Falling into Presence

My nostalgia is not obsessive

There is a tourniquet to stop the bleeding memory

It will survive, it has its own pitiless integrity 

We will meet at last on the ridge of the jackals

A lonely  place,

west sun setting space lamentation

From the deep aqua subconsciousness
I slowly wake, swimming to reality for air
My head breaks the surface and gasping
I am back in the here and now
Sunday afternoon distant traffic, slow bird calls.

But the dreams stay for a while in the skin of my forehead
Still sketched, beckoning revisiting
Before they fade too soon.

emotional textures

Hindsight is the mosquito in the night bedroom
causing sleeplessness with the high pitched ringing
continuous, unflinching
the percolating thoughts of acid reflection
who we are, who we thought we were
my face was never a mirror to you
I had less strain, more poetic thoughts
less to remember
I had the other worldly visions of the Mediterranean
the high street of Edinburgh in icy rain
to sweep away my pain
I had high fences, easier neighbours
a tired mind, a fire burnt mind
but equally lighter visions to balance the scales
belly laughter on a lawn in summer
the birth of children to silence the voices, the haunting
ultimately I was made of a different harder material
with an ability to push away the entitled sick darkness
but you with your young kind heart
wanted to save the world.

Caves

a pusling hot
parched dry
three o clock silence
rock caves, a respite
in the baking riverbed,
thick with flies
smoking sand
nothing stirs
not even a welcome breeze guest visits
they pull themselves onto the rocks in the caves
lost in the rock face, their red water bottles betray their camouflage
like the kudus resting from the sun.

Nostalgia veneer

A past edited of events
gaping holes of tears
erased, denied, forgotten
a rock was thrown into my life lake
years and years ago
for some dark, indiscreet, sinister reason
the ripples quietly continued
across time and age
for years and years
ripples of confusion, long insomniac nights
double messages
resentment
the light now comes in,
some perfect subequatorial light,
ignoring the long dark concentric ripples, gaining size
moving across my life lake, endlessly, relentlessly.

the meeting ends

It was just a day
Starting with burnt toast
A darkening afternoon, humid
Buses drove their routes
Commuters headed to work
After a sun drenched holiday
At midday I shook with goose bumps in the sun
Uncannily, I heard something
Only a backfiring car
But it seemed further and louder
And more significant.


At that moment,
In a cold rain swept city
the court jesters
Courting eviction from their tribes
Pushing the status quo
Drawing up images of truth masked in satire smiles
The shamens, the exposers
The makers of the uncomfortable,
Non conformers, thinkers
Sat together planning more
Shot down collectively
they died in that room
A shared joke died in that moment
No one left to witness the laughter
The truth
History lost a deeper understanding
A calling out flock of sentinel birds
In that room.

The floating night

She cannot sleep
Her shadow waits for me at the side of the bed
in the long nights
She says the wind is too loud
she can hear crying,
another young child
from further back in history
long ago another child could not sleep here
she was fearful of the night
she still cries in this child's mind
on windy nights, her cries become stronger
in the long dark nights.

Longing for St Francis

It was a song title
for my small guitar playing hands in December
a seasonal fire of the mind ignites
that longing, years later
far beyond reckoning, adult reasoning
logic abandons, late in the night
certain stoic images remain solidified
tide gathering towards our rock pool house, later afternoon
the morning light shattering the sea in diamonds
Tropitone oil for dark skin leaking onto towels,
 imprinted permanently with the holiday scent

Christmas cake sitting in the heat, signature of that house
Humansdorp Home Industry shop, dusty ferns, the quiet cashier
the delight of choosing homemade shortbread with that small line of pink icing
we buys bagfuls, the parents buy rusks
picnics up the Kromme river, jumping off the boat,
and delights of vetkoek with cheese and jam,
all these moments, fragranced, stayed


The view of that bay,
 the boats lit at night like upside down stars on the water
but one best beloved scent alludes me
it abandoned me when we left that place
I wake up sweating, confused, crying
whispering to myself
I have forgotten the smell of fynbos.