Keith Gottschalk
IN THE GARDEN OF INDIA'S HIGH COMMISSION
sweep of lawn, processional of protocol & saris
journalists, vice-chancellors, mahogany row,
diplomats & diaspora at durbar for Republic Day -
Jay, Kader, Ebrahim & wives
hear the twin flags, watch anthems flutter
this red carpet is qibla to Qawali
such aberration: scores of guests
less eager for snacks than for Aslam Sabri;
they stream past the bottles to drink the music
here the lawn is bannistered by saffron cannas
beyond, catching the glitter of a setting sun
a small bamboo forest & secret stream
Geoffrey Haresnape
Lionel Lines, my fellow fine
Can you cap this rhyme of mine?
Yes, good sir, and so I can
As well as any arty-san.
See it swivelled. Hear it rapped:
And now, good sir, your rhyme is capped.
Geoffrey Haresnape
WHITE COLLAR MISDEMEANOURS
Staff List
HEY - Herbert
Edward Younge, Line Manager
CAT-
Cetshwayo Andrew Tomelo, Marketing Officer
COW-
Connie Olivia Waterhouse, Senior Secretary
DOG-
Desmond `On-the-Ball' Gresham, `New Blood' Appointee
HEY did a diddle;
CAT worked a fiddle;
COW was over the moon.
Little DOG laughed
To think of the sport
When her dish ran away
With his
spoon.
Geoffrey Haresnape
From THE SHAKESPEARE MOTHER GOOSE
RICHARD III
Tricky-Ricky, Dick-the-Dandy
With huge humped back and both legs bandy:
He got the realm by guile and force-
And then would sell it for a horse.
[`Handy-Spandy']
TROILUS AND CRESSIDA
I had a little lover who often left me numb;
He was a groaning Trojan who would hardly ever come.
I gave him my garter and a single crimson rose-
Then jumped the wall to practise what my Greek stud chose.
[`I had a little
husband']
KING LEAR
Old King Lear said, `Come over here.
`I'm dividing my realm,' said he.
He called for his map and he called for his Fool,
And he called for his daughters three.
`What can you tell me to win lots of land?'
He asked in his vanity.
Daughter One had a very fine story,
And a very fine story had she.
`But I love you more,' said Daughter Two,
And `Nothing' said Daughter Three.
Oh, only a Fool would enter there,
With King Lear and his family.
[`Old King
Cole']
JULIUS CAESAR
X Roman soldiers in a battle line
One tripped on his spear, and then there were nine.
IX Roman soldiers staying up late
One drifted off to sleep, and then there were eight.
VIII Roman soldiers wished they were in heaven;
The augurs damned one, then there were seven.
VII Roman soldiers playing strategic tricks;
A catapult shot one, and then there were six.
VI Roman soldiers, well fed and alive
Till one ate poisoned food, and then there were five.
V Roman soldiers battering on a door;
One was crushed beneath the ram, and then there were four.
IV Roman soldiers stepping out so free,
One was slung up in a net, and then there three.
III Roman soldiers to their Legion true,
One absconded with the Flag, and then there were two.
II Roman soldiers crossed the Rubicon,
One drowned in the stream, and then there was one.
I Roman soldier living all alone:
He broke his heart when Caesar died, and then there were
NONE
[`Ten little injuns']
TWELFTH NIGHT
One silken, sunny morning
When cloudless was the weather,
I chanced to meet a serious man
Cross-gartered with bright yellow.
He began to force a smile
And I began to grin
To think a perfect Puritan
Should lose his sense of sin.
[`One misty, moisty
morning']
CORIOLANUS
Win-a-war, win-a-war,
soldier man,
Win mom a war as fast
as you can.
Plan it, and push it,
and fight savagely.
Then come home
Victorious to Rome and to me.
[`Pat-a-cake,
pat-a-cake']
MACBETH
It's raining, it's pouring,
The old king's not snoring.
