If this poem can teach you

If this poem
can teach you
folks who read English

this word
from the German:
Gewimmel.

How sounds it?
Ge –
as in gal;

wimmel
as in
virmell, or vimmell …

well …
I saw a gavimmell
of Malachite sunbirds

tousled by storm
in the Watsonias today –
bright emerald males

with tails and beaks
to speak of.
Proud could they be

and they were!
The Watsonias vimmelled
with green little lances of green

and some male stone chats between –
not out for the nectar,
but for the buzz –

the Gewimmel
of what humans call
metallic green –

feathers reflecting
unreproducible consciousness
in a foreign language.

If this poem
can teach you
that

I shall be
happy
indeed.

                                12th November 2014

 - Silke Heiss

Earth’s medicines

I passed through
a snowstorm of butterflies,

wide coral reefs of Watsonias
struck

by glints
of ten, fifteen Malachite sunbirds,

reached ethereal highways
of a sunray trapezium

stretched between tufty horizon
and the gushing gorge

where the Tyume River forges daily
through Space and Time.

I strode, mind-bowed
by sorrow’s experience

and drank Earth’s medicines
against human darkness.

                                      14th November 2014

 - Silke Heiss

tussen die lugholtes van my ribbes

dit is daar waar ek wil wees
daar waar kontinente van klank uit
my keel en vingers vloei
en ek aan 'n hele nuwe aarde geboorte gee

daar waar die magtige digkuns 
die ritme van die dag bepaal

ek voel alewig die klop in my keel
die nimmereindigende spits van my ore
ek staan op aandag
gereed vir die magtige vers
wat met volbloedige vlerke op my palms gaan land

ek grawe in die see-skulpe op soek 
na die waarheid van die woord
ek krap onder die volstruispoot se toonnaels
honger vir die metafoor wat alle metafore sal oortref

die woorde lê soos spook-spore
op die skadu's van die nag 
weier om gesien of gevang te word

en tog, soos klein swart poppie-saadjies 
kom lê die 
voortdurende wilskrag van 
die poësie
tussen 
die 
lugholtes 
van 
my 
ribbes

as die woord kom
weet ek hoe verruklik die lettergrepe soos 
ryp snye avokado op my tong sal smelt

laat ek diep binne die greep van die letter lê
maak my lam, maak my onbewus,
maak my vlieg, maak my lag,
maak my ril 
en
maak my vry

 - Lara Kirsten

Byooddefil

They are so byooddefil
the flowers
whom spring has ridden through
on way to summer –

wind-bruised,
rain-bent,
oh, the slings and arrows of their fateful fortunes
with the feeding of a thousand

sharp-beaked, long-tongued
birds and beasts,
repeated couplings of gross beetles
on sweet silky virgin petal beds –

disordered now in luscious droops
the flowers aren’t disposed
to poise; but, like byooddefil sluts
gossiping after hours

they hang around their stalks
in the manner of those
whom Life has used so
they don’t owe

anybody
anything
for being
byooddefil.

                                   18th November 2014

 - Silke Heiss