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.

Die Droomdief

Developed with the pupils from the

Lettie de Klerk Primary School Arts Project

in Pienaarsig Nieu Bethesda.

Die Droomdief is a work-shopped children’s play that will be performed by the pupils of the Lettie de Klerk Primary School Arts Project which is a voluntary community outreach project coordinated and facilitated by Michael Wentworth. The story was developed over a period of four weeks with the participants in the Saturday drama component of the project. The cast is comprised of students between the ages of 9 and 11 who are currently in grades 4 to 6.

HIE’SA

Van hie’ bo

Lyk die hele spot befok

Me’nie liggies en skuitjies

Daa’ver.

Van hie’ bo

Klink die hele spot befok

Me’nie shoesh en toet-toet

Daa’ ver.

Van hie’ bo

Voel die hele spot befok

Me’nie space en kalmte

Daa’ ver.

Van hie’ bo

Is ‘it ma’ o’right.

THE VOW

Now we are not alone

What has been is no more

Today is the seed

Tomorrow but its fruit.

Now we embrace the all

We’ve each claimed to love

Little nuances previously ignored

Becomes a part of the whole.

In words I’ve failed to convey

Exactly what it is I feel

I’ve accepted you until death

With love steeped in years.

Now I say I love you

And I hope that you understand.

WARTS AND ALL

I come to you with my life

Energy oozing from my very pores

I am all in thought

A struggling manifestation of the will.

Far have you wandered and wide

Self preserving you searched

For an unreality that blinds

Lost to all that you have found.

We share fragile moments

When I am someplace else

And you with someone not present

We play the same sad games.

I am this that I so vehemently indulge

And you are no longer with me.

MONDAY THE TWENTY-FORTH

Tense moments conceived within

The miserable confines of ill-content

Desperately do I yearn for release

From this life that binds me.

And even the moving euphoria

Seems reduced in the face of such longing

The means seem pathetic

As I shed these silent tears.

Don’t just hold me

Take me away from all of the denial

Wounded hearts and diluted smiles

That shade such balmy days.

There has to be other paths

There has to be a new day!

1994

After all this time

All the crap I’ve been through

Means nothing in your eyes

But the further denial of myself.

IMPOSSIBLE

To have you now

Here with me for a talk

Is as ridiculous as it ever seemed.

I’ve journeyed vast plains

Only to find upon my return

That the experience is negligible.

I must regress a thousand thoughts

To share an empty laugh

With the friends I left behind.

I see them clearly

But they fail to perceive me

Beyond the confines of their unreason.

Within this crowded space

I am most alone

Touched only by the pathetic resignation.

BV's Blues

In the serrated midnight shadows

A man stares at the moon on the wall

A single star burns the neck of his guitar

Leaving a mark of what should have been.

Fingers that dance in the moonshine

A face drawn with pain

He carries the mark of his experience

Creativity pours through his veins.

An ancient eastern harmony

Plays on the anxious silence

Thoughtful tones conjure images of wonder

As his song splits the night.

All that has been has brought you here

All that will come keeps you around

One day the loss will turn to riches

And the passion will fill the memory.

Still you must finger those strings

In which your being vibrates

A self washed by yearning

For that which lies deep in your soul.

And now your plight is understood

Now we have met in this denial

Uttering sounds that colour our tomorrows

Making music the world will hear.

One day soon it will come to pass

When brooding desires will be fulfilled

As a result of a chance encounter

With Brian’ies blues.

Love & Beauty

The trouble is, they say, that the systems are at fault; the government is corrupt and disinterested, bloated with officials who are just serving their own self interest, enriching themselves and those closest – loyal – to them; that party politics should not be a part of local government; that the opposition caters to a middle-class elite and is weak.

I call that a victim mentality: and while adults choose to succumb to this way of thinking, our Nation’s children – the world’s children – become victims of greed and stupidity and cowardice!

How cold is the heart that doesn’t feel joy at the sound of a child’s unbridled laughter? How cold is the heart that is not moved to tears at the sound of a child’s anguished cry? How much love can you show to those closest to you when you have no love for a stranger: when your heart is filled with hatred and prejudice? How cold is your heart?

True beauty exists in a child’s smile; true love is when you can open your heart to a child you never met before, a child whom you will never see again: someone else’s child who for the briefest moment is as important as your own – is your own!

Until such time, you have neither loved nor experienced beauty!