He got into bed
And was found dead
When they went to him in
The morning.
[It's raining, it's
pouring']
HENRY VIII
Henry From-the-fenry, dragonish and sly,
Stopped kissing his Queen and made her cry.
When the Lady-in-Waiting came out to play,
Henry From-the-fenry ran her way.
[`Georgie
Porgie']
HENRY IV, pts 1 & 2
Fat Jack Falstaff's stories were tall,
Fat Jack - like his Staff - had a great fall.
All the King's glory that Hal had gained then
Would not put his Fat Jack on his Falstaff again.
[`Humpty
Dumpty']
Peter Horn
The sun is rectangular
for Antje Krog
Beer soup produces a certain character,
or stinging nettles as cheap spinach.
Maybe that’s the reason why I
mistrust people in BMWs
and regular guys with bulges
under their armpits.
On the steps my son sat
with his father’s face in his hands
covered in blood, and he cried:
„Daddy, talk to me!”
The production of literature
is an obsessional neurosis
of poets who sometimes break their neck
contemplating the astonishing discovery
that the sun is rectangular
a slit between two snow clouds.
Cut-off hands floating in ether
ears nailed as trophies against the wall
bodies held by their ankles
floating three stories above the cement
in the court yard: and they play
catch me my foot.
Sometimes you scream
because you cannot stand reality any longer
and then you sit down and vomit your anger
onto clean sheets of white paper.
No poetry should come forth from this.
May my hand fall off if I write this.*
The passages in italics are quotes from Antjie Krog's Country
of my Skull
Peter Horn
Praise song to our creator
In the name of him who donates
hours and days, let us praise the ruin
of this world we live in
the scree of bombed shopfronts
where we stumble over broken glass
with the warped backs of those
who have worked all their lives
the grey gobs and the wrinkles
of the prematurely aged
as we enter our live’s golden evening
blessed with the riches
of AIDS rags pestilence
with the stolen carts from Pick ‘n Pay
full of old paper or rusting metal
and at night in a waste pipe
covered by flimsy newspapers
we sing a song of praises to the god
who provides the bread and the mielies
sometimes - murmuring curses under our breath
Peter Horn
Elegy in July
The recurring national celebrations
find me in search of a mythical animal.
Waiting at a red robot
I change into a fish or a wolf.
I have forgotten
how to choose an adjective
for this cold winter’s day
this serenity without reason.
It is as if we have come
to the end of our imagination
returning to the simple meanings
of sun and salt, bed and bread
My hope turns towards sand
I will walk across the dune
towards a sunset at sea
burning in an impossible grammar.
Peter Horn
Afternoon at the pool
The afternoon opens the surface of the pool,
green, stinking, slimy: the gelatinous strings
of frogs’ eggs fill the water between the grass.
The carmesine bee-eaters streak over the surface
hunting dragon flies and angry cicadas
clash the cymbals of their legs against the rock.
A broad avenue of light runs across the water
towards my waiting eyes: unbearable brilliance
of wavelets circling for ever the fin of a fish.
My brain is a prism which discovers the colours
in the eternal whiteness of the summer sun
and the colourless vibration of photons in the air.
Peter Horn
Summer thoughts
The rain in Cape Town
has a short memory:
two days later
the sand is drifting
across our lawn.
Voices which speak,
voices which are silent.
A human body
burning.
Today the faces of the people
crossing the street
seemed fractured.
*
A face disowned at lunchtime:
never seen it before,
no rooster crowing,
not in the middle of the CBD,
and the bay in the summer sun
whipped by a South Easter.
*
The trace of a thought -
yesterday encapsulated in four words.
Somebody lifts a stone,
the stone spreads silence.
He lifts the stone,
while another signals
with the sun shining on the blade
of his knife: the light is blinding.
It fell not far from where I stood.
*
The anger machine
has been turned on:
bombs explode randomly.
