|
Ballad of a Soft Man
Soft man slumped
into a corner of the sky;
opaque sky, distracted by sand
and stone scraping against sun –
the broken shell of a wind
see-sawing across a glass eye.
Soft man slumped
into a corner of the sky,
leaking stray birds
and stuffing.
Bush Fire
Burned sky, black
with smoke stinging
the thin shadows of air.
– A wind that weighs
as much as everything
no longer visible.
A dog on three legs
all along the long edge
of a dark lake barking.
– Out of the black bush
a man walks, carrying
two rusted children’s bicycles.
On the Outskirts
sun’s light surrenders
old stone in a field
light worn ragged where
lip of earth turns up
stump of bone, blackened wood
blade that belongs to rusted iron
and the wind returns
red sand to the scar
stale fumes of a slaughterhouse
twisted wire fence that lets
all the outskirts in.
Hospital
A rusted drum steams on a winter morning
outside a highveld hospital.
It is early.
The corridors are cold and crowded
already with figures in blue gowns clutching
plastic bags and folded forms, small
yellow packets with tablets and prescriptions.
None of the patients look at each other.
No-one talks to each other.
There is little to say anyway
to undo the inevitable, or do except
stand and shiver, leaning together, waiting
for hope to make up its mind.
“Solitude” Retreat
the light is thin and green
beneath the shadow of the sky.
the wind and all its leaves
are slow and water-logged.
a rooster carries the dawn
far across the sun, behind the hill.
in the heart of my hand
a hole opens like blue eyes.
The Mountain
At night the mountain
is a sky, cold and blank.
The mountain is the memory
of a face departed,
washed out from the loud
drum of day, day’s hard
blade of blue. At night
the mountain is a silence
hunkered between
absence and feeling;
the swelling sound a voice
makes through the mist
of longing, the mist of
remembering. The mountain
is a sky, a memory, a silence,
a voice climbing out from
the black air.
|
