Body and Soul

She died in fifty-nine,

body and soul;

yet even so

I’ve fallen hard

for the scratches

and echos

that endure

from her short

hard time here.

She died in New York

where I’ve never been,

yet I smell the Downbeat;

the smoke burns my eyes

as Lady sings the blues.  

The /fɑːl/

I’d heard of a swimmer,

from you I think,

who’d attempted

to cross the Vaal.

As a boy

it had scared me;

the river had a menace

no number of apparently

playful voices could quell.

A spinning tree in its water

would belie its murky calm,

as would the clicking loose

of dry grass on its bank,

or the slight spine in the middle,

where the ravenous current

unable to camouflage fully

would bristle like a surfacing fish.

I remember a ball,

barely touching its surface,

conspiring with river and breeze

to drown an Afrikaans girl.

Her father, with a Lion

in one hand,

had pulled her back from the brink;

I studied that ball for some time.

I’d heard of a swimmer,

from you I think,

who’d attempted

to cross the Vaal.

4/4/2018

Eighteen years ago

in a field,

on the southern most

tip of Taiwan,

on this very night,

I turned around

and made braver

by beer,

began a conversation

with someone

that would turn out to

be you my love.

That evening

I tried to kiss you;

you thought I had something to say

as I leant in.

I still cringe.

Vince 6 Years

Our garden was wild
and it grew a pine
that scented the air
with conifer and shade

Its branches almost 
conveniently staircased 
its bark-gnarled trunk

that split near the top 
to form an aerie 
we called The Crow’s Nest

Up here in the needles
and it was very high
Vincent suggested
a treehouse

On Looking Up

My life is a lot less anxious 

these days;

it's either the escitalopram 

that I've relented to taking at last,

or that I've finally given in 

to saluting single magpies

as they streak over,

dipping like phone lines;

or as they perch jitteringly, 

cursing from wintered twigs.

Either way, I whole-heartedly

recommend both.

Taken concurrently though, 

there are a few side-effects

worth noting; most of which

I'd been legally warned about.

Thus far, I've found the loss

of libido most alarming.

The Bee

Leah-Lyd wants to know

what colour a chameleon would change if it fell into water.

I'm pretty sure she's hoping I’ll say they turn clear;

it's kind of what I want to tell her too.

Later, scootering to school,

she notices a dead bumblebee on the pavement;

its colours still vivid.

After a bit of convincing, I place it on her palm

where it rests on its side.

“It might just be sleeping Daddy,” she says,

cautiously keeping her eyes on it.

I think of clear chameleons again

and what matters most.

“It might be, yes,” I reply.

“Let’s move it where no one will step on it,” she says,

before placing it lovingly (and I sense with some relief)

in some grass by the trunk of a tree.

I hope it wakes up. 

Me and the Moon

A playful rapport

with the space-suspended Moon.

“You orbit me,”

I tell it to its face;

just banter.

We’ve weaved through hard times,

me and the Moon

“Where have you been?”

I ask it after the clouds have cleared.

“You look different.”

I think of an African fable;

a mosquito who thinks it matters to an elephant.

“Goodbye,”

it says to the grazing giant, who replies,

“I didn’t know you were there.”

Tonight the moon is sulky;

an unglamorous gibbous

in a cold cloudless sky.

“I know you’re there, Friend,”

I reassure the Moon.

“I'm here too.”