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Poetry

To Friends & Lovers
Written February 2019



Dust Bowl Dreams

Prole Issue 27
Published by Prolebooks December 2018



My dreams are full of red
no sunset hue
instead another
darker
rusting through

leads me to my mother’s carcass...


The rest of the poem can be read in Prole 27 by securing a copy of Prole's December 2018 issue through their website.


Cervo, by the sea
Written while on holiday in Liguria - April 2018
(i)
The crash and crack of mermen tridents echo-rumble
from sea soaked rock base to wind dried rim
The pleasure beach façade masks rocks
split asunder
and thundering reverberates back and forth
back and forth
A woeful war wages beneath the waves

(ii)
Mermaids have no truck with war
Weary of its toll
they sink deeper beneath the waves
in search of chasms etched with coral, coloured crystal and tranquillity


Once too they waged woeful wars
trident striking forked spike of trident
muscles flexed, faces grim
But the mournful song of the whale whispered its wisdom
And hearing the warning in the plaintiff lament
the mermaids mended their warring ways
Pseudomum

Prole Issue 16
Published by Prolebooks April 2015

One day I awoke at 47
To find I'd given birth to a young woman
She arrived near fully formed
Courtesy of Centrepoint

All eyes
And latent potential

itching to crawl out of her skin...



The rest of the poem can be read in Prole 16  in the Poetry Library on the Southbank or by securing a copy of Prole's April 2015 issue through their website.
Ek is kleurling/I am coloured

Voices from the Web
Published by UKA Authors 2007







Displaced
That is me
A child of many parts
Not wholly one or the other

Detached
So separate
So apart
That is me

Longing for some sense
Of identity
Some small belonging part

Outside the kraal
On the edge of the prayer mat
At the postern gate of the castle
With my finger firmly stuck in the dyke

So I folded this mixture
I stiffened the dough
Added a foreign cultural yeast
And out of this
I rose
Some strange mangled creature
Who lives beyond and never within

So I run back to you
My island of exile
For you do not question my status
My birth or my creed
You leave me to huddle
And lick at my wounds
You leave me to ponder
And wonder my worth




Nkosi Sikelel’ iAfrika/God Bless Africa

Secret Attic
Published by SecretAttic.com 2007




There’s a gun safe at the casino
And an oasis on the highway

Homes are bricks and mortar cages
With windows welded shut
Lives are soap operas of relationship mayhem
With extra added violence
People whisper words I thought forgotten
Bitter words still tinged with hate

Paranoid and frightened
They hasten from perceived danger
Inside the locked shells
Of their speeding cars
Escaping a carjack at the lights
They race to meet the reaper

Tucked behind grills of steel
They protect their homes from predators
Sealing themselves in
Shutting the world out
They decorate their walls
With armed response badges
And ice the fences with razor wire

Some wear blinkers
Others blindfolds
Some clasp their hands in prayer
Waiting for a God to answer every plea
Others dull the senses
In a wreath of comforting
Mind altering smoke
Or pinpricks of amnesia

And the children of Apartheid watch
And wait
For the better future
They were promised
Growing older
Waiting still

There’s a gun safe at the casino
And an oasis on the highway.



In This Life

In This Life
Published by
United Press Ltd 2004








In the womb you are a gentle question mark curl,
Serene in your promise of the future.
Whether you be sought or not,
You are tomorrow and tomorrows after.
You embody the star we all strive to reach
When we first learn what it is to dream.

You are the child we all carry
And choose to nurture or neglect.

You are the sorrows in our errors
And the delights when we win through.

In this life of longing
And the ongoing search for belonging,
You are the bitter-sweet lifelong scar,
The core of who we are;
The essence which asks the question
How far to the next star?

* this text has been edited since it was first published

Someday

Bright Voices
Published by
United Press Ltd 2003

 


Someday I will sing
Myself free
The notes will be loud
But only to me

Someday I will dance
Myself home
The steps will be wild
And I will roam

Someday I will laugh
Myself free
The jokes will be silent
To all except me



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