Us

Sit still with me

betwixt the stars

Where there is no light 

No light at all 

Where there is no broken 

Where there is no fixed 

Where there are no stories 

Where there is no next 

No me, no you 

No skin nor bone 

No life, no death 

Just us 

Tyre

Socked feet

on carpeted floor; 

comfortably curved back. 

The hum and crackle of 

expanding copper, 

as heated water 

warms the nativity 

of today's time and space.

I am here.

Where is Memphis? 

How much of Maslow's 

tower is systemically 

sculpted of blood and cracked bone? 

I am here:

with waking seagulls,

where an actualising butterfly

easily waves a left wing 

into a thimble-sized breeze.

I am here;

Tyre is there.

Hurricanes of fists and batons. 

Painting of Celia on cardboard

 

Then to Spring

Fists furled 
Sweep up the shrapnel 
of dereliction 

as blossom bombs 
carpet cold stone 
and flowers explode
from the earth

Limp into spring
with winter 
raking at our backs 
snarling as we flee 

Palms to the sky 
wet with tears 

Gerhard Something

An early tormentor,

Gerhard Something:

scalped on a Friday

by the unbuckling 

early eighties’ bonnet of

his mother’s white Corolla.

The news on Monday drifts over

the assembly- draws 

gasps, sobs, palms to young mouths,  

before the bloody, 

eagerly embellished details 

reliably seep through the school veins. 

His eyes were open.

Still holding his Coke.

Alive…Still Gerhard Something.

Alive, but dead, you understand? 

I had no doubt that 

the early eighties’ Dutch Reformed Jesus 

I knew and feared then,

would have sent him, 

Coke in hand, 

swiftly  to hell…

Yet.

He’s an angel now,

Headmaster,

Van Der Walt eulogises. 

Here among us, eyes open.

Dead…Still Gerhard Something.

Dead, but alive, you understand?

Untitled #1 Vaka

So that’s where it’s been:

locked away in this track.

Once overplayed, 

then forgotten. 

See our young faces 

as they were: 

spectres amidst reeds of

the instantly familiar piano.

I had so much to learn 

about hurting you.

I see you scar-free, playfully

peeking through the mournful violin. 

I’d be dead to the man I see

adoring you in the ethereal vocals.

Meandering through our early days,

lost in songs.

First Light

Dawn spills renewed promise

somehow spun from vapour  

though sleep 

Something seems different 

though nothing has changed 

Your ear on my chest 

We lie fresh in our stale air

Our limbs comfortably 

intertwined

My heart beats like pop 

A jukebox of hits 

thought lost 

Then

the sheets yet again

shaken out and laid straight 

Corner finding corner