The stubborn tongue
is drunk: there are bodies
in the wheelbarrow.
*
The sunfish ambles along the coast,
flat and huge with a tiny mouth.
The hour-glass needs to be turned over:
for a new hour in our lives.
The rosy blood washes the streets,
I am uncertain,
friends land up in Valkenberg,
others are talking about going away
all the time - this town has become
uninhabitable, they say.
Others move around
using white sticks,
although I know they are not blind.
But it seems the sun’s glare
forces them to wear black spectacles
through which they cannot see anything.
*
Uniforms multiply in our streets,
machine guns can be seen everywhere.
Otherwise the Cape looks idyllic
with its courageous flower beds
and the promenade
in Sea Point.
The broken bottles on top of the walls
are carefully hidden
amongst the leaves
of semi-tropical trees.
*
Maybe it will rain some time,
and the wind will abate.
Peter Horn
Ramblings
You open a door,
you introduce yourself.
Nobody wanted you here.
You want to say something,
you want to speak into a microphone,
or you just want to make conversation:
Yesterday the Pound cost
more than ten Rand.
That will change, perhaps.
Or: the true definition of poetry,
the colour variations in geraniums,
some wisdom of my grandmother,
or the value of brushing your teeth.
One of the gardeners said:
Wurms are quite useful.
It is really a beautiful peppermint
summer: everyone is quite relaxed
with a gun under the armpit.
Oh, today is a wonderful day!
No tree has ever killed another,
I want to say, but then I remember
the strangler figs in Natal.
The retrograde face of my watch
tells me, it is time to go backwards
but I never arrive in the past.
Admittedly the number of burials
has increased over the last four years,
and the photographers
hurry from one grave-yard to another.
But nobody wants to hear
this all too familiar story. Therefore:
I don't want to leave this unsaid:
The men in black around the graveside.
The word still life engraved
on a marble plate,
tin drums and brass instruments
added to the air of déja vu.
The guy who prepared the braaivleis said:
What else is new?
The name of familiar objects
is outside: Words vaporize
on the hot coals of the grill.
The simplicity of sentences
which you can utter
sitting next to a swimming pool
is always surprising.
All sentences are equal.
Their syntax is not beyond
a four-year old.
The summer is empty,
It tastes like a strawberry.
So we disperse and we carry with us
the unnamable and unspeakable.
Peter Horn
Walk into the Jurassic
Starting behind the house
cross the overgrown brook
and turn left under the wild cherry tree
towards the forest.
The silver viper with the cross
between its horns
disappears in the green leaves
of the brambles.
The red princess
flicking her bushy tail
allows her whelps to tumble
in front of the burrow.
Nobody I know
has ever seen the badger
who lives in a burrow
under a firtree
at the edge of the forest.
But I did
as I turned
into the quarry
stumbling over a two foot ammonite.
And the silence of noon
whirred
through the lifeless grass.
Peter Horn
Space and time have left us
The wind has talked to me in fevers
for fourty days: don't listen to me.
It is a voice which I have known
for years: Let's have a joint!
And in the smoke of mountains burning
trees and tinder dry leaves
I see a face: bloodless and six years old
shot dead by mistake
in Manenberg.
Seven-Eleven plastic bags
are sailing high on cocain
consorting with pied crows
then settle in a corner
choking the roots of a tree.
Last week's news half buried in the sand
decypher soccer victories
and fraud: policemen walking
through the crowd with loads of cash
stashed in their shoes.
Laughter has dried up
before the sun has reached the zenith.
The siren of the wind has died down
the sand has settled
at the bottom of the swimming pool
and straw is drifting through the mirror
of a pale blue sky.
