Still a ladder

for Bryanie

She points out to me
the beauty of the stacked porcelain plates –
like lines in a tower of clean, folded linen

           seen against the light
           through the gold
           of her glass of cider.

                       I want to honour the moment,
                       but it does not yield,

                       does not become a poem.

                                    There’s not enough wild in it,
                                    an overplus of civility
                                    on both sides.

                                               Still, there’s a ladder
                                               crystallised
                                               in liquid:

                                                           an image of pure intelligence
                                                           climbing
                                                           towards beauty.

 - Silke Heiss, 14th April 2026

stridulate

i learnt a new word today:
stridulate -

(of an insect, especially a male cricket or grasshopper) make a shrill sound by rubbing the legs, wings, or other parts of the body together.

and i fly with its sizzling syllables
right into
the dusky corner of this poem
              wooosssshhhhhhhhh

with resonant surety
the verses begin to rub against each other
and a soft vibration begins to spark the silence

              stshshstshshstshshhhhhhh

the shrill frequencies move into an ever higher pitch
and soon a dervish of hissing and crackling
breaks through the seams of the stanzas
              krrrrrrsccccckkkkkkchchchchchctjtjirrrrrrrrrrrr!!

what could the intentions be
of these piercing oscillations set loose in this poem?
attracting mates or scaring off competition?
              krrrrrrsccccckkkkkkchchchchchchchchtjtjtjtjrrrirrrrrrrrrrrr!!!!

the metaphor becomes agitated by this quivering word
the air is bothered and all ears try hard
to guard themselves against this wild metallic rasping
              tjtjtjtjtjrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrr!!

all high-pitched energy depletes itself sooner or later
the tones are losing their earsplitting edge
a hoarseness sets in
              grhrhrhgrgrgrgrrrrrrrrrr

the strident angst can no longer hold
the stridulating pace relents
the sun sets and a stillness soothes the air
              sssshhhhhh....

 - Lara Kirsten

The procrastinator

He decides to wait,
waits to decide,

then hesitates, deliberates,
before he

again postpones, turns it
over, speculates,

somehow avoids
altogether

what awaits
his energy, his attention,

until someday, with this
cycle he perpetuates,

it is transparently
and irreversibly

too late.

- Eduard Burle

Xenophilia
with thanks to Mike Cope

Elixir, enrichment, enchantment,
ointment for boredom,
balm for the lost and
tonic for trapped souls.

Saviour of grace,
you make the wealthy generous
and expand the minds of the poor,
vitamin against inertia,
replenisher of energies,
zany lover who sees the plenty there is.

Gift of life to itself every day,
you are the secret of eternal youth,
curiosity’s bliss,
beneficiary of earth’s bounty –
Xenophilia, zealously I seek you!

 - Silke Heiss, 1st July 2026
For a live reading of this poem, click here

Arranging the deck chairs

Aboard the sinking ship,
the piano is playing
a funeral march,

an army of violins, all
out of tune,
is taking prisoners on deck.

Only the cello
murmurs its dissent,
while the drums

thunder and crash
down the stairs,
to where the ship’s engineer

lies motionless
under the swaying
chandeliers,

pinned to the floorboards,
by such strange music.

The chief navigator,
having found his bearings
in the linen room,

is swigging champagne
with a chambermaid.

The composer, in fitful sleep,
is still composing his concerto
for ninety-nine penguins.

The loudspeakers
on the beach, repeat
that the sun is shining.

The audience, as ever,
goes on rearranging
the deck chairs,

while complimentary tickets
are being distributed by the wind
to the choir of lost fish –

who’ll be the only ones
to attend the next performance
beneath the waves.

 - Eduard Burle

Leaves of wind

i.

Woman plants herself
face-up to the windblown gums
rush of blood

ii.

Leaves hiss sadness
missing me I must
come again, often

iii.

Lonely trees lonely people
remiss we’ve been remiss
remember us remember yes

7th March 2026

- Silke Heiss

By the hour

In the clock-repair workshop
the ticking and chiming
of innumerable antique clocks, the inter-
locking wheels and levers within each
working busily, moving the hands
across the round faces of time.
(Faces that have kept company
with books, dust and history;
that have witnessed tears, laughter,
the deaths of family pets.)

In the clock-repair workshop
a clock-repair man
gives such inventions
new hearts, new hands.
Each day as he works, he hears
in the chiming and ticking
of the clocks the sound of his own
mortality, of his own living heart
beating soundlessly, rhythmically in time.

He hears them layering, filling
the room, announcing each hour
in parallel (some slightly ahead or behind).
He hears them counting out, dividing
mathematically, sustaining the illusion
of this universe within a room
where time can be wound, is divisible,
is his to orchestrate, is his to mend.

 - Eduard Burle

Pearl song

Pearl song in rain shower
illumined by a street light.

Who is the bird,
umbrellaless, with the
undaunted voice?

6 May 2026

Night truth


Moonlight in a woman’s arms
No other sound
A single star
Silver body that you are.

29 June 2026

Signs of the world

Marks of the hand
            runes, lines, letters, symbols
                                  wrinkles in bark.

                                  Wisps of vapour
                                  in Forget-me-not sky
            ink on the page
already dry.

30 June 2026

 - Silke Heiss

Presence

I

That shift of light and shadow
in the forest of conifers across the river;
and then the shadow of my face,
gradually defined, brought into focus
against the open book –

Now to know it, fleetingly,
and beyond any thought of it,
that I am breathing, that I am here,
in this place of mountains, valleys and rivers –
I, who knowing nothing, today know this.

