Waterforest

Her eyes, her smile, her whole
Perspired a kind of warmth
That drew me into her spirit force
That gripped me and behold,
Sank her passion into my fresh
Like the tentative wild dig of a child’s claws
into its mothers skin
When held precariously
she made to speak
but her lips only curled into a pouted beauty
A condiment to the cherub tanned face
eager and laughing eyes
and her eye dilated
in soft excitement.
All she could manage-where her tongue failed
Was her hands caressing my face
Then evolved a nexus
As handsome as the shine of sun in rain
As sad as the end of friendship
As complex as to why love exists
As memorable as the wet kiss of a dog
As welcome as the dawn in a bad dream
And we brought it all to one
Where what mattered was our love.

She held to him, anvil hard;
Counting is walks
Shadowing his every word
He lived in morbid terror of her,
Like a concubine counting the nights
without her man
He lived in morbid terror.

She held to him-intrinsic
Like the nite trances the day end
Hopelessly painted in the dully hues
Slipping easily into the dark realm,
Like an unmasted ship dancing in the tide
Slipping easily into the dark.

She held to him-her tongue;
Sharp to the whittle
Observant, critical, unnerving.
He lived like the scripture
Jealously guarded and appraised
Patient in his receivership of harangue,
Aggressively preached to others-of his goodness.
He lived people!
Like the moral puritan
He lived, people!

Whispers whispers whispers
On this black diabolical night
She is the one, she whispers
Nefarious, piercing, alluring.
Oh my head-it splits!
She sings with the winds
Rousing me in the core of night
All fearful, anxious and expectant
Cast on her ether face is her sarcasm
Engendered by too much love.
What love is this
That leaves me so beaten?
What love is this
That loves me so faithfully
That it haunts me?
What love is this that sings
along my shadows? -Its;
Ghost Music.

Brewed like jasmine.
Her inchoate beauty drawing lusty bees
Her incandescence painting a lush lovely portrait

Lovely ever so lovely
Dancing in the morning breeze
She spoke like a flute
Sweet whispers of love
Like the wind does to the lea
In the cloudless summers of the Rand

Lovely ever so lovely
Her whispers roused my heart
To her calm and warm touch
When she spoke-my heart danced
Lovely ever so lovely
She walks with light gait
Like a dear of puerile tenderness.

Along accumulated gutters we lie
Reflecting upon each days coming tide.
Among providence's damned we are cuddled in hungers
misery.
Awaiting the dawn of vanity.

Scarcely do we live and yet unhappily
Crippled for a right to sue and cry cheatery
Struggling for life's glories with our succulent betters
Of whom our anger and envy barely wounds
For they, ever will flaunt their winnings selfishly.
Wide tearless hunger stricken eyes
Pry inquisitively to their only hope; Mother
Who only has love to give
Who sings to hide her own grief
To the uncertainty that religious doctrine cites
Is the only hope.

Oh, I wish it were
That I needn't beg nor cry
That I, my family should share in ideal joy
Not the despair of a future.
Now, looking on with spite
Nature 's cull we await hopefully.

Plied gyration;
Whirling my thoughts
In trains you never saw
What a stroke-I dare to repeat
This is just what I wanted-
A mind to dancing,
-Numbing my feet-
-Scraping my bones-
Rousing that sex,
Touch me where it seams
Where I don't see-
Touch me in that revolution
That lingers, beyond aesthetic dreams, and-
Chaotic exposition,
Pull that up, man!
There goes a free smile
Dancing on the belly
Wiggling without true motion-
Kiss it please, the belly button
Savoir-faire never counts here
Only, only just doing-
Epileptic characterization,
It's just a shake
Vulgar unsaidness
Stupidity exercise
Drunk-
Lost-
Its just another day that passes-
I feel what I don’t see
Because I don’t want to feel what I see
My life bellies ahead of me,
Just because I lost what to measure as mine.
I have all for the world-yea!
I give as I get
Because I can’t keep as I get
Love they call it
Yea! Stupid thing it is.

