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He’d withdrawn into the chameleon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

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

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

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

No-one

The poor crossing sweeper, Jo,
in Dickens’ Bleak House, sweeps
the pointless street, and knows
the grave of the dead man, Nemo.
I think of Jo, and Nemo, often
when I drive around Salt Lake,
and out the Old Uitenhage Road
where the street sweepers work
with languid brooms and a tin
at the rough roadworks, where cars
slow down, where they dramatize
broom-work, with tins beckoning,
busy at being busy, and making
work where there is none,
sweeping meaninglessly
the pointless road, as I make
my pointless way, and pay
my pointless toll, with futile
kindness, senselessly steering
somewhere to seek my Nemo.

 - Brian Walter

  

Lusikisiki Lear

Once, driving to Lusikisiki from Port St John’s
we swept over a hill, and in the road there
lay a human, brown-naked, legs straight out,
arms down the side, head against the tar,
chin to the heavens: dignified, and bare,
placed along the centre white-line.
Christ, you called, seeing as we passed
the woman, old and thin and stiff, like death.
Leave her, she’s mad: always does such things,
our isi-Xhosa companion said. But her form
was so fine, humanly, evocative, an image
of our deep core human self that we clothe off,
socialize away, philosophize out: and yet,
with her humble media of body and self,
she had the instinct — or deep talent, rather —
for installation art, some mirror demand
for self-reflection, an awareness of each itinerant
spectator: a shrewd sense of our common drama.

 - Brian Walter

For a young woman

You come outside, and I see you
– you don’t see me, but I look at you.
My life turns right around, imagining,
turns so utterly that I’m young
again, dark of hair, and slim.
But you become lined with age
and grey with life. I watch you still,
and thank God you are what you are,
and I am I. My mind lets you be.
This is the way of things.
I smile at you. The guitarist
strums his chords, and the singer sings.

 - Brian Walter

Group work

We wrote that picture stukkend
after every poet chose an element
so we could each gooi the writing
– the onion seller, the dark door,
the shelter, doodles on a blue wall,
peeping face, sitting woman with a doek –
composing openly and free. I said,
“What a poem we could make
should we combine our words
and shape all into one-ness –
our different strands of script
bending into verse-being . . .
Imagine what would be taught
by discussion: the disputes,
selecting which piece would open
our poem, which would follow,
which blend its being with another
to multiply meanings.” But we didn’t.
We left that task for each creative self,
for each multiplicity of mind,
to find resonance in contending thought.

 - Brian Walter

A pastoral

          i. Cerberus

At the gate the dog:
and he doesn’t know the children
and he is jumping madly,
so the kids are freaked

but we say go quietly,
one-by-one, quietly,
and let yourself be smelled
and be known.

And it half works
– the dog is fine,
but the children go through
in jittering groups

like out-of-place spirits
in an underworld,
as though they would fly
but have nowhere to go.


          ii. Classical wind

In the wind up in the hills
above Kwanobuhle, Kariega,

my words are blown,
swung out of my mouth,

lost to mind and meaning,
flapped away from any intention:

this is my home, my countree
– where unlucky words

flit from me like the oaken leaves
of the Sibyl, ancient at Cumae.


          iii. Smell

Alert in nose
we come into the new place

seeking memories
of the familiar,

sifting out,
trying to ignore

till we find
al fresco here

home.


          iv. et in Arcadia ego

Out from Helenvale
amongst the hills

with cows, a tractor,
farmlands:

there’s no traffic,
shouting,

no brass band getting ready,
with the thump of a random drum,

a few blown notes scraping the air,
for the funeral

of the band-master’s wife:
there’s no fear, here,

just the quieter rhythms,
trees nodding in the breeze,

and grass bowing,
as my soul ducks and dives

back through Helenvale streets
and the grave images of your hood.

 
          v. Out here

We walk across the veld,
dodging the cows,
and across the dry river,

up through the woody stand
of Port Jackson Willow,
past the wild buddleja,
into the shrubveld of the big ants,
the tortoise, the caterpillars:

and the wind is always whipping
our dreams, blowing them
through the bushes, across the veld,
and out to those mountains
there, in rainland.


          vi. In words

In the group, photographers
– a big camera, cell phones –
and videographers in the making.

