Hotel

ground, lift sounds Vivaldi
sliding doors slick, northern lights
smells of another life,
a world of luxury, thick carpeted,
treated behaviour
my reflection in the multi mirrors
becomes thousands
one on one
I see beyond me
a mirror marker of history
my father's sideways glance
my mothers shoulders
my sister's shadow
walking, fading into the refraction,
it seems a logical place
to momentarily kneel
and heal.

My Africa

I cannot write for Africa

my story is

a small stocking story in the winter

behind a swing light

But I can write

Of Bhuti

and Mtusi

and Patrick

of Bhuti,

looking for tracks of strangers

watching, he walks with a stick

waiting with  fire after sunset

waiting for the unwanted,

I am not alone

of Mtusi

walking to his school

not asking a lift

more dignified than a lord

smiling

of Patrick

worrying, wide eyed for us

waiting for my children to lock doors

This is my Africa

a waiting fire on a border fence

waiting for walking tracks

protectorate, unprecedented

guardians of a micro bubble

a candle and a teacup

breakers of the cloud of bone hungry

the gate keeper of the understanding

Holiday Path

Biting into a boiled egg
dipped in coarse lemon black pepper
sticks to the roof of my mouth
swallowed early in morning
roadside in the Karoo
a pebble reminder
thrown behind in a pool of water
I walk away without seeing the memory ripples

Mind Meeting

Double bubbles
in the bath
shared melting chocolate buttons
melting in the soap water
streams of dreams
strained same content
hot fevered cough syrup breath
side by side
in the long ice night
the unspoken sameness
of the little twosome

Retrospect

Running

like wild antelope

for my life

there is little time to turn around

 to look anywhere but down at the ground

When  the flight

the flight between my hands

the adrenaline worn out beating heart

has subsided

I can take a breath

and turn around

Do you see?

in the backward glance

the unfortunate foresight

of hindsight

no longer blotted by tear salt and salt sweat

I see a music box, winding out our lives

 a man walking even when it hurt

 paved out path he fought for, daily

I see a cross fire

a mistake

a broken down message

stuck in the mixed signal
seen from the other side of the past

too far below any wishing well

too far from this new,

gazing down present reflection

too deep in dark, too blurred, fixed

to look again, or change.