RECOLLECTIONS OF LOVE

I recall the first time we met

It was a windy autumn, mid-week morning

Your eyes shining, your smile true

Your voice, your hair and the most beautiful peasant skirt

Because its fabric caressed your body.

I recall the first time we made love

Urgent and lustful; yet whispering and tender

A perfect kiss immersed in the deep well of our being

Our bodies entwined, our souls’ dance explored

A fateful union consummated, living complete.

I recall the first time we were apart

I was home with another that ended too late

And then it was you in the arms of the other

Yet we danced still, sad and hopeful, flirting

With thoughts and dreams of a different time.

I recall the first kiss again

Steeped in years of unexpressed desire and emotion

Allowed for just a moment to live enough

To be able to reignite the smouldering passion

Giving substance to these recollections of love.

NINE...

Hello…

I wonder if the cycle is complete

Whether the act has meaning

How much of the routine is real?

An extension of quiet indulgence

Without any obvious scenes

The motions of something bigger

Than just you and me.

Wretched longing what do I feel

More refreshing disillusion

In which to steep intent

Here where the moon shines in a glass.

The left foot is amid the living

And the right waltzes with death

As I straddle the void

While the system rapes me.

I am here now mommy...

There was a time as a little child a long time ago, when all I yearned for was the undivided and unreserved love of my mother.


For many years as I grew up, that one need served to define who I was becoming back then. It defined my desires and my choices and the inevitable consequences; but I grew up and I became this that I am.

Many, many years later again – after I lost my mother and my morals – I finally came to realize that I was never a consequence, but I am a cause: I have caused so much.

Pain and laughter and loss and gain.

Now just about to turn forty-two I return again to my mother’s side. Now she is frail and needing: she is what she finds so hard to admit. She is a lousy mother but she remains a great woman even in her frail humility.

Today she thanked me for a simple gesture – a gesture that I would make a million times over, just for that one moment never before lived: that unadorned ‘thank you my boy’ said so simply, so true. I thank you too mother. I thank you for the woman you are and probably always were – for the human being you’ve become: for the mother you never were - not to me or them or any of us; but the mother you are. And now this cherished moment – this love of the children for you our mother is unique.

Now I can truly dedicate my life and my work to this extended moment I share with you. All of the past is forgotten yet so acutely remembered: so beautifully crystallized into a moment that I will always hold dear; while I was here, while I am near to you now mom: I love you…

RILE ME UP!

I’m not sure what makes me angrier:

The fact that wars are still being fought

Provoked by men with ulterior motives and security details

Mass murderers who speak of peace with blood on their hands

Inciting their flock with tales of ancient gripes

In this age of supposed enlightenment;

Or the fools with the guns in their hands.

I’m not sure what makes me more despondent:

The fact that supposedly educated people

Still believe in the ancients’ fairytales of a flat-earth prophecy

Who spoke of love from pulpits of greed and hatred

Duping congregations of apathetic victims with eyes tightly shut

Praying earnestly to dead gods and decayed messiahs;

Or the complicit complacency of the conscious.

I’m not sure what makes me feel more murderous:

The fact that these fat-cat politicians can still so easily deceive their constituents

In their flashy suits spewing a mindless, stock-phrased rhetoric

With pudgy and groping, manicured hands profiteering from poverty

Unconcerned in their landscaped suburbs hidden behind impenetrable walls

Condemning the critics and criticizing the condemned;

Or the masses who buy the lies each time.

I’m not sure what makes me more disgusted:

The fact that these corporate giants with their PR teams

Can market their wholesale destruction with sophisticated ads in glossy mags

Making us feel as if our lives are not complete if we don’t aspire

To acquire whatever package deal they have put together

In their sweatshops and factories by low-paid casual labour;

Or the buying public who worship the brands.

I’m not sure what makes me more pessimistic:

The honest racist who will share their last bread

But from an old, stained cracked bowl

Or the lying liberal stuck in a new age Aquarian mould,

The rich who don’t care or the poor who don’t dare

Fairytale religions and theoretical systems or the general inaction;

But the one thing I do know is that this state of affairs riles me up!

NO CHANGE AGAIN...

Tenderly I am overcome

Inhaling the majestic, wind-swept landscape

Splashed by these harsh, magical hues

The moist afternoon seems calm.

A briefly frustrating suspension

The vague hint of a blur receding

The near immaculate isolation regained

Within this blossoming vision.