Peter Horn
Ethnic Cleansing 1945
(Contemplating the Kosovo refugees)
1
At the border
They stopped the friendly
Russian soldier's truck
Who had given us a lift
And ordered us down
They took away everything
Except the wooden cart
With the hidden five mark silver coins
And my father's grand coat
Stuffed with several pounds of cigarette tobacco
The only legal tender in those times
Thus we walked down the mountain
Towards Dresden
While my mother
In the cab of another Russian truck
Sped to the North
Uncertain about our fate
With my two brothers next to her
And the baby pram
With what remained of our possessions
Behind her
2
The town was a mere skeleton
Ruins for many kilometers
I took one step at a time
Exhausted
Hungry
Somewhere here
My two cousins
Had suffocated
In the fire storm
3
It was a summery June
As we made our way across Saxony
One hundred sixty kilometres on foot
Through the foothills of the mountain
Along side roads
Lined with poplars
To escape the roadblocks
Of the Russian army.
4
One night we forded the river
At a place a peasant had shown us
While on the road on the embankment
The Russian tanks
Guarded the incipient Iron Curtain
As my father carried me through
The water which reached to his breast
Shots were fired
And he dived with me below the surface
5
As we walked
Into the West
An American GI
Gave me and my brothers
The first chocolate
We had tasted for years
6
Refugee camps
Are the same
Everywhere
In the world
You try to get out of them
As quickly as possible
7
Driving through the night
On a coal tender
Right behind the locomotive
My mother and father
Held on to us and the pram
So that we would not slip
Off the coal into the blackness
Of the night
8
At midnight we arrived
In a little town in Bavaria
The houses around the station
Were in ruins.
We slept in the waiting room
And in the morning made our way
To a village where my father
Looked for the family of one of his friends
9
But when was that?
Can I trust my ears
When I tell myself stories like this?
Peter Horn
Johann Wolfgang Goethe 1749-1832
Poor Johann Wolfgang
they wanted to lay you
in a glass coffin
like Stalin
one hundred forty years
after you died
saying "more light"
if the tradition
is to be trusted.
Fortunately
your remains
were too fragile
to consider mummification.
The remaining tissue
was cremated
your skeleton
65.6 inches long
enclosed in foam.
Inside the skull
was only dust.
Peter Horn
I do not dream
at midnight
the old woman has no face
her bones are like dried flowers
in her naked skull
her eyes are pebbles
from the sea shore
glittering
in the faint moon light
between her teeth
she carries a coin
from a dream
I have never dreamt
please pull the nails from my hands
and take me down from the mast
where I am hanging head down
where I am sjamboked
where I shout vivas
where I sail to hell
upside down
the sky has sunk below the sea
rain has been drawn over the moon
in the country's deepest sleep
I gather my words
while the beds are listing
and taking on water
everywhere now
this black wind
howling in the sails
voyage to nowhere
in the ciphers of the night
Peter Horn
desert transit
stones roll down
the mountain side
salt crystals grow
on every surface
we have arrived
at last
our eyes
have never seen a river
that was so dry
on its bank
are assembled
those who had known us
in the past
they have turned their backs on us now
they show a disconcerting
lack of feeling
they are neither living
nor dead
dreams look at us
as we look at them
all sounds have died
it is a long time ago
that we heard the last scream
the wind has died down
the sparrows have left
ashen faces
wherever you look
Peter Horn
Reply to An Equal Opportunity/Affirmative
Action Employer
Pre-Employment Survey
I do not have a Social Security #
I would prefer not to provide the following information:
I am a man
at least I think so
I do have the requisite
genitals in reasonable working order
considering my age
and I could undress
to prove it to you
but when I was young
my mother said
boys don't cry
and so maybe I wasn't a boy
or not really a boy
and: I never played
rugby or cricket
so I never was one of the manne
and I have to confess
to writing poetry
and being interested
in expressionist art
but I am not a woman either
mainly because I lack
the rounded breasts
which characterise
women in TV advertisements
I am not a Special Disabled Veteran
nor a Vietnam Era Veteran
there is nothing wrong with my sight
and for my age I am still quite mobile
I have no psychological disability
