in die skemering van die verlies

in die skemering van 
die verlies
is my keel nog troebel
van die wil-wil trane
die dae sonder jou hang soos
sugte aan die deurkosyne

dit is asof my selle nou weet
dat ek nie aan jou kan klou nie
iets in my het laat gaan 
die hunkering na 
jou fisiese aanwesigheid 
het 
so ietwat
bedaar

in die skemering van 
die verlies
is my hart stil
vlietende beelde van jou 
beweeg in my geestesoog
soos wolke in die wind

oralste lê leegtes van 
jou nie-hier-wees
ek kyk met 'n hartseer gelukkigheid na
die reën wat op die pompombome val
die aarde juig oor die breek van die droogte
maar my hart klem met die wete
dat jy nie meer die nat-aarde-reuk 
deur jou trillende neusgate insuig nie

in die skemering van 
die verlies
staan ek mymerend in 
die diep rivier wat 
die onafwendbare verhale 
van die lewe en dood om 
my ledemate fluister

 - Lara Kirsten

Fruit

My mind is Port St Johns,

with feathered clouds on a morning sky,

sub-tropical tall tree ideas

standing still,

and above all ravens turn

dark feathered, hard birds: no shit.

Their full-throated high rasps

turn the morning

and my mind is in their distant eyes

a-watching.

Now they are down

hopping, or stiff-legged stalking

on the green, like thoughts in fruit,

never as imagined ‒

bits of bread in pincer bills,

and all the other things they eat.

 - Brian Walter

My tiny master

I set my alarm for seven,
but by three fifty
my ears
were conscious,
by four
the Chorister Robin
unlocked his breast,
unleashed his nature,
his duty
to exhort me
and eternity
to the force of morning,
stocked us with warm-blooded abundance of song,
conquered virtuoso trills in the conviction
that forever
the day
must be seized
by music
from
the beginning.

Up, up! Up! Yes, you!
And I
helplessly laughing
on my pillow
tossed the duvet aside
and obeyed
my tiny master.

                     26th November 2016

 - Silke Heiss

how?

how does one poetize from 
the thoughtless place
there where it is 
only pure spontaneous metaphor
that leaks recklessly from the throat
and in filigree syllables
drips like stalactites in ears?

nucleus

every morning my spine thaws
and truly, it is my wings that keep on stirring
right into the primordial nucleus
of sensation of the embryonic darkness
that luckily has enough throat 
to groan with the stubborn will of flight

like nails

poetry grows slowly and patiently 
like nails

and like nails poetry is there 
to scratch the itch

and even when the body dies
the nails keep on growing

word-fever

my fingers shake the sweat 
of the word-fever over
the holes of your ears
that are the subways to 
the underground of your souls
the mercury in the tube 
of your mouths
breaks free with the pressured heat
of the unmasking feverability of word

 - Lara Kirsten

In downy mist

In downy mist

the robin sits,

repeating patterns of notes,

practising sweetly.

His end trill I know

from a robin at home –

it must be the fashion

among robins this season.

In downy mist

the robin sits

practising sweetly 

his song.

Married couple at evening

Elbows on a low leather pouffe,

bum warm before a fire

she’s stretched in catlike twist

eyes closed

ears pricked

hearing

the rain

stop,

her husband’s hand shift

on the page

where his poem is coming

into being.

Clouds

Flat-bummed clouds

sit on the air

as if it were

a pane of glass.

 -  Silke Heiss

Writing season

Storks circle

in a hundred sky-high miniatures

the bush fire rages:

summer heat, South Africa.

The swifts are in:

Palm swift, Little swift, Horus

‒ cutting air-paths.

There’s nothing I can say

any longer, I suspect:

I am a smoke voice

in the winds, signifying fire,

smoke-smell, but not the thing

itself. I am a door, opening

on a hinge to nowhere,

and no-one stands to knock.

Once, under anaesthetic,

they cut my body:

I woke up bloody, and hurt.

It took weeks of blood-smell

and pain before I felt

right. Now the wound

is in my very flesh and being:

the swifts swoop close,

the storks circle in.

- Brian Walter

Wither?

Someone brought me a hurt swift
that I laid in a box
in the hope he’d recover;
but he slipped away
through a hidden crack
‒ so I laid what he’d left
in the earth to wither.


Heart's Journey

We travelled all day
through  country
close to my heart;

then I read poems
that traced
my heart's journey.


Dance

Last night
we talked and drank wine
and you and I danced

as you settled into the old house
through the keyhole
of a bit of ritual

that made you feel at home
at
last.


Brief Passing

As the brown leaves
thicken
on the paths,

powder underfoot,
my heart is heavy
with mortality

 – with the brief passing
of
things.

