Five poems

Broadside

My words find themselves
In a coffin – in mud they flower
Like a lotus without an ego

I educe furtive patience
Through tolerable effigies
Put elbow grease into it

Like a furrier or impala
These concessions are donors
Of instrumental organs

Like a locked junction box
Impervious, doomed empires
Room here – in the jugular

I touch your maxillae – your
Golden skull cap with my tools
Spy this mattock in hand

As I fiercely nail this tooth
To my father’s namesake for
The keys to the nascent idea

Recant this rule – engage
The physique of narcissism,
Piccaninnies, jonquils on

A slope, the sky rufous
Narcosis takes a rum flight –
The galloping sea breeze

Salt in caves of mouths
Feels like a webbed pellicle
Doing a slap-bang runner

In rush hour – here is
Slashed phyla on my plate
Pert sleepers no more

Letters loved and lost
There is only this wood left
To pounce on – revenge.

The end.

Evening

Winged sleet is only
Sufficient in memory
Hinted at in atlas –

On maps; geography
Down came the rain –
Housed with you in

Its grasped picture
You came dying – shut
Out undone in streams

In wet rivers of dreams
You glide, flocked, awed
Pressed unaccompanied

Once flung into flight
Your arrival immortal
I envy you – the

Stars in your eyes
Like dew – your tears
Are the tears of a

Hero exhausted
From blows – a barren
Silence in which

Nothing fertile grows –
Weeping pours out of your
Heart as if you were

Soulless; moulded you
Effortlessly – gave your
Self worth although

It aged you – you
Brought me to a home
Cradled me as if

I were nothing just
Waiting to be rescued
Waiting to be saved.

The end.

You

You –
With the dark sorrel
Hair save me?

I’ve lost you –
And I only have
Myself to blame

Bookish now –
I’m alone and sad
This boomerang

Has kept me going
For the ladders of these
Past ten or so years

It’s been a waked boon – oh
It’s been a wild ride to get my
Ego from A to Zero

Monsters have come and
Gone – grown inside of me
With legs as strong as elk

Lazarus or a Pharisee
Gems, mother-of-pearl –
I’ve roused too late

I’ve come to the thawed
End of my bloody, damned fluke –
I wish, I wish, I wish

I could take it all back brick
By brick – but every time I hit
A wall, a monsoon, a mistake

What warrant of
Success is there that you will
Break – that you will speak

This waif wails –
But can you hear her?
The gift of her voice.

The end.

Something about the life of a writer

Words flock
Onto the page –
I am left numb

Like a wadi
Any cold, wet thing
It dissolves

Subtly – unseen
Into a host of wounds,
Depression

Invalids,
Deaf mutes – the gut
Of a wind

Like tiny hands
It reaches out for me
It coos straight

From the shell
Of a heart – a
Fragmented

Wakened state
Of dreaming –
Like an infant

It is gone, gone, done
Grown up in years –
Matured, ripened

Like the brick walls
Of a house by the sun’s
Summer heat or fruit

Even the very small ones
Their welfare is pure – and
Carry a gravid weight

Wedlocked to words –
This is something of the
Life of a writer.

The end.

The poet

Loosed – this gesture comes with
Maternal pride; ceremony across
The page, they are not strangers –

Instead they comfort: even the
Savage, alien beasts – their deaths
Breasts are magical, a temple of delight.

Woman To Woman



Enjoying my sisters' love :)



I feel like it is really important that I stress that we can achieve more by working together than against each other. I was really blessed to be in an honours class [B.Sc] with the people I was placed with. From the onset we studied together and we helped each other understand the content of the work. We were not competing against each other; rather each individual was trying to surpass their personal best. I’ve often watched friendships crumble and die in some circles because people stopped working together. It’s sad.

I believe that we are all different and have been endowed with talents that are unique to each one. I think the reason for that is so that we can learn to exist in mutually beneficial associations. Clearly speaking, we need to help each other.

This is even truer if you are female like me. It seems that men and other females try to stay away from female friendships involving women because there is an understanding that all we do is work to ensure each other’s demise. How often have you seen a singular girl hang out with a bunch of men!? I’m not saying that this association is wrong but there are very few female cliques that are not riddled with secret desires to bring a member of the gang down. That is why most girly cliques have a handful of members.

I’m not advocating that you girls go out and make the circle bigger. I am advocating that you work together. Life is so much better when you don’t have to worry about a butter knife stuck between your vertebrae. Life is so full of joy when you know that your friend is really pleased with your achievements and not actually muttering a voodoo spell under her pearly whites. Life is worth living when you have people to confide in, who encourage you, laugh with you, cry with you and laugh with you.

I believe that as women we can do this. It’s inherent in our natures. What do you say?