my voete wil die oneweredigheid van die lewe voel

jinne maar die beskaafde wêreld

het soveel gelyke oppervlaktes

elke gebou se staan-en-

werk-area perfek waterpas

huise biblioteke teaters

restaurante hospitale gallerye

winkels poskantore tronke hotelle

bang vir gly die afgrond in

elke stukkie grond so gesiviliseerd uitgelê met

baksteen en sement

teel en houtplank

niemand mag moontlik trip en val nie

my lyf smag na die bolling 

skerpte en hoekigheid

van rots

die minerale koelte en sonnige hitte

van steen

die modder en gritserigheid

van grond

ek kyk na die onderkant van my voete

kyk stip na die konkawe sool wat

net mooi pas oor die ronding van klip

en sekuur spring op die duine van sand

my voete raak nou regtig moeg vir hierdie 

alewige platvloersheid van bestaan

gee my die golwende heuwels

ongerepte klipkoppies en non-apologetiese kranse

daar is senuwees in my sole wat

die dorings en die elemente wil voel

my voete weier om te ontaard in

‘n luie bondel vel en

onuitgedaagde metatarsale bene

my voete wil die oneweredigheid van die lewe voel

agge nee! my hande en oë is so ongestimuleerd in

hierdie skoon-en-platgeskuurde beskawing

hulle hang leweloos aan my lyf met

geen doel om te klim en gryp

en klou en klouter nie

alles is net te netjies afgewerk

en vaart-en-voet-belyn ontwerp

tot vervelens toe geingenieur en geargitekteer

los julle passers en klip-malers!

laat die klippe in

hulle rondbonkigheid met rus!

 - Lara Kirsten

Glovebox 

Once I put my thoughts
into the cubbyhole
of the car
while driving,

and forgot them there,
lost them
when we sold the car,

and a new pair
of sunglasses.

Now I wonder
who wears them,

sees the world
more darkly.

 - Brian Walter

Haiku

Egyptian geese

– despite everything –

are still the lungs of god

*  *  *

ghalaghadi twisters,

tsunami, tornado:

whirlwinds of change

 - Brian Walter  

                        Off the Hook

When Yahaweh bragged to Job

He could land Leviathan any day He wished

– so great was His rod –

He took His own bait;

so as the Myth healed on through generations of minds

Jesus came

to get the Old Man

off

the hook

– and

save

Job’s kind.

                        (For Michael Appelt, 1/2/2015)

 - Norman Morrissey 

Haiku

childhood sight

– a large fish flashes in a stream –

when the world was rich

 *  *  *

called out of class

for speech lessons:

I had a lazy tongue

 *  *  *

I stuttered and lisped

reading “wasps’ nest”: they let me

leave a gap in sound

 *  *  *

I glance upward

without wandering outside:

deadlines at moonrise

 - Brian Walter

die seisoene

skil

die dae

kalm

een vir

een

van die rame

van

vensters

 sy regopstaan

in stukke

opgekap

uit gritserigheid

word die

vertederende

vreedsaamheid

van slaap 

gegiet

photos and poems - Lara Kirsten

Haiku

old edition, hardcover,

its smell, and such thoughtfulness:

the tasselled bookmark

*  *  *

the moth fluttering

for life: following, two wasps

precision flying

*  *  *

in fynbosveld

down, where the stem meets sand

– the stillness of god

 -  Brian Walter

            Home Ground

We grow old:

the madcap swirl

of bikes, bars, sore loves

cramping

into bounds

we once only could imagine,

governors

that someday

would settle our home ground.

 - Norman Morrissey

            More Human

As Leonardo said,

Death comes to us all

– but the thought of it

can make us

more

human.

 - Norman Morrissey

If this poem can teach you

If this poem
can teach you
folks who read English

this word
from the German:
Gewimmel.

How sounds it?
Ge –
as in gal;

wimmel
as in
virmell, or vimmell …

well …
I saw a gavimmell
of Malachite sunbirds

tousled by storm
in the Watsonias today –
bright emerald males

with tails and beaks
to speak of.
Proud could they be

and they were!
The Watsonias vimmelled
with green little lances of green

and some male stone chats between –
not out for the nectar,
but for the buzz –

the Gewimmel
of what humans call
metallic green –

feathers reflecting
unreproducible consciousness
in a foreign language.

If this poem
can teach you
that

I shall be
happy
indeed.

                                12th November 2014

 - Silke Heiss

Earth’s medicines

I passed through
a snowstorm of butterflies,

wide coral reefs of Watsonias
struck

by glints
of ten, fifteen Malachite sunbirds,

reached ethereal highways
of a sunray trapezium

stretched between tufty horizon
and the gushing gorge

where the Tyume River forges daily
through Space and Time.

I strode, mind-bowed
by sorrow’s experience

and drank Earth’s medicines
against human darkness.

                                      14th November 2014

 - Silke Heiss

tussen die lugholtes van my ribbes

dit is daar waar ek wil wees
daar waar kontinente van klank uit
my keel en vingers vloei
en ek aan 'n hele nuwe aarde geboorte gee

daar waar die magtige digkuns 
die ritme van die dag bepaal

ek voel alewig die klop in my keel
die nimmereindigende spits van my ore
ek staan op aandag
gereed vir die magtige vers
wat met volbloedige vlerke op my palms gaan land

ek grawe in die see-skulpe op soek 
na die waarheid van die woord
ek krap onder die volstruispoot se toonnaels
honger vir die metafoor wat alle metafore sal oortref

die woorde lê soos spook-spore
op die skadu's van die nag 
weier om gesien of gevang te word

en tog, soos klein swart poppie-saadjies 
kom lê die 
voortdurende wilskrag van 
die poësie
tussen 
die 
lugholtes 
van 
my 
ribbes

as die woord kom
weet ek hoe verruklik die lettergrepe soos 
ryp snye avokado op my tong sal smelt

laat ek diep binne die greep van die letter lê
maak my lam, maak my onbewus,
maak my vlieg, maak my lag,
maak my ril 
en
maak my vry