And I rise and look
From the lines of my poetry book
And I see life has passed all the while
And all I am is a whole new person
A whole new grown up.
I cannot join the kids in a game of ball
Neither can I comfortably wrestle with them
All I can do is pretend to involve in this verse
Or think about which girl would impress my folks.

The roof is some complex frame hiding all this shadow
Beyond the space where-
The Gecko court in endless laziness
Staring at each other with drooling eyes
Hours and hours-to end in a minute of …
Beyond the strain of wind against the roof,
The hum of music
Alternating notes of highs and lows
Like the charade of dancing firs
Whirling in ghostly overtones
The friction of two trunks carousing in some note between
Viola and blatant Cymbals-
It’s not the wind that scares me
It’s not its ghostly rhapsody
It’s not the roof that spreads overhead
Just the hope that the roof shall blow away
And the blank sky spread-looks.
I could just lie here talking and musing
And forget the radio blaring nearby
Or the dogs howling and scampering on the veranda
I could even forget the face of Livia
Beckoning to me to cross the road to her,
Somewhat shy, somewhat demanding
And the satiation and pride
When we talk with our eyes, holding hand
I could try to forget that-just looking into the depth of my roof
This sojourn I tempting,
Here my feet are just a memory
And my head is massed crazily to fantasy,
I can consider puppeting my neighbour’s wife
Her loud graphic chats
Or debate Mesolithic art, I can profess to many works,
Or imagine the design of the sky out there
Each thought preceded by a gouache splashes
Of an imaginary gantry
Wavering in clarity depending in the will
An eclectic form borrowing from music, silence,
The wind, kids play and the groan of vehicles hurtling
by on the highway 50 metres away.

This is the road to Nsansa
Some rustic epic
Ulcered and shaven;
See the generation of shadow
Labouring to hide
Etched and smudged on sad tree barks
Or within tree pockets.
We all have pockets-see?!
Shy shadows keep in our pockets
Caricaturing sinister thoughts of the sun.
Don’t touch my pocket!
I keep murky water of the last rain
Complete with gruesome imaginations of fear
Those spindly things that sink in fear
The spiders hang waiting
Spawn swaying hopefully
And the solicitous energy of the atmosphere
All apart of one gesture
There is tranquil in my pocket like you never saw-
What lies on the bed of my lake?
Tell me, feel into the slime
Touch within my lake
Probe deep within-
Not so fast-make it slow
I can see the curiosity of your fingers
Uneasy-asking-
Imagine my hand rammed within your belly-
Exploring, examing-
What sex do you give?
The shadows here slink into battlements of scare
Their eyes gleam with lust but its all they know

This is the road to Nsansa
Where my sperm is spilt
The dust lies inert
The river swims slow
And sparrows sing on sad trees
Everything is familiar here
Except that white road
That winding length of mirage-
See it extend beyond my eyes-
Dragging along the load of my imagination
Look further-that is me over there,
Pointing water down onto the sad grass
It feels good just standing here,
Eyes closed in some reverie
Extracting some other kind of ecstasy.
Look east in the shadow of the sun
In the depth of that vista
See some glint, some wink,
It’s the eye of ‘ettala,’
Basking within some shrubbery
The river that never dries
I made love at its banks
And there lies my spilt sperm
Glistening on the outcrop rock
A macabre stain,
She could have taken it with her
But she didn’t choose to.

This is the road to Nsansa
No one goes that way
Bats harbour the sad tress
Plotting long conquests.
You don’t have to think
What it could have been like

Veiled blackness
We lost my pride,
To myself…
Or maybe to yourself
What did we do,
That I had to lean to the keel of life?

Veiled blackness
Borne of my kind
The train of my explanation
Is lost with the comfort of your accoutrements
Made-up tales, fast-lane errors, love without love,
What new relic I live up to?

Veiled blackness
My thoughts are frazzled,
Reliant on the apparition
Of your might!
Who gets to welcome us?
Who gets to lunch us?
Who gets to sleep us?
Who cares anyway?

Veiled blackness
Where do I leave you?
That I shall forever see you
As the shadow of my fraught,
The glory I lived to dream with,
The friend who told endless figment,
To keep the thoughts ethereal
Veiled blackness!