Out in the veld with the wind
blowing through our words
we walk amongst photographers

who capture us. But here
I catch them back in words
that click into focus.

 - Brian Walter

Being there

The loud ibises flap
the dusk breeze,
cackling their hadeda call.
House sparrows hop
on the grey tar.
I’m waiting for the wagtails
to come, to settle in the trees:
they roost here at night.

As do I.

From across the road
the elderly come
for the Wednesday special:
couples, or small groups,
to have a night away
from their old age home.

As do I.

After a hot day
the clouds are out,
slowly, slowly drawing
the light from the sky.
This evening, ah, the cool breeze,
the late afternoon draught
makes peace with the moment,
calming the coming dark.

As do I.

- Brian Walter

Haiku

There: mating. Quickly.
Two grey pigeons on that ledge.
Wing-flaps – down. Preening.

***

With little to say
I do more haiku now:
wish you were alive.

(for Katherine Samuelowicz)

- Brian Walter

Photographer: John Donaldson

Haiku

Imagination:
that black crake softly treading
yielding lily pads.


Mud, and the day-grey
electric lamp – swallow’s nest
cupped, autumn empty.


And the buzzard turns
the sky, silent, far-seeing:
forest green, grey mist.


Mountain mists turn
to rain: then flying ants rise
in breaking sunlight.


That shrike, those weavers
– from dry tree top perches – hawk
the fluttering ants.


That tapping, dripping
– soft last rain on taut canvas –
the blessing of warmth


On the deck, quiet:
you read, I write and she knits:
thoughts like the raindrops.


Whole mountains have gone,
lost in the low mists and rain:
the world draws closer.


There is now no sun:
but waterlily flowers,
mauve in the rain-light.


Green cattle pasture
rain-moist: sacred ibises,
black and white, bow low.


Though all is silent,
raindrops, and a far birdcall,
still patter my heart.


I say after Donne,
patter my heart – let the rains come
and bring her blessings.


Now the mist drops low
and the rainclouds rise – darkly
the mountain shoulder.

 

 
– Brian Walter

Photographer: John Donaldson

Wilderness

i.

Softly offering purple-blue
the waterlilies hold flowers
up from the still water:

sedge grows full-bodied, and rich
on the vlei-banks. Laughing doves call,
tender and tranquil.

The cottage there: smoke rising
from the chimney stack
– fat bellied, happy smoke –

and my pastoral mind
drifts with it, takes its hue
into the grey and livelong sky.

ii.

It’s the sort of day when
mists match your mood,

the old Australian gums
stand tall and still,

the white cliffs that streak
the mountains match the sky,

the sedge around the vlei
is green, and dead still:

sounds seem to sound distant
– dove-calls throb my pulse.

 – Brian Walter

A basket of love poems

In the spirit of Valentine's day, Ecca Poet Silke Heiss collected a variety of love poems from the Ecca Poets. Herewith the selection.

Catch him

As the mists at last clear,

a robin comes to the troughed aloe leaves

to drink.

 

You can’t see him from your seat

– splashing, sipping, flipping away –

so I write this poem

 

to catch him

for

you.

 

– Norman Morrissey

 

(published in To the Far Horizon, Hogsback: 2015) 

 

Namibia

 

Pitched camp. And the mopani bush is quiet;

the evening still, the clouds adrift –

the first clouds we have seen these two weeks.

You have taken the kids out to see the cheetah

at the research centre: some breeding project

for an endangered species. I sit amongst our things,

with day’s heat setting in the west,

a Windhoek beer a-downing for my thirst:

I’ve worked up quite a heat, pitching the tent,

in this desert land, spreading our sleeping gear,

laying out a meal, for you and the boys. 

Ah, my love, you are encamped in the fenced

wilderness of my heart. Our place is made. 

Come home now, and rest. Love is such a rare,

endangered beast, we must deliberately protect,

so that coming generations may know.

 

– Brian Walter

 

(published in Brood, Ecca Poets, Hogsback: 2010)

 

For Clara, 19 months

Language is an envelope:

inside it you might find

a tiger, a dragonfly,

or a smooth river pebble.

