Litnet

"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"

"I don’t see a hopeful future. I see the back of my little girl’s head the last time I was here. The red rash on her neck."

"The name Pretorius sent a shock of frigidity into Nella’s heart. She shuddered. She thought of her blonde husband and what she had heard about a blonde man with the Pretorius girl."

"I am your son, and we are alike in so many ways. Yes, I like boys, but only to play with. But girls, girls I love. Only girls."

"Twenty-nine minutes before her exit, Heaven-Leigh wanted something to eat – vetkoek with golden syrup. No, not an apple. Vetkoek with syrup ..."

"Thus the dead speak swift as the wind?
The chiming tunes, 
The thumbing thunder that rolls, 
smashing the hills in moments of grace."

"Where do you come from, little one 
from the soil that births stone and cement 
endlessly perfect control 
souls searching for meaning."

"Thick candles enjoy the heat. Though their glow melts 
those next to them, wax drips and widens
their feet – their foundations grow."