Tremulously caught up in this mindful oblivion

The promise of a consummate companion strolling by

Enticingly seductive within its own allure

Of which I will never been a part.

Greenish-yellow birds hop across the red earth

Grayish-white clouds pass ominously above.

DON'T TELL ME ABOUT PEACE

Please don’t get me wrong because I am not a racist

I have had many friends of all colours over the years

I believe that we are all people

But I don’t go and visit with blacks and coloureds

Because we are just not the same.

Please don’t misunderstand me because I am not prejudiced

I treat everyone equally irrespective of where they are from

I believe that we should all be able to work for a living

But these foreigners should have stayed in their own countries

Because they are taking money from the poor.

Please don’t think I am like every other man because I am not chauvinist

I’ve never raised my hand to anyone in my life

I believe we all have our roles to play

But a woman must know her place in society

Because I work hard to put food on the table everyday.

Please don’t accuse me of fraud just because I am taking my share

I have never stolen a cent from anyone in my life

I believe we should all be able to work and live with dignity

But creating jobs and building houses takes time

Because there’s too many poor people who need help.

Please don’t assume that I don’t care about anyone else

I always give to the needy if, what and when I can

I believe that no one should suffer or go hungry

But these people should begin to realize that they have it easy

Because they at least don’t have debts or overdrafts and loans to repay.

Please don’t tell me that it’s all because of history

I can imagine what it must have been like for you

I believe that apartheid was wrong and I’m sorry

But it’s been over for almost three decades now and we have to move on

Because nowadays we are all equal and we can’t keep blaming the past.

Please don’t suggest that it’s my fault that you have no hope

I didn’t vote the ANC into power or make these new laws

I believe in the rainbow nation and a better future for all

But you can’t blame me when your new government is corrupt

Because I just want my family to be safe and to live in peace.

Untitled # 9 - Or Just Shit Poets!

Gone, up high and away

This vast moment

Left terminally behind

Confined it seems by this day.

The conversation becomes a cacophony

Purged by the alien, ethnic sounds

Released I soar high

Above the physical indulgence.

I reach out and breathe the dawn

I drink the morning dew

Refreshed I return briefly

To this smoke-filled room.

Verbal diarrhea also stinks

Spewed forth from the sewers of thought.

VIR'IE BOYS

 

Elke wíek ko’ ek hie’

Ampe’ asof ‘ie Allah my stuu’

Om van sy laaities te ko’ míet

Om vi’ julle wys te maak van ‘n different beat.

Elke wíek ko’ lee’ ek self nog ‘n stukkie

Of om vi’ ieman te gíe, ‘n klein gelukkie

En ‘ie gel’ wat ek betaal wor’t

Is at all times ‘n bietjie short.

Elke wíek ko’ míet ek nog ‘n gedagte

Party ko’ soema met ‘n klagte

But die hele ding is o’s praat met ease

En daai is ‘ie ding wat vi’ my die míeste please.

Elke wíek ko’ raak ek wys met julle

En as o’s break ‘an roek o’s lang twak pille

And my heart is empty when I’m ill

Wan’ ja’r op ‘n ja’r, julle raak my siel.

Elke wíek wil ek vi’ julle sê

Al’dou is ‘ie pad nog vi’ baie soe vê’

On’hou ‘rie dinge wat ek praat en bly ste’k

Wan’ aan ‘ie voo’kan’ wag nog baie we’k.

Kyk altyd die trap agte’ ‘rie trap en boekan’ ‘ie lyn

En woega me’ daai gedagte in jou brein.

For all the youth at Hawequa Juvenile Detention Center but especially those with whom I have had the pleasure of working and who have managed to touch my life so deeply – Salute my bra’s!

Untitled # 6

Token concern

From within your involvement

Lying eyes

That will not cry.

Hustling again

Some more cheap thrills

Amount to nothing

More than a wasted moment.

Idle indulgence

As I lie with you

Unfulfilled disinterest exposed

As we all strive to survive.

Untitled # 3

All the trash is swept away

Only tiny, floating insects

And twittering birds remain

To speak of beauty.

Naked I sit on the mountain

Caressed by the sun and wind

I see the city passing by

On its way to the weekend.

To have been the first man here

To have gazed across the virgin land

To have been a dream in the forest

That is now covered by this haze.

The ground wails its wordless lament

Beware the beast among us!