Dichotomy

Dream flutters behind a young veined eyelid
tremors
a leaf falls in relaxed zig zags
light wind arc
in another place
far
sweat drips from a chest like water
like rain in green forests

Every Night

I let it go
I let go of the waited calls
the waited words, coming homes of tomorrow
the whispers of its okay
go to bed


every night
I don't think of someone else
who holds me, who hugs me no matter what happens
with my ripped wronged wrung out heart
with my strung out our tuned out held out too long
worn torn body

Tourniquet

Be gentle on my arteries
I bear them to the drip
bleeding out my memories
bleeding out my tears
bleeding out my steps
rescue the last drops, clamps soothe
the nerves stop their shaking
they collapse.
and slowly resurrect again to pump with new life
rising again

Air

she says
that this is not the air she knows
the air she breathed
the open air breathed in by animals in the morning
she says
she doesn't know how to inhale this busy full space
I say
I used to call this the wrong air too
I went to the desert, inhaling deeply
breathing alone

Witness

A plot devised to keep the numbers quiet
one singled out, deliberately pushed against a dark wall
attesting to the facts
burning the events in a veld fire
memories rising with the burning ash

before, afer

you and I
we used to sit on the same couch
we used to laugh
I waited for you to come home
now I don't wait anymore
or want anymore
the days of incomplete are gone
the embrace is murdered.

Wheel

The tides contain themselves
rhythmic, the ferris wheel has a similar consistency
the people gaze from the arc with a new view
watching the small scuttles below them
watching the waves in slow silent motion
seeing the new waves long before the ground locked others

Post it

This is my fridge magnet
to the world
that shutters cannot shut out the morning sun
that the mist of the Atlantic
can seep into and fog the mind
the ears of a child can listen for missing beats
in a heartfelt hug
a boy can sit on a rock, playing a flute
we can all hear him
the tears we once cried for our own absences
are now the tears cried for that boy, mirrored in our self worth

Stone Soup

Forming the core
drawing down
the basil, the butternut
swirling the nutmeg
is my heart, sinking like a flavoured stock rock
into the warmth of the steaming soup

auditory, visual

When I hear her
eating her peanut butter sandwich
with a blocked nose
breathing heavily through her mouth
your face falls away in front of me
like a thousand burning teardrops

Day dreaming

In this crossword lined with fortunes, Fortuners

I put my head down

and see a singing sea

a tribal dance drummed out 

by the fireside of the Kalahari

clouds gaining grey force over the dirt