the art of fishing

i want to catch your sighs in my net 
and reel, 
your locked-in, 
safe-tight shut, 
bus-depot locker thoughts. 
with baited hooks 
and fastidious, patient rod 

and if, i manage to lure you 
with my chosen form of bait 
i will remove each scale (of thought) 
and attach them to my aortic pipe 
using your vitreous jelly, 
and your green tinted iris’s 
to lock me into each frame of your viewfinder 
as i zoom in on the meshed grays and reds, 
in order to nourish my desire to dissect, 
each upturned lip, 
coarse sexy laugh, and intense soft stare. 
i want to suck the blood from your raw flesh 
and leave your lemon-squeezed afrikerdom politeness 
as scraps to the vultures. 
i want to savour your ultimate truth

grams (a poem for my gran)

grams ...

where did it go? 
your perfume and my small face 
that lay burrowed in crevices of wrinkled skin, 
against the curve,
where they fold, 
at the nape of your neck, 
just up, from your gold star of david.

breathe in sweat pea and cinnamon 
breathe out comfort, 
not reserved for thundery nights only,
where did the time go? 
November seems a long time ago,
smarties colouring the tips of your fingers 
disappeared like wednesday nights of sha na na 
and sunday's double thick chocolate milkshakes at café wein, 
large, sagging breasts pushed against me in a hug, 
wrapped my world into soft fatty pockets 

i miss maraschino cherries and trifles, 
the occasional stale slivered almond, 
even your uninspiring bolognaise would be ok 
if i could just say hello. 
Where did you go? 

umlungu

 
dear silence and quiet
i hereby request your protection
i do not want to hear ms. big mouth utter (me)
i hardly want to hear you breathe,

Your talking,
incessant jabbering,
speaking out, or whatever you call it,
the public processing of my vulnerabilities
my shortcomings,
a viewing of the chains that bind me to this her-history
orally,
in decibels louder,
and decibels more annoying than the next person,
yes vocally, on the worlds stage
your big mouth is trumpeting loudly
the music stripping me naked,
Eve looking for a leaf
to cover my shame,

guilty as charged 
my herstory
exhibited before the masses
clothed in the past
clothed in my pale skin
my blemished, yes we all know whites age so much quicker, privileged skin
that i didn't ask for,
but did i complain about either?
Did I stand up to be counted, did I unlock the chain of apathy?
I wish I was perfect but instead i want to be alone
i want to hide from reality
too black to be white
too white to be black
who are my people really?
fallen between the cracks of here and there
i can't represent the majority
i don't represent the minority
to forgive the transgressions of the past
without hating myself
how to move on,
without forgetting history
is it possible to be proud of who i am
instead of ashamed of what i am 

2004

stubborn

I know I am stubborn I could do with some humbling,
but when I think of giving in I can feel myself tumbling.
Something to substantiate my lack of perfection
I take it to seriously,
I see it as r-e-j-e-c-t-i-o-n....
I could not face your correction.

I try to imagine I have no flaws,
my fantasy shattered by slamming doors.
I can no longer defend what it is I now have to mend.

PMS Hammer

It started like this;
The cat (Spike) was scratching my quilt,
A leg sent her flying as the alarm went off,
tripping out of bed,
and stubbing a toe down the stairs,
waiting at the bottom;
2 dogs with wagging tails (Zuki and Nuno),
and dog piss on the new carpet
= one body boiling on a hot stove.

Screaming “FERK, shit,
Where is the sponge?
Get out the fucking house,
shoo”, shrieks, “get out the fucking house!”
Confused black and tan faces race out the sliding door,
And tails cease to wag.

Get the dogs’ food bowl,
sharp stones pierce my bare feet.
“Shit, where are my fucking shoes?”
Shouting and grinding teeth;
no brain, no kick start, lobotomy please.
The helper is one minute late,
stabbing at my watch,
“I told you not to be late!”

Slam the car door,
and drive past the DVD shop,
remembering the DVD’s 10 minutes post the fact,
when three of them stare back at me.
Angry fingers drum on the steering wheel,
slow assholes drive close to the middle of the road
“move over mother fucker,
father’s bastard,
jissee!”, hands fly.
“Can you not see this is a hand signal, wanker?
Move over!”
Wheels burn rubber,
Over a solid white line.
Evil side GLARE,
Shaking head,
(oblivious fucker),
And me,
the scary road rage bleeder.

At the office;
Grunt at colleagues,
And avoid looking at stray dog hair,
an amused soul offers Nine inch Nails,
Trent Reznor relief?
“No thanks,” sweetly, (fucker),
bullet in my head,
rage, rage
enraged.

The computer chugs along
“hurry up”,
thoughts of plastic and glass,
fast forward,
plastic and a hammer
speed x 4, x 10, x 20
chuck the fucker against the wall
a big hammer,
breaks the sound barrier,
lack of iron in the blood?
Then how does heavy metal pulsate through my veins?
I take the computer
And bashing it against the wall,
either side supported by each hand,
in a tight fist,
as though it were the head of all perpetrators,
smashing it into smithereens
over and over, smash, smash.
Such a bitter-sweet chocolate vision
The shards fall at my feet,
I take the hammer and on my knees,
reduce it to a pile of inconsequential plastic and
unrecognisable shattered glass, scattered
and splintered into my palm
glistening with fresh red drops.
Head-hammer-glass,
Glass,
Head,
Hammer.

