Invisible

I iron the dress
of the old doll.
The blue dress
of the blue-eyed doll.
The well-made dress
of the antique doll,
with blush fired
perfectly into porcelain cheeks,
and porcelain little teeth,
and a dimple
in the porcelain mound of fat
on her chin.

Her body is of leather,
torn, repaired with tough fabric of sorts.
There is much stitching all over.
My mother, grandmother and great-grandmother
– all touched the doll.
All made well-made things
with deft fingers.
My grandmother sewed the dress,
the tiny button-holes,
which have had tiny buttons
pushed through them
for three generations now.

I think the doll sees
the invisible linking
of deft fingers,
transparent intentions
running like time, like water,
through the world.

Her eyes can close,
but the lids
are a little chipped,
so she probably peeps
even when you lay her down
to sleep.

– Silke Heiss

Winter poem

The ceiling fan – an unmoving X.
Obedient curtain folds hang down.
The daughter’s in the Blue Room.

– Silke Heiss

The clan you called

They are, to us in Poortjies, high specks.

“Come, come to us,” you say,
and they do, they come:
planing down, closer, towards us, open

raspberry-coloured underarms,
black extremities of wing,
they land and compose
themselves on the water,
each one facing the sun.

The whole clan of them face
the sun, and the sun
faces them: sets into
their heads bowed
upon the last light
on the water.

Swanlike, with grey youngsters, they swim-tread,
long-necked, white, but pink in parts, dipping their faces down,
occasionally below the high tide water, which is deeply, steely blue.

The flamingoes drift away from our talk. The clan you called,
their bright rose underarms, their hairpin necks and throats will sleep
soon, we suppose, on the lagoon, under the bright, full moon.

– Silke Heiss

play

understated undulations
radiating from fingers
ululating soft shadows
over
the claviature

the blade of her soul

she knows her tongue is the sheath
for the blade of her soul
one day a blade of grass
the next a blade of knife

for once she writes away
her feeling of inadequacy
and for a fleeting moment
believes in her capability
to nourish deeply and to cut finely

 - Lara Kirsten

Answer to Larkin

Children carry parents’ tears,
the yokes of their mistakes –
they saunter wryly through the years
and make their jokes.

– Silke Heiss


Sunrise

A quiet seagull couple
– floating in a flood
of light –
dipping heads, nipping
struggling, feelery things,
nodding necks, to get them down.

Cold feet (not theirs)
on the sand, in the blood
of this moment.

– Silke Heiss

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

word ek 'n groot seilskip

wanneer ek met jou liefde maak
rys my lyf op uit die harde hoekigheid van die bed
en word ek 'n groot seilskip
my sternum en ribbes waai oop
en bol soos groot wit seile
jy sprei soet en silwer al om my dye
soos die Atlantiese waters met sonsopkoms
my arms en hande is die mas wat in
die fluweel winde van jou liefde
ferm en swierig hoër en hoër uitstyg
en die son van jou oë
duik soos dolfyne in die golwe van my plesier

 - Lara Kirsten

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

Proliferation

In the garage, a plant
with bulbous roots and a cascade
of dark green, shiny leaves.
Beside it, a wandering ivy,
with rows and clusters
of heart-shaped leaves,
a diaspora of flags 
nesting on the ledges
of stacked boxes and a makeshift table.

Both plant and ivy
nurture and reward his fidelity –
his weekly acts of care towards them,
with the leafy proliferation
of their green selves.
Their thirst for water, for sunlight slanted
through blinds, is not unlike his own.
Their desire to reach ever further
into the air which surrounds them,
never fails to remind him
that despite change and decay,
he still wants to thrive.

 - Eduard Burle

digterlike spelonk

ek staan in die Sparerib-grot in die Bannerman's pas
in die Drakensberge
die magtige opening in die sandsteen-flanke
laat my eie mond oophang

die blootstellende omhulling
van die gapende aarde
die kille omhelsing van die nat verkalkte klipwande
gee my 'n tydelike sin van behoort

ek wil nie veel in die lewe hê nie
slegs 'n digterlike spelonk
tussen my twee wange
waarin die verse drup drup drup
en bly eggo met die valleie af

 

 - Lara Kirsten

Exit door

– for DM

Why, for you, an exit door
beckoned more insistently
than the call of the days ahead?

   *

Those moments you dreamed your future;
those moments you were drowning at sea.

   *

Notes, chords and melodies
missing from a musical score;
the unrecorded stories.

 - Eduard Burle 

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

North End Station

I am used to the unyielding darkness
of blown out lightbulbs
and the lethal sway of the lamppost

but the bathroom locked with handcuffs
is a new event
in our little crumbling station

it makes me pause
and examine
and finally laugh in frustration

I make my way back to the ticket counter
and inform the cashier of my discovery
and she calmly looks at me and declares
“I do not have the keys for the handcuffs”
and continues to print tickets
as if that answer enough. 

