Laughing

White daisies completely cover

the dunes,

fronting a blue-green sea –

as if they were laughing:

at the time we were told

we couldn’t bathe here, because

whites

weren’t allowed

on that beach.

– Silke Heiss, 28^th August 2019

fluweelagtige verwarring

sy en haar rebelese ribbes kom lê

onder die goeiste genade groen van die bome

haar bene bulder van verligting om 

vry van stoel te wees

haar agsiestog arms wil net wegsink 

in die spierkragtige sintaksis

van somer

haar wag-‘n-bietjie wange bloos van 

die lekkerkry van haar verbeelding

haar dragtige duime kan nie wag

om lofliedere oor sy vel te baar

deur die geweldlose gordyne sien

hy haar baanbrekende borste

hy lig sy waansinnige wenkbroue

en gaan staan styf teen die koel malvapoeding mure

hy mik-mik na haar 

maar die kniehalterende tafelhoeke

en slinkse stofballe pootjie hom 

hy bly tuur na buite waar 

die bloeiende ballonne net nie wil stol

die lug slaan uit vol kneusplekke in pleitende pers

al wat hom sal red is 

'n piromaniese pasaangeër

sy sal dan dalk in sy hart begin kan glo

sy sien die triestige tarentaal oor 

die hygende hoofweg hol

die migrerende marionette weet nie waarheen!

alles voel soos fluweelagtige verwarring

vreesaanjaende frikatiewe glip uit haar mond

haar beneukte boude kry uiteindelik sit

soos wat die waaghalsige wolke

die roekelose donker invaar

sy klim binne-in die kabbelende kerslig

en vou haar woorde een-vir-een uit 

oor die pruimedantkleurige papier

 - Lara Kirsten

THE RAGE FOR ORDER AT CAFÉ GANESH

(With Apology to Wallace Stevens)

Clear heads we must have had still,

stumbling out of a winter night

into that sudden din—

all those strangers sitting at their ease

under the same roof. I imagined

soft, warm lighting, even though

I couldn’t see it.

We had been drawn together, us four,

by the slow, stubborn love of words,

the slow fever in the brain

that sets us raging at the broken world,

to call it to order.

Ah, but the world was stronger that night.

It beckoned to us through the PA system

in the voice of a Bob Marley,

begging us, commanding us to gather ourselves

up into a dance

around a central point without a name

in any book of words.

And we just sat there, sentences left unfinished,

our faces relaxing into slow mirth,

as the faces of men do who think too much;

the place where each of us ended

and everything else began

slowly becoming imprecise, confused

as the wine and music mingled.

Pale Wallace Stevens, so beautifully sober,

composing verses in your Sunday best,

tell us: how could we learn to phrase the broken world

and set it singing, except

from such unmoorings? From where this rage for clarity

and pure, unruffled air

if not out of last night’s dishevelment?

 - Jacques Coetzee

Beside our table

The food was better

than I remembered, and

the ambience quieter than

anywhere else in Hogsback,

tonight, under the three-quarter moon,

overlooking the eager

wide hearth; overhearing

the family’s voices –

their chamber

of peace

beside our table.

– Silke Heiss, 11^th August 2019