws to its conclusion and my time here in Nieu Bethesda draws to a close, I am already dreading the return to the city.

Just this afternoon I was walking with Spooky and Gump - my walking companions - as the sun was setting with the sound of the wind in the trees, the rustle of leaves, birdsong, geese and chickens; a wind pump, the water flowing steadily in the furrow; timeless and soothing.

Soon all of this will be just a memory and I thought about the constant, furious, cacophonous rush and fearful vigilance of life in the city and my soul sighed with the wind.

My last few weeks here will be filled with a sad nostalgia for the beauty that I have been privileged to be a part of. The people, the children, the souls' calm. Talk of stock theft and petty crime will be replaced by sirens and burglar bars and the constant fear. No more moonlit walks, no more silence, no more tranquility. Just the rush...

WHERE DO I BEGIN / THANK YOU

Often life’s journey presents so much more

Than all the anticipation; exceeding every expectation

More even than can be conjured by my most vivid imagination

Such is the case within this landscape which I now traverse

Which has served to restore my faith in the universe.

I came to this place with a singular focus

Intent that nothing would detract from my purpose

To record a tale of my own mad creation

A tale of pain and triumph; a story of this nation

I travelled alone, companioned only by my own jaded preconception.

From the moment that I arrived I was made to feel at home

Here where a part of my soul will now always reside

A solitary wanderer but no longer alone

Amidst the silence and birdsong and the freedom to be

Amongst strangers, no longer, where I could just be me.

And from that very first moment I’ve been struggling to put down

The words that would suitably express my heartfelt gratitude

My deepest, humble appreciation of your kindness

For having had the honour and the pleasure

For having been granted this opportunity to be a part of this beauty.

And still the words fail to convey all that I feel

So instead I will just say my Thank You to you now

For your open arms and the bounty of your hearts

For sharing your lives and your love and the ready laughter

But thank you most of all for your honesty and being all of you.

DESIRE'S SPEECH - FROM 'WAITING'

(STANDS AND BEGINS TO CARESS THE DRAPE BEFORE TYING THE FIRST KNOT) Men believe that they are the stronger sex. (SNORTS DERISIVELY) They believe that they have to go through life conquering anything and everything with their dicks. Look at what’s happening in the world – in fact think back on what’s been happening all along. Men have been running the show for forever and look where it’s left us; wars, ignorance, hatred, poverty, suffering and the ever present fear. Most of the time, they are all delusional and yet they believe that they are wise and powerful. Fucking arseholes! They wouldn’t be able to tell the difference between night and day if they were not told. They really think that they are Kings but the truth is…  Women are Goddesses and our vaginas are the altars at which men bow down and pray. (PAUSE) When I was just a little girl, life decided to teach me one of the most valuable lessons that I would ever learn. I had to sacrifice my virginity and my innocence to a stranger who turned around and told me that it was my fault that he had to rape me. (DERISIVE LAUGHTER) Sometimes life’s lessons are sweet and endearing, but most of the time, the things we are taught are cruel and heartless. I learned that no matter how powerful men may think they are, women are even more powerful because we are the mothers and nurturers of creation.

EVEN WHEN I DIE

The band is still playing

Even though some of the musicians are dead

The melody is unchanged

While the harmonies soar instead.

We dance closer than ever

Every pore receptive to the sentient certainty

Of the immortal accord of this love that cannot die

An immortal love that embraces this mortal union.

Your skin burns beneath my fingers

My tongue tracing poetry upon your body

Your ragged breath, the primal groan and your unerring gaze

A minor harmonic trio at the heart of this sensory symphony.

Our beings emptied, drained and refilled complete

Two parts of a single soul once again abounding

The past and the future crystallized in the perpetual moment

The present, an ubiquitous ideal; assiduous perfection.

HANOVER PARK

Daa’ loep Tiema, sy’s wee’ met die lyf

Windjie waai en mince haa’ kuif

Voete’s vaal van al ‘ie loep

Winkel toe om brood te koep.

Die kinnetjies speel buite by die blok

Pa het lankal uitgeklok

Hy’t ee’ste uitgegooi op die hoek

Lekke’ líewe, vríet net koek

Kan’tie sy naam was heel tyd in die boek

Te veel mense het hom ve’vloek

Nou is Tiema stok-siel allíen

Soek ‘n burk om míen te spíen.

Wan’ die líewe is swaa’

Al’dou is djy waa’

Die sukkel hou nie op nie

Soe o’s drink ma’ nog ‘n doppie

Gevríet net ma wee’ in die sand

En hulle sê is o’s land

Soe ‘it is mos o’right om kak te vríet

Drown die sorrows en ve’dríet

Totdat die ouens wee’ begin’e skiet

En nog ‘n laaitie moet al wee’ djiet

Mang toe as hy lucky is

Onder die grond en weg met die lus.