poems 2023/2024
In a nameless dream
In a nameless dream, the paws and body flinched rhythmically.
Sensing a deer,
Mud beneath the grooves of the nails, the thistles playfully stuck to the coat,
Decomposing forest corpses buried beneath the humus, anticipating your rolling,
Duplication and camouflage,
In order to soar through the scents even faster,
To mark the paths known to no one but you,
To compete with fungi and moss,
The guttural release of your hushed bark,
Flows through my lungs and I laugh,
Imagining you coming back unrecognisable,
Today I awoke from dreaming of you dreaming,
And catching the dust,
Latching onto my salty face.
The silenced rabbit dust
The muddy craters of eternity,
In the circular incisions of your snout,
You drew lines with your chest,
Tailoring clouds out of leaves,
Plunging into new belongings,
Twisting your head under curious palms,
Through discussions on whom you’ll belong to,
While we were whispering the breaths of the same molecules and the smell of humus,
You lifted your paw a hundred times,
Swallowing moaning sounds,
Upon the touch of the shower,
Of crawling into bed,
And tirelessly,
Mapping forests,
Becoming one with the scents,
The buzzing,
The reflections of a doe,
The silenced rabbit dust.
Snow turns into rain as it covers the layers of mud,
And the sods of grass grown prematurely,
Slipping underneath my fingers and losing balance,
Like flour,
From a cake I cannot knead.
Snuck into the pillow case to hide away
Droplets of dried ichor
The nostrils rolling a sensation in the making
Symbiotically infused with sweet herbs
I am holding my breath and tickling the white fur
Lulled by the upper side
That is breathing
Beating
Thriving
Spilling into the grooves of my palm
Thinning a line with the tip of the index finger
Drawing your shape
Feet worn from climbing, joints well-oiled
We melted the smell of snow away
That is avoidable in surrender
With rapid squeaky inhalations
I’m shaking off the mud
The belly tightening to the left
As I pull on and scratch the adjustment
To the lack of four-legged company
Your shape is flickeringy
I tear off the scab
From the thigh
Upside-down snow
Floats on a black tile
– – – – – – – – – – – – –
Unearthing the waiting
Of dry skin
Numb in the grooves
With streams of brought days
I sob with awareness
Of the disease growing weaker (I will taste it some day)
The overwhelming cramp
Yours, now mine
In the flashes of a film on repeat
Rushes of blood flow
Or foundations once used for take-off
Washed-up the forces
Removed the uprooted weeds
Through inklings
Of cold whiffs
Through the hallway,
Your shape is flickering
And eyelashes,
like a hedgehog, are crawling through
An opaque emptiness
Of particles accidentally afloat
The insides of the horizon
I didn’t shift my trajectory
For heads to touch tickling
A lake in the aorta
Circling backwards
Throwing me
Into that
The next first sniffing
Stained Whiteness
with a fresh scar
The insides of the horizon
Dragging traces
You accepted and endured
Another black presence
Attitudes
Of jealously while holding guard
Bypassing those bigger than you
While pushing us in new directions
Monochrome (c)anine autism
There was undergrowth across the road,
Darkness was wheezing under shaky branches,
You were standing on the wall,
Teleporting into branches.
The neighbour told me;
“We will be parents
Both of them escaped
And she was in heat”
The monochrome path of white fur ,
Laid down by tiny brown dots.
She scraped the steps left behind,
With cyclic dog stunts.
Through layers of runaway seconds,
On a leash provided moments later,
In a small semi-circle of ignoring,
Or quick casual sniffs,
The tail upright like a radar,
Receiving scent puzzles,
Briskly avoiding all else,
Disinterested muteness,
Devotion to greenness,
tree skins,
a landscape in shrubbery,
discovered stops,
sieved autism (towards his own kind).
Other Smells
While December and November were too warm,
The lifted paw was adjusting,
Other smells,
Remaining airborne too long,
And when you would lap water at nighttime,
Or get sick.
The hairless areas radiated coldness,
After the first long emptying of the bladder,
You turned around, dragging in the direction of home where the pillow resides,
In close proximity to the radiator.
This proximity interrupts the flow of my body,
The unfilled places,
The ringing ears materialising,
The offspring,
That you never made.
Air gone warmer
The waves of green shadows stretch the soil,
The expanse pouring over the scattered flower heads,
Sods of grass warming the air.
With trees resonating from a distance,
Sweetly stretched out through invisible trajectories,
Filled with particles of birdsong.
The topography of smells carrying the thought:
“Maybe now you’re the awakened bumblebee,
gently decoding the newly opened stamens?”
I look back at the well-known meadow,
That one time when it was full of red clover,
Strewn with thick bee bodies,
Cleaned in a children’s neighbourhood clean-up.
Somewhere below the lung bones,
You are with me,
I’m looking back in thoughts,
To construct your body rubbing,
Against the bitter dandelion sprouts,
And the emerging molehill cake,
Hearkened by the energy of thriving.
