Portal for Writers and Poets in South Africa
They are senseless
sensated spot on
wild animals when
it comes to their prey.
Their swiftness when
they go for their meal
is like that of athletes
going for that gold medal.
Then they catch it, that is
when they realise that
it will be a banquet day
for their families.
When they finish eating
they serve themselves with
dessert of licking one another.
I’m not yours, birds sing
Your hairdresser, mummy says
Your Ophelia, your Julia
And this also means that I’m
Not your cosmic admirer
After the glimpse
Of the grotesque
Laughing carcass
Turn away from it
The Bostonians
Are marching –
They are all
Calling out to me
Lowell, Sexton,
Plath, psychoanalysis
I have a child’s heart
The impressions of a child
The intelligence of a detached
Cold woman who can
Still feel the cruel blood
Of family, of mummy,
Preparation for upheaval
Chaos and disorder
Has been prescribed for me
Long ago
What is relaxation?
What is warmth?
All I know of the world
Is ego and sacrifice
Women must always be sacrificing
Nurturing and care-taking
It is impossible for them
For men to understand
Women can be poets too
And celebrate life
In the end it will either be
A case study of who was the most stimulating
Who was the most attractive?
But I was the one who was obsolete
For all my childhood years – imprisoned
And in the end I just gave up.
it was a given
that he would return
once it was over
and the funerals had been held
he stood alone,
quiet and unnoticed
watching people and chickens
scratching in the dirt
he recognised what he saw
burnt out homes
that once held families
charred machinery
bought on hire purchase
all that remained
was debt
no equity
victorious enemies
dreams no longer possible.
This is a site
of all the departed ones.
They sleep in relaxation,
surrounded by a towering fence,
making them one huge family.
Oh! Oh! Oh!
What a relaxed family!
No working!
No schooling!
No being troubled by
what to eat nor
what to do!
Just reposing there
and enjoying the
moment of silence.
(By: Mihlali Makunga)
I’m back –
I’ve made a full recovery
From being condemned
To inferiority
They’ve said
The qualities
Of ghosts no longer
Frighten me senseless
Like needles and nurses
The taste of both that I feel
In segments
And how it hurts like fresh tulips
The fate of snow
In my gloved hands
Life has become the enemy
Standing in front
Of the mouth of an open grave
With my purse mourning
Morning and how it inflicts
Pain on my existence
Or being thrust
Into an hallucination
Dissolving into
A blank space, stiff, comatose
A carcass – an experiment
I want to be –
Surrounded by mountains again
My home, my home, my feast
Your death-ray is a distraction
There is only silence now
In this velvet garden
Of green leaves on the arms of trees
The sun, black butterflies
Is like the wheel
Simple machinery
Alien face in the mirror
You seem to be embarrassed
To be alive, of having wasted
Your life away in hospitals
Gorgeous swimmer – project yourself.
Once a boy was hatched.
Born with sonnet wings most heaven-sent –
Eased into planting.
Appalled by the world’s stage.
Tooth – radar splitting the hunt
Courage is exposed.
Brilliant inner sea –
His cry glides across the moon.
This mother tongue comforts me.
Ghost of a vision.
Every finger a stem –
Leaves antiques, tears sap.
Winter’s bone – a party’s birthday balloon
Summoning earth’s ripening –
Blades of pleasant grass.
Rain has given quite a performance today.
Leaves the property of trees drowned – the phoenix
Found the exit out. Winter’s gospel, the school
Teacher who shouted at me became an offering
To a museum. Cracked my pomegranate-skull.
These are the memories of my youth – bleeding,
A life drawing of The Great Depression of the year 2014
I found loyalty in intelligent people, Rilke, Hemingway.
My fingers melt across the wilted pages of books.
They are uninterrupted. I am uninterrupted in this.
This damaged inner silence, this filtered cycle of illness
That has not yet found the exit out. There is planting,
Planning, fingers clenching and unclenching a poem.
Hands tightening, there are no more poems for mummy
Like Noah’s ark, they are autumn, going off to wars
In Africa, I have my own fears to whom it may concern.
But the human voices that I hear bring me tulips.
I have eyes. I march like a tiger. Sunlight like a swan.
All I see is red. A red dawn. A red world. A red sickness.
They are waiting for me in the waiting room. Lucky me.
I feel like a bomb ready to go off, unseen, crazy coming on.
Chains charm me, omens and relics. A knowledge of
Turning, twisting that key in the ignition, sabotaging
Myself in secret and quiet ways, finding sanctuary, hope.
Where do I live? It is dark, rotting driftwood, gravity is rough.
All can be found there concentrated. These surroundings
Have become my country, this hospital too. But people
Will grow in this silence, in this arena to compensate
For the fact that leaves will fall and flowers will die.
They speak to me as if I am from outer space, an alien.
What to do about all of this nonsense, silliness, and gobbledegook?
I have two-heads now, feel vacant. Family-life does
Not and will never suit me. Splinters. Tell me am I the lotus flower?
I grow in mud. Roots knotted in mud. Dendrites
Made of lightning and thunder. Nerves like uncommon butterflies.
Surfing. Triumphal. Serotonin like smoke.
Unshuttered I’ll remain
I might be bruised because of the pain my body has endured
My broken bones are bound to heal
Yes the pain has pierced through my heart
Pain is part of life
A hole you have left in my heart
Somehow I believe an angel will mend the hole
And all will be whole again
Your lies have built mistrust in me
It’s only a temporary phase
Unshuttered I’ll remain
I refuse to let the bitterness you have built in me rule over my happiness
You have no idea how strong you’ve made me become
In a way you have sharpened me
I now see beyond my foresight
Beyond the limitations
You’re not the only one who will walk tall
I walk tall because I know I’m a fighter and survivor
I never lost the fight
I woke up and I rose, no matter how hard the blows kept coming
I know I’m dusty and not on form
But hey I’m still walking
U were once my hero, my reason to smile
I had trusted you with my heart
I thought u had held it dear close to yours
Until the day u let it fall to the ground
You threw it so hard that I thought it will never survive to see another day
It was a fun exercise for you and your friends
I watched as they laughed behind my back
I watched as u bragged and felt you had it all
I watched also as I rose to your disgust
I watched when you begged for my heart again
And I walked away without looking back
Backward I was not going
Forward was were my future was
The broken bones and bruises are bound to heal
Unshuttered I’ll remain
Moving and matching forward
Forward towards a better dream
Forward towards a better life
A life without you but a life full of me
As we conquer the day
Blurred memories of the early ebb and flow of wake and go
Stuck in the ever moving blurred lines of speeding traffic
No
Blurred souls speeding in futile strength stuck in steel bodies that move slow in the flow of traffic
Bumper to bumper
Ego to ego
Whose dream is more important than the others that deserves to be pardoned with right of way
Hoot hoot
Bash crash
Me first
Black soot fuming from the nostrils of angry cars
The air polluted with dreams and regrets of tomorrows and yesterdays
Soldiers in a straight line ready to face the war
In this traffic
The sword of hunger
snips the squeak of the intestine
which is like a cry of a new born baby.
Cho! Chop!
All shefs!
To cook! To cook!
You must go!
Cutlery jumps,
stoves burn,
veggies fear.
I open the cupboard
with the robustness of an elephant
as I inspected what will be on the menu,
and flipped the recipe book like a pastor
who just lost his verse.