 - Norman Morrissey

Greater than I

i.

Once

I remember a time,

once I was a person

before I was powder

crushed

by a husband’s betrayal, his buckling

under a woman’s decrees

that he divorce immediately
disown his family

and I not see our son

except in times and places fit for her –

ii.

so the long, long road

to and fro gruelling

endlessly re-fuelling

to get my child

– resentful, grieved, skin and nails bitten –

breaking my heart

by a to and fro aching:

thorns of a foreign province

iii.

once

before I became powder

through illness in the man I loved,

his hole of debt,

his mental scree,

his efforts to endure and help me

I was

– was I? –

a person

apparently

iv.

before the office job

 – three telephones crying for hospitality,

the screen a diarrhoea of mails

each day to be wiped away quietly,

and praising or complaining guests

to be sweetened equally –

v.

dimly I remember far away

– was I once

a person?

… this implosion is not of the body:

my thighs are silky, strong,

I wash myself still,

go through the rituals of toner, moisturiser, lotion,

hungrily eat what you cook …

vi.

but it’s a once-was lovely shell you feed,

inner mettle crushed

to powder, dust.

I suffered too much

so you must not,

don’t come near me now.

Nothing holds

together –

there’s nothing to hold these years on me,

the pressure has been

greater than I.

 - Silke Heiss

klok

my hart trek

in die vorm van

‘n klok

ek prewel ‘n gebed

mag ons nie lui raak met liefde en

nooit die noodsaak van die skeppingsdaad minag

ek begin lui van diep binne my bors

dit tril en ril deur my al my spiere totdat my lyf 

opstyg en beier die wye lug in

           word wakker wêreld, word wakker!

           die nuwe dag breek aan soos ‘n swael-seisoen

           in vlug na die reuk van somer

 - Lara Kirsten

The Bell Ringer

He came among us first at Christmas

when, as a young boy , I heard him climb

the creaking stairs to ring the heavy bell.

His back bent low beneath the knotted rope,

he would ring out forever

over the stubble fields,

across numberless townlands,

to the tiny houses flickering in moon-thickets

against the northern sky.

He rang loud,

he rang long,

almost forever so I thought,

and then in the silence he was gone,

lost in the crowded lamp-lit Church,

in the dying embers of the lingering bell.

And I would listen to the silence he had made,

for he and the wind and the bell were one.

Sometimes the wind would blow the sound

across the land, and it was heard loud

where it was never heard at all.

He and the bell were one, bound

together by the knotted rope

he held in his worn hands.

The rope would wrench his arms and chest,

his head bent low beneath his work,

he belonged to the bell,

and the bell belonged to the wind,

and he and the wind and the bell were one,

bound together by the knotted rope

that did not sing but spoke

of his pain in the dumb silence

that swung across the air

when he had gone,

descending the stair.

And all that I knew was the bell-ringer,

and he and the bell were one.

But this was so long ago,

so long that sometimes I hear

the bell resound within me,

knowing it loud and true

and off by heart

in still days of wonder.

 - Cathal Lagan

I belong to a stranger

Like a tin of paint
I want to empty myself on the walls of your heart
in colours dark and bright and crimson
like the moon when it menstruates
and the clumsiness of my childhood
streaming blood down my knees

I want to draw my fears in pictures,
wrap them in your arms
that you may hold them
as if
they are your children

some days, when the sun shines brighter than usual,
I dream in colour
about moments filled with laughter and wrinkles
etched for a lifetime
on our lips
as we flash by in sepia
in dreams that were
to become

then the clouds draw in,
casting shadows on your face

you become the stranger that you are.

I shatter  

again

and again

and again. 

 - Alvené Appollis-du Plessis

eenvoud

ek lê onder die oorhang van die grot

drup-drup water uit die klip en bons op

die blare van ‘n jong stinkhoutboom

en spat ‘n sproei-reën op my oop gesig

sneeu lê op die pieke en hange van die Malutis

sien ek teen die kille bloue winterlug

‘n helende son

niks kom naby die eenvoud hiervan

geen intellek

geen fancy woorde

geen stadsgeriewe

geen vaartbelynde voertuie

geen argitektoniese vernuf

sal ooit blinker skyn as hierdie

water klip boom lug en son

 - Lara Kirsten

Loops, Voice, Harmonica  

– for Dave Ferguson

Layered, hypnotic grooves;

your urgent song;

a blaze of notes

that climbs through the ceiling

and down to your shoes.

Performer

– for Lucy Kruger

On stage you move seamlessly
between the serene flame
of the outer person
and the wisdom and hunger
of the inner.

   *   

The purity and fire
of your voice –
there’s nowhere you
could go with it
that I wouldn’t follow.

