Constant craving
“The purpose of literature is to turn blood into ink.”
T.S. Eliot
The fragrance of the wildflowers listens to my heart
How eloquent are the wounds of the bored skulls
The first woman was the Amazon rainforest
Her husband, the firm bones of the Nile
Sun, lover of portraits of solitude
Moon, the awakening of sight
The Kingdoms of sadness
On the other side of the threshold, Switzerland
Insomnia, the cool paws of a kitten
On the vessel of my body
Silke Heiss
Chris Abani
Petya Dubarova
Adiela Akoo
Leonard Cohen
Kwame Dawes
David Ishaya Osu
Tuoyo Palmer
Their poems, spells,
their religions like prayer and hymns in the roses
leaving me with the vision of Jung in my hands
Love, don’t bury it
Don’t conceal it, don’t hide it
Yes, everything is spiritual
The breeze chants and chants and chants
I keep meeting the same people, and I have
realised, that there is repair in letting go
Blackest sadness, today you made me smile
Even though it was cold
And I did not have gloves for my hands
Branches crack through the air
The storm, the stone, the prophet approaches
The moths do a kind of ballet.
Reading WhatsApp texts from the Nigerian poet, Tuoyo Palmer
The sea of my childhood
Softened each blow of my mother’s
Spiritual erosion
My bitterness is also my joy
Little earthquakes, their instincts, seismic
People have left me in hard times
Have they left you in hard times?
At night-time, the feverish trees outside my window listened
To my soundless weeping
The flame of the candle, a silent witness
It was my mother who took me to the psychiatrist
When I was sixteen years old
This is my ministry
The flowers, the garden, my father resting
Knitting this scarf
And then God spoke
And then the answers came,
It will keep you going. Your dreams will be believed
For you. It is a feeling. This is for you. You are
A human being. There was no difference between
Your ignorance, and the man’s who was briefly in your life
It makes sense now: the history of Coloured people
The lack of mother love, my brother’s drug addiction
And withdrawal symptoms, the neglect by my father
And the abandonment issues, the stigma and the negativity,
The sense of alienation and longing to belong
To the church, to the broader community, to society,
To maternal and paternal families.
Rejection was an invitation,
And I thank God that it makes sense now.
I mean, everything does.
I am turning into my mother, into my father,
every youth of the northern areas, every youth
at my father’s school, Rilke’s long-suffering wife,
Rilke’s ministry, also aloes from Bethelsdorp.
Daybreak,
dawning,
those who work night shift yawning,
Korsten,
Schauderville,
Timothy Valley,
Barcelona,
Sanctor,
Bloemendal.
I am turning
into the sky above
the northern areas,
school gardens, libraries.
The books
found in those
libraries
have osteoporosis.
The learners are not allowed to remove them from the school property
Or take them out to read.
I read
the poems of Rustum Kozain
and Joseph Fasano.
Poets are physicians too.
Tyler Perry was right, you can’t be angry with the people
who forced you into your dream.
I won’t.
Not anymore.