 - Lara Kirsten

Byooddefil

They are so byooddefil
the flowers
whom spring has ridden through
on way to summer –

wind-bruised,
rain-bent,
oh, the slings and arrows of their fateful fortunes
with the feeding of a thousand

sharp-beaked, long-tongued
birds and beasts,
repeated couplings of gross beetles
on sweet silky virgin petal beds –

disordered now in luscious droops
the flowers aren’t disposed
to poise; but, like byooddefil sluts
gossiping after hours

they hang around their stalks
in the manner of those
whom Life has used so
they don’t owe

anybody
anything
for being
byooddefil.

                                   18th November 2014

 - Silke Heiss

All Souls Day

We lit candles for our dead

and the simple rememberings of a few folk gathered together

by hauntings of lost companions

drew griefs grown lonely

to mingle

in one simple weave of hearts

so Death’s scythe blunted

and we could

be together again.

                                3^rd November 2014

 -  Norman Morrissey

Sketch

Last night was the first thunder
of spring, and we unplugged everything

although the shudders did not last.
The Arums are out on the pass, and in East London

steadfast Strelitzias are clashing
colours with the Kafirbooms’

coral clusters
so serenely South African and beloved.

Spring is here: people drive
more daringly down the old Transkei Road,

hooting, impatient
with cautious ones,

zooting past, stopping,
replacing passengers;

and on a rock jutting out
of the thick, opaque green Nahoon River

scraggly cormorants spread
orphan wings to dry,

scaping a city
thoughtless, scraggly, serene, impatient

and somehow elementally without
mirrors.

                                        5th August 2014

-  Silke Heiss

in a sweat of nutmeg i plant my thighs

in a sweat of nutmeg i plant my thighs

it is with a clean look in my eye

that I populate the canvas with vertiginous ash

in an apocalyptic temper

I guard the orphaned words

with a smudge of fennel and rosemary

rumbling is heard in the distance

over blazing gravel I chase the thorns

the oranges bend down to smell the grass

the rocking tractor

dives into

the ordinary parade of stringy pity

i shiver

the charcoaled japanese maple

divides the sky into

a sizzling griddle

the over-exposed ladder

draws its legs closer

and sneezes from its peeling paint

the canvas participates in the fornication

sway, swim, screw, grate and usurp the moment

of lawless energy

my phlegmatic suitcase

frenetically practices

to pinch the desiccated sesame seeds

I lie flat on my back

let the open blue sky fabricate

its own panegyric

- Lara Kirsten

Reading

The writer has left

the wine ring on the book

as loud

as words.

- Brian Walter

This Autumn

This Autumn
his avocado tree
is more than neighbour now

leaning over our yielded fence,
inclining towards the hedge,
homing in and showing off,

gossip ripe and intimate.

I reach out to the branch's reach
and take this offered fruit

that seems to fall
around my feet.

- Cathal Lagan

Homing

This late winter

two Egyptian geese wing by,

their croaking calls flap

the air, this African dawn.

The last Egyptian geese I saw

stood quietly on the banks

of an ancient fish pond

of a Norbertine monastery

in the European low lands,

the spawning  vijver of the old abbey:

timeless, and in time,

placed out of place,

silent in the falling words

of midsummer rain.

 - Brian Walter

kern

daar skuil ‘n lus in die dieptes

wat stil-stil wag - dormant uitbundig 

dit is heilspellend hoe die vonk

begin tril met die afwagting van die koms

van die kreatiewe tornado

die grond is ryk

kyk hoe giet ons die diep-versonke metale

uit die premordiale smeltkroes

my klei-lyf resoneer met die vulkaniese uitbarsting

met hierdie bloed wat nie ophou vloei

bons die polsering van die dreigende feesviering

die kruine van die golwe hang vir enkele oomblikke

langer in die silwer skyn van die son

my hare staan orent

van die stemme wat alom my kring

so vol lewe is organika

so baie golwe in elke dag

so veel kwiksilwer sparteling in die brein

die soeke na versadiging ken geen einde

die hart bly kolk al kom die niet teen die deur geklop

die grond word koud in die winter

die spoor word weggewaai

maar die lewe bly tril

die oer word oerer

die inkantasies word meer kontrapuntaal

en die ledemate word sneller

in hierdie dae wat so vlugtig vlerke groei

die elemente is ongenaakbaar

hoe hulle die vel verteer

tog bly die pols diep en sterk

die wilskrag is onverskrokke

in die stryd teen die skaamte

teen die vrees

teen die vlees

teen die donker

my rugstring ontdooi elke oggend

en waaragtig, dis die vlerke wat aanhou kriewel

tot in die premordiale kern 

van sensasie van die embrioniese duister wat

gelukkig genoeg keel het

om te kreun met die moeds-wil van vlieg

- Lara Kirsten

Moulting
A post-election poem of hope

We are closer to the rainbow
than before –

the parties’ banners show
red, yellow, green, and blue.

May our leaders’ plans and visions
mingle as such colours can,

make orange, indigo, and violet, too,
to complete the good Bishop’s dreams for this land.

And the pot be a bud,
wealth and wisdom the flower.

Our skins shed words –
‘black’ and ‘brown’ and ‘white’ give way –

ranging from shell pinks over earth’s warm sands to wet rocks
we glint

in answer
to sun and stars and moon.

- Silke Heiss, 11 May 2014