 

By now

your own naming of the world

is gathering pace like a river . . .

 

Just when the sound of the words

“Mond” and “Sterne”*

became, for you, moon and stars,

I do not know,

 

but there is wonder

in your eyes and your face

as you look to the sky and say

“Mond”, “Sterne”.

 

You are the bright star

in my universe,

and a moon, too, often in flux.

 

Together with your mother

we form a triangle, a clan,

a constellation.

 

In the years to come,

whatever they will bring,

may your light keep reaching me

just as it does now.

 

– Ed Burle

 

(published in What It Is, Ecca Poets, Plettenberg Bay: 2020)

__________

*“Mond” and “Sterne” should be heard according to their German pronounciation, i.e. ‘mawnd’ and ‘shtahne’ (‘a’ as in ‘glad’)

 

Each day its reverence

Waking

into my consciousness,

gradually re-kindling my flame,

 

I want to press

my forehead

against your shoulder –

 

innoculate

by touch of pulse

your tissue, vapour, fragrance

against whatever dangers.

 

Ah, Love, let us protect each other

from those moments in our selves

that do not sing –

 

let tender touch of skin on skin

to each day

its reverence bring.

 

– Silke Heiss

 

(published in Greater Matter, Poetree Publications, Johannesburg: 2019)

 

jou borskas

        vir Kim

 

jou borskas is die perfekte houvas
soos 'n warm rotswand waarteen ek hoër en hoër uitklim

my hart spring met 'n swier uit my ribbes
en kom lê polsend teen jou bors

jou sternum smelt weg
my hart skop nes teen joune

in rooi, nat ekstase 

 

– Lara Kirsten

 

(published in Alles is Anders, Ecca Poets, Knysna: 2021)

 

Caving

 

There is music

in the way you say my name

 

sounds of Coldplay

ringing in the air

reminiscing your hands up my shirt

bent over literature,

philosophy

and cups of cold coffee

in our cave

 

Where our bodies share secrets

and our minds made love

to childhood foes

and grown up dreams,

not knowing

if tomorrow holds enough books

to keep our story alive.

 

– Alvené Appollis-du Plessis

 

Love Fury

 

Today the world is coming through the walls again –

through our computer speakers, declaring

that doom is imminent, insisting

that we are turning the earth into a fire –

 

just like the one I used to imagine, burning

on and on into eternity

when I was a Protestant boy.

 

Today it came to me: what if

that vision was accurate? Maybe I’ll find myself

one of these days, in a long line

headed for extreme weather. I don’t know.

 

All I have to exchange with you,

to set down here against the likelihood

of apocalypse as night falls,

is this clear image: the two of us

standing side by side

this day six years ago,

when we promised to surrender

to a different, slower burning,

to offer ourselves up to a different fire.

 

So I’ll be on board when they say

we must cut down on emissions.

When they ask us to leave smaller footprints

of carbon on the earth, I’ll sign up,

or at least sign the petition.

But there’s a secret, sustaining

fire I keep close to me,

guarding an inner space science has not named;

and I guard it every day so it doesn’t collapse,

so the world won’t keep growing smaller inside my chest.

 

 Now, as opinions harden, as feeling

and thought are both blunted from misuse,

may I always carry with me

these traces of our fiery pilgrimage.

May something in me remember

how to be molten, to remain

hot and excessive, in tune

with things hidden under the earth;

willing to change my shape

to contain this old love fury

that makes and unmakes us every day.

 

– Jacques Coetzee

 

Green tomatoes

for Sheila

 

“… apart from that

the house remains the same

since you have gone. I suspect

the clock has stopped in sympathy

with silence, cars at night

on the Alice road, pass,

a distance slower.

I couldn’t find the bread-knife,

bought some rolls instead

(the shop lady said they

would keep forever if I freeze them).

The man from East London came

about upholstering,

I said we’d have to wait and see …

He left his card “in case”.

O’ Yes, I almost forgot, surprise, surprise!

I pulled the curtains back

to watch the rain, hey presto,

there they were, blushing in rows,

the green tomatoes

you left to ripen.

P.S.

When are you coming home?”

 

– Cathal Lagan

 

(published in Sandbird, Alice, Lovedale Press: 1999)

Train journey

        i.

