Litnet

"I followed the footprints, 
Jumping to gauge the width, 
Through rain and drought-stricken ground, 
I followed you."

"Walking through these halls I see 
The eyes of old boys look at me 
Make us proud they say 
You’ll have to find your own way"

"You hold a fist up high – timeless and endless 
This is how you proclaim future hope 
The gift of reason and tolerance, unequivocally"

"Have you ever wondered, what if you were not 
This morning, in the body that you got 
No longer favourite of your mother 
Just an ordinary, someone other"

"yet, in my brain 
resides another I: 
the beauteous lineaments, 
of a long forgotten me"

"You are the learners of landscape, 
Listeners of the berg wind, 
Its strong voice shouting through dark nights"

"Papa had pursued the contract with unflinching zeal. It was a government contract that would redirect the wheel of our lives to wealth. Then I woke up one morning and told him that I had seen him crying in my dreams because he had lost the contract. His bloodshot eyes blazed fire, and he ordered me out of his room; that morning, Mama paused breakfast and initiated prayer and fasting for the family."

"Brandish the banners – 
bright red as the dying day – 
for tonight the old man will wilt 
and eerily drift away –"

"I’ll meet you in ten minutes 
At Cafe Anton for coffee 
You’ll be early as always 
Waiting for me" 

"I see salt and smoked paprika; 
people content with their fortune, 
genuine, kind and unpretentious, 
like the pot of vegetable soup" 

"A mother’s tears will never clean the stains 
From off his shirt, or the shame that’s buried in 
Our dirt, deep in the soil; our country’s land 
Is poorer now, forevermore, without that 
Little hand."

"Waves of dunes continue into the desert
– death traps in the shifting sands.
Here, compass bearings start to waver 
and directions become unclear."

"The vast open farms of youth,
where horizons were clear
and bush trails led to secret hideouts."

"We are enveloped in a hollow sky.
Our search for truth unmasks the void
and its uncertain quantum probabilities"

"Sometimes in the middle of the night
I am awakened – desperate and confused.
Was it an echo of her voice I heard
or just someone shouting in the street?"

"The lights go out – an electricity failure –
the canvas becomes a ghostly surface.
Lingering shapes suspended in the dark –
your portrait waiting to be drawn."

"The night is an ancient stellar theatre
where cosmic symphonies are heard.
It has an orchestra without a conductor
playing music in counterpoint"

"In Paris at midday on a day in May we emerged from the métro at the Place Maubert. In that tiny square the Huguenots were burned at the stake, I’d read, and I remarked to him that the screams must have been awful."

"A few years ago, I travelled to my hometown – by bus, because I couldn’t muster enough courage to take my car to travel all those many kilometres on my own."

"this perhaps a glorious destiny 
scattered stardust in an infinite Salty Sea"