“Don’t look at me
Don’t talk to me,
Don’t even think...
about me.” *hiss*

peggy

You rushed in;

Took me by surprise

Flooding the dam wall,

Flooding the river banks.

I am letting you wash everything away

Sometimes you are hard like plated glass

and I want to hold your hand,

there is sadness that lies like dull puddles

In the corners of your eyes

Can I stroke your cheek?

I don’t want to be slammed up against you,

You can be so crazy,

driven like a rabid animal

obsessed, blinded, lightning, thunder

full of bravado and puffed up feathers

Sometimes it’s better to move out of your way

I don’t want to cut you,

You have so many scars

So many disappointments

Your child needs shelter, healing

A place to sleep where you can find peace in your dreams;

Undrugged,

Unpassified,

Unconditioned,

Unbrainwashed,

Uncontained.

Yesterday you looked so small

I wanted to envelop you

Wrap my arms around you a thousand times

Each embrace gentle as the flitting wings of a butterfly

blowing freedom through the tips of your fingers like a soft wind

if only I could make your monsters go away.

Sometimes you look so big

strong, clever, determined

No one can hold you back

tough like an elephant bull

sad, you don’t use your own strength to love yourself

You give it away to others,

sell it for cheap.

Leaving yourself the dregs for survival

Sometimes you overwrought with fever

Like there is a devil in you

And you grasp at me

Looking for someone else

Hiding in my kisses,

I don’t  see you in those moments

You aren’t there.

Who are you?

Drop your guard

What are you looking for?

Drop your walls

Stop

Listen

Drop your preconceived notions

Judgements

Drop your past

Be still.

Take my hand

Maybe you can learn to trust me?

Maybe I can learn to trust you.

Your Edge

Your Edge..

Your edge scares me;
when sharpened with anger,
how do things get so muddled,
we slice ourselves into the confusion.

The puppy needs food, water and shelter
a few jabs too,
what is the smile of its tail-
worth to you?

Your edge excites me;
when serrated with laughter.
spectator of your eyes, tell me your story?
You watch mine too, and say; sad.
They too have their own story.

I say; look, I am the moon
You say no, you see the sun.
I point to the stars, they light only in dark
See, there is no day without night.

It weakens me; the sound of my name,
a van gogh on your lips
there sits an echo - in my ear
and placed against me,
the cool edge sharpened and serrated
profusely, I begin to bleed.

Breaking the Silence (for 16 days)

On Sunday afternoons,
It was her father’s friend The family favourite;
“He’s so good with the children,” they said
The one who stole youth from the young.
And the cousin - the elder, boy, cousin
The one who liked her to play in his room
With the door closed.
No one noticed he was too old for “playing”

It was a Sunday night,
and he, a complete stranger to her.
She a young woman, alone in the night
Who carried within her, a world of possibilities
“What was she doing there anyway, what was she wearing?”
“Was she drunk?” the infamous they, the black hole, they would say
As they recount the story of what was taken from her,
On a library pavement,
Where I spent my childhood years drinking in the innocence,
of Judy Blume and Nancy Drew.

For her, it was Sunday mornings
In the house of God
Defiled by the devil himself,
Approved by the highest universal authority,
Protected by the pact of silence,
“This will be our little secret,”
“No one will believe you anyway.”
A little girl who had not been taught the language of emancipation,
still bound in her adulthood she cries;
“Mama, was I bad mama?”

Everyday for her, it was,
Her father,
Who took her as a wife At age 11,
Becoming the mother of three.
A mother to her own siblings
Before the blood and pubic hair of her womanhood
Had touched the fabric of her panties
As she lay in the big bed
And got to drive a big car at age 11

Breaking the silence
Shattering this non-reality
To see the scars inflicted by the cycle of abuse
That which cannot be seen when we silence the voices
In lies that we feed ourselves
To see that which does not always bear visible marks
As women walk alone in the dark

sometimes you have to start back at the beginning

the place of departure and the destination remain the same

apologies to margaret atwood for this blatant plagiary

You Begin
by Margaret Atwood

You begin this way:
this is your hand,
this is your eye,
that is a fish, blue and flat
on the paper, almost
the shape of an eye.
This is your mouth, this is an O
or a moon, whichever
you like. This is yellow.
Outside the window
is the rain, green
because it is summer, and beyond that
the trees and then the world,
which is round and has only
the colors of these nine crayons.
This is the world, which is fuller
and more difficult to learn than I have said.
You are right to smudge it that way
with the red and then
the orange: the world burns.
Once you have learned these words
you will learn that there are more
words than you can ever learn.
The word hand floats above your hand
like a small cloud over a lake.
The word hand anchors
your hand to this table,
your hand is a warm stone
I hold between two words.
This is your hand, these are my hands, this is the world,
which is round but not flat and has more colors
than we can see.
It begins, it has an end,
this is what you will
come back to, this is your hand.

Welcome to our world Dylan James Robert

It doesn't get more engleeeeeeeeeeesh than this...

My first blood nephew welcome to the world! It's sad because my sis is so far from me... it's hard the older you get when all these "family" things start happening in the family and your are separated by hours by plane... and $$$ etc... I am sad I wont get to see this little guy growing up much.... he might even be jetting to Singapore soon to live there..but i am so glad he's in the world...