An ache
that reaches out from the very youngest that I was
to the oldest that I will ever be
A tired weariness
that no sleep will ever sate
Intuition and knowledge
no longer bear me on winged feet
Instead they are driven now by yoke and whip
As I march to a tune off kilter
Ring the bells that still can ring.
Forget your perfect offering.
There’s a crack in everything.
Thats how the light gets in.
– Leonard Cohen
It is a bloodline
we seek
to eke out out
from the tomb
to the womb
The father, the son
and another
If Allah wills.
One day you finally knew what you had to do and began
though the voices around you
kept shouting
their bad advice -
though the whole house
began to tremble
and you felt the old tug
at your ankles.
“Mend my life!”
each voice cried.
But you didn’t stop.
You knew what you had to do,
though the wind pried
with it’s stiff fingers
at the very foundations,
though their melancholy
was terrible.
It was already late enough,
and a wild night,
and the road full of fallen
branches and stones.
But little by little,
as you left their voices behind,
the stars beganto burn
through the sheets of clouds,
and there was new voice,
which you slowly
recognized as your own,
that kept you company
as you strode deeper and deeper
into the world,
determined to do
the only thing you could do -
determined to save
the only life you cold save.
- Mary Oliver
It’s always the first word that’s most intimidating
We stare each other down
myself and the blank page.
Until in the end, always in the end
He convinces me that there is nothing to write.
Defeated, I lay down my pen.
Words of golden fields on baking farmlands
Of the sleek blonde with nervous champagne laughter
Of how the Joburg night thrums through your pulse
Sit stagnant in my ink
Eventually melting away.
I say no more.
Be thankful for the first step.
In it we conquer mountains.
It’s me I struggle to find, half in a dream and mostly out of mind. Welcoming more feet through that door, holding it all back and giving away much more than before. Thinking up immature amatuer rhymes, feeling guilty about lonelier times. Soil and dough to mould my hands, ink my souls only brand. Mumbling, fumbling, stifling screams. Frowning and drowning wondering what it all means. I face you, I chase you, I ignore you for ages. I never soothe you but bruise you and you seep through my pages. I sigh, you look. I’m not proud of you yet. I sigh, you know how complicated it will get. I pick at the scab, forgetting my spite. I have things to do. I’ll wake me tonight.
‘He’s a hitter’ she said, as though she was describing a star baseball player and not her husband. Her hands shook. She became a thing of disdain.
Do I have to tell you to get out? Do I have to tell you, after 12 years and 1 child, how to find a place of safety? Can you say ‘restraining order’? I dont know if I should reiterate to you how bad he is or how stupid you are to be taking it.
I guess we all make our choices.
I read the piece in the Sunday Times as well as Kayenchantes’ and The Bloggers’. Here’s mine, only I think I have bit more to say.