II

Now, late afternoon, I watch
a light returning to these mountains,
their knuckles raw against the sky.
I watch, till evening comes, how walls of stone
take in, absorb this light, until
they’re saturated, their ochre molten, bleeding.

Here, in the valley, in this ancient theatre
of light now draining to dark, there is
only that continuous sound
rising, falling, through the trees,
that composes the silence.

The selves I’ve been lie shed
like rinds of fallen bark,
the sun-dried leaves on grass.
And, like the bee-eaters now
that flashing dive, catch insects
for their evening meal, I feast on light,
the slow clear honey of it,

And this other honeycomb
that I’ve never tasted quite like this:
the serenity of this emptiness, my nothingness.

- Eduard Burle

wanneer ek dans 

wanneer ek dans 

glip my siel uit my tone
en word so sigbaar en tasbaar
soos 'n ver-rykende boom

kom staan onder my arms
se skarnierende skaduwees

die toorkrag begin't vonk
die winde pirouette
hulle warm poele
oor my wange en kuite

my dansende lyf is
rinkinkende ligkolle
wat geruisloos deur
die strak gesig van die straat kolk

- Lara Kirsten

Training ground

Walking, pausing, half-jogging
up Corridor Ravine;

Or, on some days,
running in the early morning dark,
street lamps and the breathing sea his companions
as he follows a route he’s devised
up through the roads of a suburb;

It is here that he finds
what helps him survive;
it is here that he starts over –
a beginner, once more,
in the training ground for the mind.

 - Eduard Burle

vir breyten

die leemte wat jy los
breek die hart
soos 'n swael-seisoen
wat nooit
ooit
weer sy draai
oor die a a r d b o l
gaan gooi nie

 - Lara Kirsten

Hearing Tatamkhulu Afrika

I don’t hear much, these days,
about a poet I thought to be
one of our best:

I heard him read once,
in the old literary museum building
of quaint spaces, and topsy turvy staircases,
with stacks of books, and an old studious feel.

He stood, old man with thin shanks,
with the kindest face, and read
in his humility,

and wept when reading
of an old comrade dead,

wept as the lines, the words,
stuttered the memory,
choked with grief in the vowels.

He’d withdrawn into the chameleon
of racelessness, becoming all races,
and none, with knowing-naivety.

I wished I were as he’d become.

Humanitarian. Activist. Poet.
And I heard him read. Once.

 - Brian Walter

Lynx

Your gaze briefly met mine
and told you all
you needed to know.

Our encounter
was fortuitous, unexpected; you
went your way
as I continued jogging
along a man-made path.

May there always be
a hunter such as you,
nosing the wind, senses attuned
to earth and sky

between setting sun
and rising moon,
between mountain crags
and the repeating waves
far below.

 - Eduard Burle

Stress

The solid soul of my disease
seeps into my body, into muscle tautness,

like slow sap in the dry and twisted stems
of wild olives trees in the old Karoo,

till I can scream. I live in silence,
trying to hold it in, surviving

on the breaking edge, wondering
if I should stop working, quit caring.

Or maybe I’ll let the pain wash over

like the Wilgerboom River this spring,
flowing through the dry Karoo
over slate that has been sun-heated
for seasons,

relaxing now into river-being.

 - Brian Walter

Poetry zoom meeting

Tonight my eye overpowers my ear –
the poets' words are smudged
by low bandwidth on my side, but:
the physics of their faces brings out more
than would occur to them to compose!

Eye-shadow, on a poetess's eyelids,
shimmers omniscient lilac,
bewitching my gaze –
the geometry of her eyebrows
is clear, a directive to me
as regards poetry: foreheads shine
their light. One elderly gentleman
carries a cup of skin
at his throat, filled
with magical warblings.
And see the nostrils
of another: fiercely sculpted,
so the asymmetries of truth
can be inhaled truly.
Another's unevenly opening mouth
tells his spirit's wryness,
cautiously trusting, that generous utterance
shall be brought forth
on the tray of a careful, confident tongue.

The reading ends,
what I've been served turns, abruptly, black,
and all disappears
back into the unseen.

– Silke Heiss

soms

soms, tog soms

kry ek nog so oomblik van verruklike oorstelp
waar my nek en keel uitspan met
'n vlietende uitbundigheid
vanoggend was so vlietende somse oomblik -
toe voel dit asof al my voorouers en al die kunstenaars
hier deur my keelbande wil losbreek

ja soms, tog soms
word ek oortref met iets groters as ekself

en dan draai ek om
en trap ek weer in my bekende lara-spoor

maar iets bly gloei in my nekspiere
iets helder bly agter

 - Lara Kirsten

Children and the winter sun
       for Anastacia

Down from home to the township
to pick you up – young woman,

with life budding in your body –
in the rough end of town
where drug lords wink and kids get shot.

We drive out west, towards the Cape,
but duck inland, north towards the hills,
into the low Eastern Cape bushveld
and euphorbia valleys, into farmland –

all the way, so we can write,
can write our truck-beaten roads

from our now, back till the was
and out the Eastern Cape, till whenever.

 - Brian Walter

the belief and the mistrust

with an inbreath
poetry creates the belief in the infinite expression
and with the outbreath
the poetry staggers with the exasperated mistrust
in its limitations

 - Lara Kirsten

Imagine

When I consider the flocks
of flamingos once seen in this bay
of hurt lagoons, I watch the remnant
straggling few in old Salt Lake,
and wonder why this holy water
is not kept sacred in a nature reserve,
with boardwalks and coffee shops,
waders, and flock upon flock
of pink winged flamingos
rising in the redness of dusk
against the loveliest blue hills
just there, almost beyond imagination.

 - Brian Walter