Mabheleni Dam

I flick this rod

swishing through

the evening air

the fly kissing

the meniscus

I know there

are poems in here

I see their

darting

bright flanks

reflect the

setting sun

and others have

caught such

giants here

As the water cools

my hips

I think of

Robert Johnson

selling his soul

for the blues

I wade in

over my head

for a time

but nothing down

there makes any

sense at all

just noise

Patience 

I hear my father say

as I feel my breath run low

The poems choose you my boy 

The Shore

How will we

try to reason

                       this wretched

                       lapse in empathy?

What will plaques

on beaches read

                       when today's

                       consigned to history?

What endless fields

for the nameless dead

                       will admonish us

                       to never more?

What poppies or poetry
will remind us of

                                                                           the migrants

                                                                           on the shore?

00:05

Curled into opposing
fallow crescents.

The lamp on my side

of the bed:

on as a

lighthouse

for passion asea

perhaps.

As I think

myself into
insomnia,

as time slows
while the clock
speeds up,

I hear your

breathing become

slow and honest,
slow and honest.

On Leaving Home

I think of the clocks

that tick for no one

and the toaster

still giving off heat

I think of the guitar my son plays

strings still reverberating

warmly through empty air 

since his incessant practice of

Wish You Were Here

and puzzle on who the eyes

in photographs follow now

that we’re not there

I think of our daily diaspora

out the door beyond the gate

each on our own
in the places where we go

and I wonder what ghosts

we’ll bring home

i thought of a town

i thought of a town

where the homeless

are swept up

to make way for

tax-funded

royal weddings

only being allowed

to return to their

haunts once

the carriages and

bewildered horses

have paraded past

where their

flattened boxes and duvets

would undoubtably sully the day

what a town

what a nation

what a world

i thought of a chapel

where marauded wealth

is displayed

that time and inheritance

is supposed to have

absolved

where the lord’s favour

could not be more clearly

channeled by man

absorbed by pallid

smirking faces

and the stiffness of position

what a chapel

what a church

what a god

Five-Twenty

Early this morning,
I sat beside a ghost

on a bench, his bench,

looking out at

what I now know

to be the Channel.

In loving memory of...

My back obscured his name.

Unopened peonies
in a milk bottle

to his left let it

be known that he was still

missed and loved.

26^thFebruary 1974 - 4^th...

He grew younger,

stared ruefully at the

ebbing tide;
for some time 

we listened together

to the applause of rolling stones.

For a husband and father we’ll...

As I counted my blessings
and sighed at the transience
of the things that matter,

I felt him register

my presence for the

first time, although

the ocean held his gaze;
his skin less opaque
in the five-twenty glow.

A friend to all who...

The Namib

"All good things..."

You crack a  half smile.

All good things indeed.

I’d been trying

not to notice the peripheries,

where the blooms were browning,

and the sand once again

had begun to hiss

and devil.

"You always fear the end of things before they even start."

I wonder what in

our nature makes us

settle for such peaks

and troughs,

as the writhing spines of

doomed tilapia in our dwindling lake

begin to cut its surface

to shreds.

"I can’t handle you when you’re like this;

you really should get help."

Looking through you now,

watching the resigned desert dwellers

slowly depart like sad ships,
abandoning us
and our faded ephemeral turn

to begin another migration.

"Whatever.
I love you less."

You pour sand from your wineglass,

pick up your dancing shoes

and take your place amongst the fish bones

on the cracked lake bed,

as my thoughts turn to seeds

and next year’s rains.

but

This voice may not soar

anywhere near as high

as Obama’s did before he 

realised it would take 

more than hope to

fix America. 

It may not sinfully splash 

unfurled hair over

already scrunched bed linen as an

acoustic-era Leonard Cohen’s

no doubt could. 

It doesn’t hammer out from

the keys, construing

sense and magic 

off the streets through the window 

like a drunken Bukowski’s,

nor does it poetically chase

reason and absurdity 

amidst shadows 

as Camus’ 

through Meursault

in The Outsider,

but

Dear Lyd

Dear Lyd,

Let me preface this

by telling you that

despite my Catholic immersion

as a child,

I’ve turned out an unbeliever

as you and Jungle were.

And I think you had a role

to play.

I’d challenge priests,

Sunday school teachers

and obsequious lay ministers

to tell me that you would go

to hell when you died,

having listed the litany of your traits;

you were and still are

the best person

I have ever known.

Jordan Peterson makes

the argument that we

are Christians, whether

we like it or not,

conditioned by Judeo-Christian values,

rather than simply human ones.

I think of you when watching

him, with his legs crossed

and fingers stabbing at the air;

he’d dissolve in one of your hugs;

he’d be certain of the supernovas in humanity.

I know I was.

I’ve named my daughter after you

You two missed each other

by nineteen years,

a cosmically insignificant period;

I like the idea of floating so far from

the Earth that the time between the pair

of you seems to touch

and you can meet before my oxygen runs out.

Even so, there are clues of you in her;

she’s kind

and I’m certain she has your laugh.

Then there are also the famous Leah-Lyd hugs;

that’s where I feel you most.

She hugs with every heartstring

just as you did Lyd.

It’s because of her in fact

that I have to end this now.

She’s pointing out the beautiful day outside

and that she’s still in her pyjamas.

I’ll give her a kiss from you.

Rest in peace,

Roy

Romance Killer

Seventeen years married today;

you’re still at work;

Leah-Lyd and I

basking in a recent tradition

of eating Marrocco’s ice cream

on the beach in

what now truly feels like spring.

She’s bubbling around

on my lap with her back to me,

facing the sea and

spinning her cone,

trying valiantly

though in vain to

lick up the melting

vanilla ice cream.

I’ve just had a message

from Luc-John;

he’s going to Muay Thai

this evening with Ben,

which puts paid to my

hopes of a meal with just

the two of us.

He’s doing really well.

“So you’ll be coming to dinner with us, Nonsense,”

I say to Leah-Lyd

who affords me an unsurprised nod,

not breaking from her drama

with the ice cream

or even for that matter,

turning around.

“The ultimate romance killer,” I sigh.

She gives a little jolt

and I feel a few drops of

ice cream land on today and tomorrow’s

work trousers.

Leah- Lyd turns from the cone,

squinting in the four o’ clock sun

and searching out my eyes

through my sunglasses.

“Why will there be Romans there, Daddy?” she asks.