The Warsaw railway station
is grey-clean, in the modern style,
with electronic announcements
and flickering changes on the sign-boards.

Here, a sparrow hops her two-legged way
then flits up to the by-me-unseen rafters
of her life,

recalling the bird in Bede’s history
winging through the mead hall,

then out into the darkness
beyond light and time –

for us it is time to find
our platform for Krakow.


        ii.

She runs with large strides
that her bum emphasizes,

down the platform, step by step,
late for something;

then she, looking harassed;
and he in his suit, fast striding:

slaves to the time of capital,
never early enough.


        iii.

Was there, in the hard days,
such hurry?

Did guards with guns
own time,

each slow
moment?


        iv.

A lone cattle truck
stands still

at Auschwitz-Birkenau,
the train lines coming

through the brick-arched gate
to this terminus.


        v.

Lost at the Krakow station,
you rush to find the tickets to Warsaw;

I, flustered amongst languages,
seek our platform,

telling a young woman
– she speaks a little English –

that I don’t know where to go
for Warsaw; barely know where I am.

“You,” she asserts carefully,
“are in Krakow, Poland”.

We laugh at absurdity. She walks
from my life. Then you, Cape mossie

flitting through the foreign crowd,
come gleefully, flapping tickets.

 - Brian Walter

Breakers

“I so like that colour, there;
no there,” you say, and we both
seek the word to catch
that colour, that breaks through
in a wave of memory:
“Aquamarine!”

We call it together, and laugh
as the breakers of the tides
crash higher, higher
and we watch for a flash
of curling aquamarine

that shows hunched, as briefly
within the rounding, breaking water
as this moment,

fleeting and lovely with laughter.

 - Brian Walter

Old bird-table

When the hornbills come
– all floppy great birds of them –
we see ourselves

in their rag-tag ways:

cautious on the wire
fixing all with drooping eye,
he peers down his nose;

she comes then, edging
close, her want of fruit or bread
dances with her fear.

They feed at table,
then repair to the tree top,
sunnily chatter,

hemming and hawing,
each bird through a nose-long beak.
We watch ourselves there,

and we eye each other, too.

 - Brian Walter

Etymology

I work at words, but also watch
the Cape robin perch aslant the dry stem
of the wild dagga plant this autumn:

yesterday in Addo the Karoo shrub robin
fanned a white tipped tail as she dipped
down into the under-branches of dry brush.

Me, I word-watch, wish I had a Roberts
of poetry for this flitting in my scrub-mind.

- Brian Walter

The old ferry

A slop of water rocks the ferry,
that lifts, and drops a little; while
up the muddy sand the wavelets run.
I am looking for the ferryman

till he comes out from somewhere,
and is suddenly present;
and we silently make a deal,
for the ferryman is quiet and firm,

deliberate in his working.
He has a waterman’s job to do,
and I am it. He gets us going:
he’s not given, I presume, to talk,

so I give myself to the crossing,
to the water and the while,
and the rocking wave-borne boat,
and try to forget the bank I’ve left,

and the darker bank to come.
I peer deep into moving mists,
or down at my restless hands,
or at the bow, at the wake we leave.

The ferryman works the wooden oars,
his back sculls us across dark water,
his eyes – drawn back by his neck – look
back alert, but never snag my face.

The space between us is the space
of all that ever happens, and all
that ever will be. And he doesn’t allow
that gap to close, nor ever looks at me.

 - Brian Walter

Traditional

As I don’t walk out
this lockdown morning,
and see no fields and pastures green,
and find no maiden long lamenting
underneath yon willow tree.

I stay indoors
and I tell my cell-phone
about my hard recurring dream,
about the woman who is absent
and not weeping at the stream;

how things have turned
all topsy-turvy,
where what happens doesn’t now,
and folk who do things by tradition,
like the farmer, didn’t plough;

where the woman
who’s become a doctor
and heals the sick with holy hands,
texted me once and cursed her longing,
and sat her down in desert sands.

And still indoors
this lockdown evening
I weep for greed and pride, and tenders green,
and dream me of lass lamenting
underneath yon fever trees.

 - Brian Walter