WEDNESDAY, 20 JULY 2022
Imagine you’re in your early thirties. You want to live – I repeat, want to live – in at least the same province as your family so you can see them once or twice a month, and you want to live in the same city as at least half a dozen old friends with whom you can hang out regularly. Imagine yourself wanting to be in a serious relationship, with perhaps a child or two. You want to be established in your work, with a satisfying social life.
Now imagine you actually find yourself in a foreign country on the other side of the globe. You see your family maybe once every two years. You have a few friends, but don’t see them often. You’re single, with no relationship in the pipeline. Your work is not fulfilling, and you often remind yourself, or are reminded, that time is running out to establish yourself in a profession.
To complicate things, you are not stuck in a situation where you can just resign and book a plane ticket back home. You have an apartment full of books and furniture and wall hangings and ornaments with sentimental value. Your income is sufficient to eat well and sleep comfortably, but you don’t have enough savings to survive for more than a few months if you go back to your own country.
Of course, you can leave all the furniture, the wall hangings, and a few ornaments behind and go back home, and hope everything works out. Problem is, you did exactly that a few years before when you were in a similar situation in another country, and let’s just say, it didn’t work out.
What do you do?
You can’t go home because you’re already at home?
Just accept it, and push ahead?
What did I end up doing?
I had no desire for packing up and trying my luck again in South Africa. So, I straightened my shoulders and kept walking.
And kept writing:
sinking everybody runs away, the rats are fleeing he is … like his ship, sinking with solemn respect comes the salutation middle finger held up high pulls a recorder from his pocket plays a death hymn, stops with his forehead the smashing waves calm flushes the depths lives the fountain of abundance manna, quail, island silence in wisdom he bites, with razor-sharp teeth into the sweet flesh of second life so come on traitors! creep closer mocker crowd! one by one you’ll have to face reality and if your eyes can’t see, and your ears can’t hear then let me shout it out to sink it in: THERE WILL ALWAYS BE LIFE! even for the single survivor. * * * * * * * * * * * storm storms urge me on my grotesque frame too large for a nice tight keyhole fit a closet too small and cramped a golden cage too fine and much too cold I rush forward at furious pace with walking stick and day-old beard * * * * * * * * * * * grind shuffling wordless in dusty spaces filling ashtrays one upon the other full and empty again; cups full of coffee fresh bottles of tea from the all-night cafe old chairs give way the weight of evening air sours in the face of absent light I rock back and forth, back and forth it seems you have sometimes to pull your claws from the mud of time be more philosophical about waiting for things to turn on their heel so, if it can’t be avoided I’d have to calculate yet again: one thousand seven hundred and eighty five one thousand seven hundred eighty-four, one thousand seven hundred eighty-three, one thousand … nights without you * * * * * * * * * * * geography new housing draws lines across my plans my eyes narrowing, looking through other windows at neighbours’ walls suppose I know about more than just life and death and pipes full of mice if I had memorised the sermons of old I’d have learned too much about retirement homes sometimes I look too deep into the bottle of time write notes on floors with pencil and chalk sometimes I bite a little too much off rules brittle and yellow from age sometimes one must move to new housing the work of a man like a woman ever not done but I keep writing my lines and shutting my mouth my eyes peeled until tomorrow, or next month, or next year (Sunday, 14 September 2003) * * * * * * * * * * * (untitled) I feel myself irresponsibly close to you less than your presence unconditionally close to me I feel, what’s more myself untouched while I live within you * * * forty tons of events stay mum numb my love as it were shall I ever, as long as I live, discover the axe that’s been chasing me for so many years? * * * * * * * * * * * shoes on your way to a 7-Eleven, you see it again: a desert, in the middle of the sea you want to sneak closer, crawl, aim for the other side but time and place are shoes that squeeze you think about coffee, then you buy tea talk about holding out, holding on, then you give in want to say “No” in confusion, then nodding “Yes” wink apparently cool, then fleeing again in a daze sometimes I say you give in too easily too few see courage and daring as talent vagabonds like to pitch a tent at night clapping whips against trees on the break of dawn say you want to go together, say you want to sleep say you’ve had enough, please for once say “Yes” suspect a little, believe, weigh things up again because this time and place squeeze far too much * * * * * * * * * * * (another) night poem I’m working my ass off, but the night remains a bottomless pit like a miner of a cleaner nature I dig for words, light, figures, and signs apt metaphors spoiled by pretence stand like saints over my open grave while I’m earnestly looking for dawn the pick breaks, then the spade, then the lift to the light and I remain still caught up in yet another night poem * * * * * * * * * * * place i tumultuously burns the form leaves the contents fresh, untouched clothes from another century hang upside down in my crumbling closet look carefully at the streets, the markets poke around in towns and cities sneak barefoot through half-lit alleyways wrap yourself in a transient’s blanket too many preach about proverbs long forgotten sing false psalms about damned old ideas reconcile dogma with new science steal slyly overnight, words from a dungeon library ii dozens of descendants, ancestors in front portraits against faded walls, half-heartedly shining on books full of museums and ancient buildings sketches in a thousand corridors full of thoughts remind only, sing melodiously without stop priests dance with animal hides draped over shoulders hanging under the weight fifty thousand years of searching for a truth continue to dictate in mumbling chant: that place and knowing not only are where you belong but in truth is where the soul ultimately ought to be
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