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Between the tracks
The tourist train between the city and Ntshongweniidles at Dalbridge then glides towards Berea. Past the black plastic shelters of those who have lost their homes and their hopes. Along embankments of litter. Into long tunnels hewn through cliffs (How many people took how long, at what cost to achieve this?) The train emerges into sunshine and stops next to a waterfall, splashing into a pristine pool. At the unkempt Ntshongweni station, a bus waits to take passengers to the market. There you can buy joy, love, peace and happiness, beautifully spelled out in wooden letters, serif or sans, natural, white, grey or…
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You can forget this
I am reading two books in parallel – Reiff, In Praise of Forgetting and Rosenberg, A Brief Stop on the Road from Auschwitz. As if I could choose between remembering and forgetting, when both are inevitable and neither any longer a product of my will. A case can be made for absolutely anything. The question is always for what purpose. For what purpose should we remember or forget, or share our memories? How, if at all, and to what extent, does memory alleviate or prevent suffering? Do those in power, who repeat the history of human oppression and brutality in ever more legalistic and distant ways, have memory or amnesia…
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Smoke
Smoke rises from small fires and dissolves above the black tarpaulins along the railway line. Young men emerge, their lives worn wearily on hunched shoulders or gathered hurriedly in plastic packets as they are chased to nowhere. Hungry ghosts of lost hope. Backed against the very edge of existence. Smoke rises from the braai stands at the beach. It wafts the fatty aroma of boerewors and burnt chicken above the heads of laughing crowds. Cans, bottles, bones and boxes mark the territory. Litter as status symbol. Smoke rises from the pavement fires where vendors roast mealies. It mingles with the fumes from buses and taxis. Mixed messages rousing appetite and…
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A Coloured president
‘A Coloured President’ This is the title of a poster on a lamppost. ‘A coloured president’ K reads aloud. What is that about? It is advertising a show by comedian Carvin Goldstone. Mm well the White presidents were awful, the Black presidents aren’t turning out to be much good so maybe it is time for a Coloured president. And then an Indian, remarks S
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Drought
From the air, A collage of uniform colour Pitch black outlines of Ochre polygons An ascetic aesthetic. On the ground, Clay. Fired, baked, cracked, encrusted Exhausted, consumed, sterile. A sinister symmetry An ominous infinity.
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Why I read
My best friend loves to watch TV He’s always making fun of me Because on rainy afternoons While he is staring at cartoons I’m far away – but right next door Searching through my treasure store I have no gold but if you look You’ll see I have a precious book. It’s full of tales from long ago Once read aloud by fire glow. I sit and savour every word I look up those I’ve never heard I see the heroes and the thieves The monsters and the talking trees. The images run through my head So even when I go to bed Witches, giants and dragons leap From every…
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I’d love to be a bird but…
I’d love to be a bird – but just So I can wash myself in dust I wouldn’t want to fly all day In search of food, no time to play I sometimes wish I were a shark I could go swimming in the dark Or a huge hippo in a hollow Full of mud where I could wallow I would quite like to be a bat I’ve a very good reason for saying that It’s fun hanging upside down from trees Although it hurts the backs of my knees A crocodile’s career seems fun It can make like a log or bask in the sun But the turtle’s life…
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Heart
I trace my roots with the beat of my heartIt counts the living rings of time and not the dead wood of selective historyIt hammers remembranceOf a girl with red-gold hairWho led me hunting adders in the forest 2010 For Georgina, a New Forest gypsy, who died of pneumonia in 1973, aged 15
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Out of Context
A naked man walked carefully along the concrete barriers of the central reservation on the M4 outside Durban this searing December morning. The naked man did not glance down at the traffic on either side. He did not look up to check destination or distance. He appeared fit and calm, eyes focused on the next step. He walked steadily, southbound, away from the city. It was dispiriting to think that this young man, walking away from the grime and noise with the morning sun shining on his back, would be judged crazy, while we, in a claustrophobic queue of cars and taxis, constrained and clammy in our clothes, on our…
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Life at 10
The planet does not need us It will survive without us But we need the earth Kannon Sazi Apelgren 2015
