Human Curtain

I have drawn a veil over the last year
where the sun felt oppressive
a constant unknown skull pressure

I have done this before
I drew a cloth across the nights
at the hospitals
I was blinking, confused
like a bat in the daylight
still in school uniform
the spectator
the keep yourself together big sister
I drew out
across
Milpark, across Tara
and then when medical aids ran dry
in the lost blood
I blocked out the General Casualty
a confusing numbing
the older sister fighting
unseen, to keep her best friend alive
except she didn't know how

I have tried to draw this veil
veils and facecloths have holes
too exposed
I should have made blackouts
putting out the light
that light of the wards
that will never burn out now.

Titanium

stronger than lead
bullet proof
no sound
no pain
sea resistant
not as dense as the people


let me stay here
without the firing
the falling


here
I am stronger than gold
let me stay
there will be no holes
no downfall

here

I am a  titanium
lead, proofed
proven

don't take me away
shoulder free from shotgun

let me stay
breath inhibiting
plea
stronger than gold

Four Walls

A long time ago
we longed for a little flat of our own
no more war
and living breathing dynamics
too large and misunderstood for four walls
they spread their lack of innocence into our skins

As time passed
you left
I still looked for that place
without much luck
words kept me safe
people let us down
judgement everywhere

I thought it would last forever
every person I loved
had a sense of looking at me with something more sinister
behind a smile

I found a place
the place we dreamed of
there is a golden light here
no one
just me and my children
they know I am not a princess mummy
but they love anyway
and every day
we wake up to a house with only real laughter
those crossed eyed gut sucking dynamics
the history prison four walls have finally broken down
are gone, banished into the past.

Ashlee world

I have a house full of fairies
in the garden,
I helped to clean it
I fought off the boy fairies with a sword
like a muskateer
all for one
and one for all
like me and Natty
always together

Natty world

Hold on....sshhhh
gotcha
what am I doing?
catching Tinkerbell
she's in my hands
in my world
Only I can set her free

The Child (from Ingrid Jonker)

I want to be the child in these poems

I want to sit with a straw hat and a basket

But my maps are drawn with too many lines

hearts lost in tossed water

knocking are the people

a small boy beaten, playing in the wind

an older boy, coughing

needing to get a school registration

my own children needing

Clinging, unlike the farm dust
too stubborn to scrub away in a rusted bath after sunset

Finding myself  lost

I see the pictures on the old walls

the middle earth, peacefully hanging alone

the gemsbok safe in the wind

But the path I walk

is too full of this trail of followers


Perhaps, the find a cleared vision

is to see them all

most likely unchanged,

waking, walking

after a brief hand held out.

Play

Make believe there is only you

what would you do?

I would play the piano again

I would make everything simple

Would you also want to keep all those

things away

when you play 

pretend to be beyond

what the hours shake back and forth

Only me

in a pretend improvement box

There would be grass fields

leading to a lighthouse

a self designed journey to a self faithful place

a light on an ocean 

hearing only the grass

the curtain falls on the dollhouse dream