I know of
except that questionaires
make me seriously depressed
my hearing still functions
without a hearing aid
I do not wear spectacles
and I have no learning disability
my only speech defect is
that I occasionally speak in rhymes
and riddles
despite the fact
that as children we used to dress up as Indians
and "culturally identified" with them
I was never granted community recognition
for my tribal affiliatian and thus
I cannot claim to be an American Indian
or Alaskan Native
The Golden Horde of Genghis Khan
penetrated central Europe
in the long distant past
and rushed through the district
where my forebears eked out a living
it is therefore not entirely impossible
that I have an ancestor
from the Russian steppes
although that does not count
and as far as I know
I am not related to the original peoples
of the Far East,
Southeast Asia, Samoa
the Indian Subcontinent,
or the Pacific Islands
Japan, Korea, the Philippine Islands,
except so far back in prehistory
that none of us can remember
I am not related to Pinochet
nor to any member
of the military juntas of South America
but even if I came from Spain
which I do not
I would not be a Hispanic
because a Hispanic is a person of
Mexican, Puerto Rican, Cuban,
Central or South American culture or origin
or he is an "other Spanish"
as long as he does not come from Spain
and as long as he is not an American Indian
or classified Black
regardless of race, culture or creed
I am currently an inhabitant of Africa
and it is thought that the human race
originated in Africa
but that does not make me an African
nor can I be said to be black
not even coffee or toffee brown or yellowish
because my skin colour is
a kind of pinkish-grey
not dark enough to qualify
except when I suffer from sunburn
and I do not originate in any
of the black racial groups of Africa
I was not even classified
as Cape Coloured,
Cape Malay
Griqua,
Chinese
Indian
"Hottentot"
"Bushman"
or Other Asiatic
or Other Coloured
by the Apartheid regime
I know of no Coloured ancestors
my natural parents have both been classified white
none of my children have crinkly hair
or a darker face
I do not have dark half-moons
under my finger nails
and I would pass the pencil test without a problem
I am generally accepted as white
in the place where I am ordinarily resident
my appearance qualifies me to be classified as white
although the way I speak might throw some doubt
on this assumption
so I assume that I am white
not of Hispanic origin
not even of Spanish origin
nor of North African origin
nor am I an Arab
whose "whiteness" is questionable, because
the Arabs were classified
as Other Coloureds
but a descendant of the more or less
original people of Europe
although their origin
has not been scientifically established
beyond doubt
except that they most probably come
from the steppes of South East Russia
and Siberia
and must therefore be presumed
to be "Other Asiatics"
I therefore do not belong to any of the
visible minorities
but to the invisible minority
of those with fewer mental disabilities
than the majority
Note to the unsuspecting reader:
The subtext of this poem is:
1. Pre-Employment Survey - Emory University, Atlanta (USA)
2. Population Registration Amendment Act, No. 64 of 1967 (RSA)
Thanks are due to Keith Gottschalk who is, however, not
responsible for any
opinion expressed or not expressed in this text.
Michael Leon Kantey
FOR ANN
Maybe I should write a song
about the ambient streetlight
filtered through the frosted glass
of the bathroom
falling
on your naked body
Michael Leon Kantey
On Claremont Station
On Claremont station with his back to the mountain
An old man
feeding birds
Where lovers walk arm in arm
An old man
feeding birds
And gangsters stroll with menacing look
An old man
feeding birds
Billboards smile with serried teeth
An old man
feeding birds
Headlines scream of civil war
An old man
feeding birds
Tempers snap
An old man
feeding birds
Gunshots crackle
An old man
feeding birds
Soda pop
An old man
feeding birds
Michael Leon Kantey
FOR ANN (AGAIN)
From faraway distant places I bring you
a treasure chest of drawers
The top drawer is full
of lilac-breasted rollers
shifting colours on the borders of Angola
The second drawer is full
of miniature carmine seashells
on the untrodden shores of Kasouga
The third drawer is full
of flapping emerald shutters
among the terracotta roofs of Tuscany
But the bottom drawer,
where most poems like these lie sleeping,
is full of crumpled snapshots
of you
at home.
