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,
Luhambo olusingise emfazweni. Lugcotywe ngamachaphaza egazi. Ilanga liqubudile libimbilizwa sisiphelo. Le yingoma yemvuselelo.Usapho luhlutshezelwa ukunyuka intaba.
UAyanda useGwadana
amagqwirh’ amnquml’ ulwimi
uya kuba likhoboka
ubomi bakhe bonke.
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.
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
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
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,
ôse Vader wat inni hemele is
kan my body nou geheilig wôd,
lat my virtue vi annes lat vi’stuk.
lattie justice system soes ’n western film,
geskiet soes in ôs reality.
Gie ôs allie regte
en vergiewe ôs-ôs emancipation
On Saturday afternoon
after the washing has been hung
and our clothes damp-stained
with its constant carrying back and forth
we sit on grandmother’s stoep
the sun warming my scalp
as my cousin cuts neat rows through my hair
with the tail of the comb
she lays a path for the hair food
and gossips about the neighbourhood
Flowers are always welcome at funerals
Yellow dahlias
In the midst of black mourners
White lilies
To adorn the grave
Fists full of earth
Connect to wooden boxes
Encasing swollen bodies
Fat and ripe with decay
At the backyard of my home where the teardrops of sad angels have rusted the wires, I will make
myself a car from old wires and drive it around new brighton. then I will lose the last teardrop that
ever turned me into a sad cloud with grey cheeks, making a sunflower pregnant so that it can weep
seeds for my pigeons.
The tall building in
Johannesburg, Marshalltown smolders.
A potent smell of burned things:
paint, rubber, plastic, fabric, human flesh,
lingers on Albert Street.
Now the onlookers know,
how the burp of death smells like.
