He Said // She Said by Kobus Moolman
He Said // She Said is Kobus Moolman’s 10th collection of poetry. Although he presents the poems in varying forms, from prose poem to conversation format to lists, the style is characteristically sparse.
The Celestial Spirit People of the Namib Desert
I saw my brother today. After two hundred and twenty two years I saw my brother’s skull in the basement of a German museum. Wedged between thousands of stolen African artefacts, I know the shape of my brother’s skull. Inside the cranium of my brother’s skull is a thin layer of gold.
Poetry
Pre World War One Medical Textbook
In the pre World War One medical textbook
on women’s bodies, it warns
against going out too often
in the first year of marriage,
and too much fun, God forbid,
it can lead infertility,
Poetry
Ingoma Yeengoma
Luhambo olusingise emfazweni. Lugcotywe ngamachaphaza egazi. Ilanga liqubudile libimbilizwa sisiphelo. Le yingoma yemvuselelo.Usapho luhlutshezelwa ukunyuka intaba.
Ukuthwetyulwa kukaAyanda
UAyanda useGwadana
amagqwirh’ amnquml’ ulwimi
uya kuba likhoboka
ubomi bakhe bonke.
Bombyx mori
In spring, after school, I caught a glimpse
Of the perforated shoebox in the pantry—
That year’s silkworms,
Little French manicure tips,
Wrinkly and white, firm and squirming
Below the lid.
Prose
Tea
In the dream I see a pink river slicing its way between two brown hills and above, in the midday skies, is a flaming red hot sun. On the dusty gravel road that comes down from the hills, a donkey cart drags my cold body over a stone bridge and into the village surrounded by women dressed all in black clothing; the coffin is covered with a blanket, no smiling faces.
Poetry
A few parks
Parks are gone
inside the bellies of sloths
Not enough, what once was
Provocateurs shake the fabric
Of what gets the people going
Dancing smoke-mirror living
Poetry
Aunt Thelma
Aunt Thelma het nooit in haar lewe gerus nie
sy was die heeltyd gepla deur die tap stelers van rosedale
sy was klienieksiek maar
het geskel dat niemand in haar poes gaan krap nie
sy het gereeld mase dose gevloek
Poetry
Spinning Jenny
It’s not that Foucault’s archaeology of knowledge is wrong in fact
I think he said some gorgeous things in there it’s just that
While others have said the same thing too, he said it
Like that, and of course we have a taste for it
His prose, I mean,