Rustum Kozain
'Journey into the Interior'
There is too much democracy in art
too many slogans. Too many witticisms,
too few mind-altering drugs,
no funk. There is no solitude
in art. Rhythms invent themselves.
There is a faithless monotone,
no bananas. There are too many drives
to speak, that do not falter
mid-sentence; too much virtual cant
that seeks its own magic spider-web.
There are too many nodes
to this machine, too many
adjectives and adverbs
in this machine. This machine
is an old machine. I don't want
Rustum Kozain
Zafaran
You keep bottles of water, as your
mother does; left over
from that boiled for coffee, water
cooled and poured into bottles stripped
of their labels, innocent of gin and whisky.
Water to slake your thirst
through sleep
and through the many languages you speak.
Like a shoal of barbel, time swims
back and forth, cris-crossing
the walls of your room. Your bed
the bed of the Zambezi.
River-bed. 'Flodleje' in your language
you kindle to a soft glow
like the two small candles you give me
cupped in your palms.
In this city of my birth
I am a traveller in a strange land.
Next to your bed I unload
my mountain
of saffron.
River-bed. 'Flodleje' I coax from myself
over and over as from strands of saffron
we weave a mat, walls, more words.
The djinn leaves its house in the white
of the candle flame. And visits us.
Rice. I pinch
at the wall, draw seven strands of saffron.
A teaspoon of boiled water
and Spain too is free.
The words Isabel my friend sent
along
with the spice rise bright orange. I have these
few:
'Poeta' she calls me. 'Mira', I say
to you, look at the rice. Smell. Muy Bueno.
River-bed. We fish for time, seine it in
in shoals. Clean it. Salt it.
So with cumin we travel.
And coriander.
And I render my mother's unlearned kitchen,
show you how saffron consoles
in love's absence, colours rice, animates
the mouth.
You show me how water in a clear bottle
magnifies
the red stigmas of words;
how candle light
seen through a green bottle
is the sun
seen through water
from the river-bed
Mlamli Maneli
Pretty You
then I said if I was this
beautiful, pretty like you
I would not know that your
nose was thick and shapeless.
but then If you were humble like
me, you would not tell my sister
was dumb and dull.
that is if I was nice and slender
like you, pretty you, I would not
know if bulimia and anorexia
had one thing in common.
am I silent or still
great grand child of
a Zebra.
Mlamli Maneli
DARK AND LOVELY
Dreams and rude awakening
Are kissing cousins in quotes.
Reach out and save my soul, for
Kindness and humility are one.
I am a student of thinking process
You are the teacher my soul.
Teach me how to forget to think
And I will be newly baptised.
The meaning is known to me
But the means you command.
If the sky be the limit, then
You have the keys I say.
Life itself is a song darling, and
Our fateful faith is eternal.
Virility is my virtue my mistress.
End is near for ego and vanity princess,
Let my imagination
Yields.
Mlamli Maneli
She is not too short for your eyes
Not too dark in complexion
No not if you want to ignore it
Because she still think she is.
Isn't that Lovely Tema?
She sure is beautiful
Cause she writes with a voice
Smile with her eyes and you will never
loose sight of her vivid image cause she
is cute upstairs.
This is a last stanza my
African Queen. Come on
Walk tall girl, Show some
little respect and you be crowned.
Can I take a closer look?
Mlamli Maneli
IN THE BRINK
Poeple and art are one
disguised as poetry.
I cannot tell lies between
The truth and my silence.
I cannot speak of my own
Writing for every picture
Tells the story.
Pen and paper betrayed
by computer read poetry
Black and white like Zebra
In between your eyes lies
The truth.
You touch it you feel it,
It is there in your finger
Tips say bloody ink.
Count the words.
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