 - Olwethu Mxoli

Afternoon lagoon

A pair of canoes, their oars
like big whiskers, feeling
their way forward.

Children throw sand
and laughter
at each other, their bodies
into the water.

You hurl your line
again and again –
watch the scarlet cork among the buoys,
and boats, the breath
of the seal, and the sea-grass.

Again I ask God, as the tide slides in –
these liquid blues of feeling,
please teach me how
to abide, to endure the love
of beauty: so much more painful
than loss?

White wings of far-off gulls
wink
in the light, and the ocean beyond
washes the hour
that does not pass.

– Silke Heiss, 7th June 2020

The girls

I want to write about the girl playing ‘kiss love’
in the soft smoke of sunset.
The skipping rope hits the asphalt
and echoes her heart’s giggle
when she rips open her love letter
and recites it to the rope’s meter.

I want to write about the girl
in her low riding jeans
laughing in the passenger seat of her boyfriend’s inherited Citi Golf.
The girl listening to the cd he spent hours burning just for this moment
when she looks at him
his face glowing from the gleam of the windshield
and she burns for him

I want to write about the girl
when she wore perfume and stilettos
danced until her feet went numb
and sweat washed away the floral notes
leaving her scent stamped on her dress.

I want to write about who she was when she was just a bud
waiting to bloom into something plump with life
juicy with laughter, dripping down the chin of a lover
in the endless summer sun.

I want to write about the girls
before they touched the ground, ripped open
and lived the rest of their lives as jam.
Something sweet spread across breakfast
but unidentifiable as them. 

 - Olwethu Mxoli

Sea-star 

Gliding slowly through the shallows – 
a hand of fish: dark, rose-tipped 
fingertips, oh! Rows of terrible knuckles: 
tiny, transparent globes with golden spikes – 

illumined from within 

an armoury of beauty. 

– Silke Heiss, 17th July 2020


White horses 

A-rush 
through the tall grass, 

a-jolt 
upon the thick-leaf vygies, 

a-trot 
through wilde-als fragrance 

to the foamy, 
wide-armed blue – 

cantering 
towards you. 

– Silke Heiss, 7th June 2020 

blank page 

The page begs like a hungry man 
it calls for even the faintest memory 
a water colour hung in the middle of the brightest room 
slowly decaying into transparency 

it calls for the worst memory 
the dirty one that clings to the nailbed 
and stains everything you write 
until you recoil from the mess of your own touch. 

 - Olwethu Mxoli

Missing Women 

A woman was found 
body burned beyond recognition 
rotting in a closet 
hanging from a tree 

a woman was found dead 

women are always found dead 
their names fertilize social media feeds 
and bloom into hashtags 

every photograph is filtered with the ghost of her smile 
the entire country sighs over how pretty she was
the girl who was going to be a lawyer 
an accountant 
a mother 

no meal is complete without the retelling 
her death replayed at dinner tables 
across the country 

the internet gorges on her 
until it rips indignantly at the seams 
spilling its ugly regret 
into the street. 

 - Olwethu Mxoli

Edging in

New in town,
during lockdown,
we watch the birds.

Give them water to bathe in,
scrape and flush away their poo,
and all the pecked-at fruit.

Water our peas, radishes, cabbage,
lettuces, rocket, dill –
not everything has germinated,
but still.

I go swimming on the quiet,
and when the regulations lift,
you fish: catch lunch,
and supper.

Wildflowers
in the vase
on the table.

We’re edging in
on the ecosystem here –

it’s getting used
to us.

– Silke Heiss, 5th June 2020

The mother riddle 

I will always be a daughter to each mother
in a way I will never belong to the other
and yet in my head
and heart
they collapse into each other
until it is difficult to tell them or myself apart.

The wound
and the salt
each driving the flesh to part
and bare the bone. 

- Olwethu Mxoli


Sharing Grief

“I’m sorry.”
These words are hollow and inadequate
but they are all I have to offer.
That and hope. And prayer.

Each day announces another death
another person too sick to visit
and there’s only so much compassion
the phone can carry safely and whole to the other side.

This is a terrible emptiness
the inability to offer the comfort of a body
simply sitting next to another
sharing grief.

- Olwethu Mxoli

For hours and hours

Cold came. Rain fell.
The poles you painted purple
glowed. We spoke.

– Silke Heiss, 29th June 2020


In no hurry for spring

In the Norfolk pine –
three sacred ibis
a-doze, at sunrise.

– Silke Heiss, 2nd July 2020


On the road

Across it, he gallops –
with his silky coat,
which the wind blows,
and the sun catches

– the baboon,
between hairless, zooming cars.

– Silke Heiss, 21st July 2020