Later

We drop you at home,

young girl –

at your mother’s makeshift fence,

the small room being built upon,

the brave attempt

at life’s dignity:

next door the guys are drinking

their first-thing-in-the-morning-beer;

I could be amongst them,

me and all the friends from Cannery Row,

but my now eyes

see a hand upon stained walls,

their house-steps dirty grey,

the toddler lost in her eyes.

What’ll be going on here

by half-past twelve,

or when darkness falls?

 - Brian Walter

bedagsame pigmente

al wie bly mediteer in hierdie tye
is die bedagsame pigmente
wat nie meer die hart het om
oor die velle te wil spat nie

abbakus

en speel abbakus-abbakus met die blare

ek moet weer in aanraking kom met

die in-tel-lig-ensie van die natuur 

kariljon

die meganiese trots van die kariljon
kners op sy tande
elke beier van sy klokke loop katvoet
deur die vergetelheid
wat knobbelrig bly progresseer met groot drif

- Lara Kirsten

Company

Warm Ngqushu

and then the container of maize bread,

pot-baked, were laid out on the staff-room table.

“The thing,” she said, “about our rural places

is home grown food: the flour for this bread

was ground on a flat stone.”

She told of its soft declivity,

from years of human work, milling maize . . . .

“And how I’ve always longed,”  I said,

“for just such a stone, flat and dipped concave

from grinding corn to eat,

for I would love one in my garden,

to cup the rainwater I offer to the birds .  . .”

“But,” she said, “You don’t get it, it seems.

These are not for gardens, nor for birds:

these stones, these old stones,

are for our work. They are our machines.”

 - Brian Walter