Awardrobe with broken edges
An open green bean,
Slightly skewed seed,
Removed from the forest,
into the jacket front pocket.
Februaries,
Awakened caterpillars,
One of which started nibbling the sesame seed I dropped.
I reconstructed the movement,
Of stepping over the forest water,
And the one beside me on my way to work,
The stream is not too muddy today,
And one duck ,
Swung his body against the current.
The white colour of fur drawing me magnetically,
I stop.
Mutter at 15 and at last week’s −5.
I used to stop your body from shivering with a blow-dryer,
And pulled on your vest,
Now the smaller one is touching yours on the inside,
Of a wardrobe with broken edges.
The joints spell out impressions
In jolts
Of the lake’s curves,
I am subtly avoiding going back to the embankment,
I will find the sniffing of shrews and mice,
The sounds bouncing off,
The reconstruction,
Of slugs,
Lifted by a plantain leaf,
That made room for runners,
Thoughts spinning,
About your passage through the underpass,
And the two roads,
Where you shook me upside down,
Drowned me in worry,
In lying down,
Adventures gone cold,
While waiting (for me)
On trampled grass,
In front of the building.
In waiting
Through the efforts of the eye muscle’s tickling,
The mountain ahead is silhouetted,
My eyes are locked on the white spot in motion,
The drawn up strength,
A tangle of forest shadows,
The chased down smell of rabbit hops.
Labyrinth zones of trajectories,
Are connected with movements,
Of lungworts and yarrows.
In waiting,
The point of progress,
is approaching,
from an unbelievable source,
Anachronistically brown.
observations of the wetness,
the traces of soil disappear,
a metamorphosis of vibrations,
contagion,
pulsations of joy.
Eyes brimming with the pleasure of digging,
rolling around in mud and carcasses,
why didn’t I stop the flash,
(now) scattering while being extracted from the collage of memories.
Lying down in clouds of (her) blood
Inside movements are grinding the silences,
of broken up (other) options, (we) move on,
the imprinted silences are awoken in a spasm,
while thousands of stings move from the lower belly,
into the spine and legs,
and slow down the repetition of movements,
halting the dexterity of smells,
into a condensation of nausea,
impeding the agility,
enveloping (me) with fatigue.
Clouds of blood are waiting for me,
So I can lie down on them,
the tops of hips piercing while throbbing,
as I collect black dots on a ripe banana,
and set the red clover flower tea to boil,
while sucking on a tablet of magnesium.
The entire body’s weight concentrated in a lotus navel,
they say that the pain is like a minor contraction?
Tonight, I dive into foetal position earlier,
and think to myself before sleep,
perhaps this time it was a bit better.
For Fikile Ntshangase (63); she was murdered
on 22 October 2020 for running a campaign against a coal mine.
Fikile’s thumb was wrapped around the skin of a red onion,
As it was gently gliding,
And with six shots propped up by gravity,
It changed into an artifact.
Cracks in the walls and deposits of black dust,
Displaced from the bed
Of dancing shafts.
With a quivering collarbone,
The voice threads will make one listen,
And the threads will envelop the attention,
Of those who don’t recognize letters,
But see the cracks,
A lungful of abyss.
Foot-shaped grooves led to mines.
Through the echoes of immersing in the memory,
Words are returned (by us).
We keep whispering our current inhales.
Construction is in expansion.
Murderers (the three of them), without arrest.
Fikile left behind
A burst of presence,
Impossible abandonment,
Of the Body.
In motion.
Unfaltering contractions.
The dives of her courage
The dives of her courage,
They exhale silences, & frozen conformism,
Fallen feathers of good-intention.
Her rights are crumbs in the wind.
Tucked under the hellebore veins.
Through the rotten foundations,
She’s attuning her reality,
With dancing clouds in her lungs poles.
Come! She’ll pull out Lines on your palm,
Offering the sipping of Unsatisfied freedoms. Come!
By caressing she’s giving you support,
While pouring mud on the patriarchy.
Stopping the circulations,
Of imposed realities,
We’ll shake off the spasms ,
Entwine out roots with pulses of struggle,
In solidarity for each other.
For Jane Tipson, murdered in 2003.
The received ocean is connected in relations,
While being rubbed deep below the lungs,
Sucked in by the breathing,
Of interconnected courage.
The wounds on the ears of island strays,
Torn from the everyday.
She didn’t just pass by,
But she helped without explaining,
With the lowering of the ribcage,
Enveloped in deposits of worries.
The body is the direction,
Of set up activities,
And its notations.
Slowly coded with a slightly rubbery, scored,
Small hole as an opening in their heads,
Counterbalance to realities,
Lobbying for their freedom.
Jane is solidarity,
A vacuum for vanity,
Denouncing of opportunism.
/Jane’s killer was never found nor punished/