 - Eduard Burle  

After having been caught in severe squalls

Now I know

how the cows

exposed on the grass

get lashed,

how their naked noses and eyelids

are stung

by wind shooting drops

like arrows.

17^th June 2015

My chariot

Three degrees air

bites my face,

stride I to work,

the red grass mountains

radiant with anticipation

for

the drive

of day.

                        
                        13^th July 2015

  - Silke Heiss

ek is verlief op Stilte

ek moet erken

ek is verlief op Stilte

hoeveel keer wou ek al

met Stilte weghardloop en 

in donker en vergeleë stegies

met hom vry tot

die son soos goue taai stukke marmelade

oor die horison oopbreek

 - Lara Kirsten

Spring Haiku

The apricot blossom  

reflects in the spring 

of the young girl's eye. 

          ***

Spring, 

and words sprout 

from earth­minds. 

          ***

The dandelion holds on,  

lets go ‒ soft and bright, 

the spring breeze. 

          ***

The spring day gone:
cold clouds squall off the south seas
remembering winter.

 - Brian Walter

Definitions of winter

i.

Not cold

but potent

wind

nudges,

nudges, rams

naked birches.

ii.

The blinding

not hot

sun

threads the branches –

makes them

vines of light.

                13^th June 2015

 - Silke Heiss 

V

die dolosse ontaard in vonk-proppe

wat mekaar begin jaag in

die hippodroom van my kop

hulle begin lyk na artisjokke op hitte

as daar maar ‘n hofmaarskalk was

wie ek kon roep wat in die bresse kon tree

maar, nee, ek is op my eie

VI

ek gaan skaar my by die vrouens in die harem

en vra hulle of hulle ook so verlei word deur die Woord?

nee sê hulle, maar hoekom probeer jy

nie ‘n ontwapeningsveldtog nie?

haai, ek het nooit daaraan gedink nie

die geheim van hierdie driftige aanteel van woorde

deel dieselfde lankmoedigheid aanwesig in stalaktiete

‘n stille, onopmerklike groei

hoe kan ek hulle nou ontwapen?

wat is die wapen wat ek so voel op my geteiken is?

ek gee moed op

ek gaan slaap met ‘n elle-lange hanglip

en hoop die aand gooi nie

nog dolosse in my half-wakker drome nie

al wat ek kan doen is om op my tande te byt

en te hoop niemand sien my dolsinnige gryns raak

een greintjie van ’n kyk in my rigting

sal jou in ‘n sout-pilaar verander

al hoe ek hiermee leef is om deur die dag so

hiperbeleef as moontlik te loop

iewers sal die gedigte se gedrag raffineer

met my invloed

en die harlaboerla van hulle ledemate en tonge

tot orde roep

en soos die moeder-owerste sal ek hulle

siele deur ‘n ring kan trek

so netjies en heilig sal hulle voor my staan

VII

teen hierdie tyd sal die gedig

die stadsvryheid verdien

en vry deur die strate wals

en enige kafee inloop en homself knuppeldik

aan die atjar eet

die burokrate sal met nuut-ontdekte ywer

die verse se skoene poets

en die posmeester sal teen geen tarief 
die digkuns aan elke lid van die wêreld pos

nodeloos om te sê

die poësie sal ‘n groot hawiksneus groei

en homself luid op die skouer klop

en trots elke kruiwa vul met leestekens en sillabes

en die bakstene en sement vervang met dit

wat meer sin maak

met die gedig se pralery

sal hy homself oortuig dat hy

skuiling en warmte kan bied vir die massas

 - uit dolosgooier van 'n gedig, Lara Kirsten

                        Pageant

    A first-Winter-done maple

    just today

    sports a coppery sheaf of buds

    and the plums

    are dream-clouds

    on a cerulean sky

    – it is only I

     cannot unfurl his heart

    to the pageant.

                        Lonely

     Dog howling midst wide, fenced acres:

      lonely for the ancestral pack
    - for the litter he was born to.

 - Norman Morrissey

6 short word-paintings of Nahoon Beach

1

The sea-struck rocks

attacked

fight back,

their faces full of spears;

2

stunted trees

along the boardwalk

braced together

despite the bite of salt;

3

three wistful collies stand

at water’s edge in row of order

watching children roar and bounce

on breakers with their belly-boards;

4

a full-bearded surfer heads

towards six others in the milky green,

bobbing – one gliding through applause of foam,

then tossed up like an embryo;

5

the hazy midday sun’s reflection

in wet sand

is haloed in old gold,

then claimed by the tide;

6

and the wind

at my neck

streaks like Usain Bolt

with only one goal: speed.

– Silke Heiss