you look in me

you look in me (performance poetry with harp accompaniment by Francois Le Roux)

a home I can not name

a home I can not name

(soundcloud link to live performance)

you were a queen

You were a queen. 

Sat high up on the throne of your sense of justice.

You were a vagabond.

Belonged nowhere. Seeing a web full of life passing by.

You were a rock star

For those ten minutes when you finally dared to.

You were a cheater.
Those times that you hid something for him. So long ago that you can’t remember exactly what anymore

You were a faithful slave
imprisoned in a nine to five system

You were a fairy tale girl.
choosing flowers in a deserted field

You were a coward
when you kept silent, both about your success as your failing

You were a genius.

With your unfulfilled feverish dreams in the middle of the night

You were a horny lover
that one time. Three men in one day.

You were an exhibitionist
showed more of your talkative skin than your surroundings could swallow

You were a bad friend

You were not there when he hurt his back, she had a miscarriage

You were a hero
that time when you stopped a thief

But most of all you were a dreamer
you let all those characters pass by in you

They held debates, pulled their weapons, sharp knives.
they reconciled, orgiastic
they were silent, hid behind waves of time
they created mist, smoke curtains
they showed themselves in sharp, sharp lines
they talked to you

Always that whispering, flamboyant people of many I’s,
their variation on that one, that all too well known story.

that hoping that things will get better later

that begging that the heart, forever,
finds its type of silence
some sort of heartbeat

and then it happens.
one day.

The queen kneels down.
the vagabond moves.
the faithful slave breaks the chains around his hands
the bad friend says “I am sorry”
the exhibitionist puts on his clothes
the coward talks, in simple ways

It feels so new
what to do now?
the details change relentlessly

Use the world.
trod her down.

Digest. Swallow. Squeeze. Dance. Fight. Fall. Hope. Sing. Pray. Cry. Beg. Do. Think. Use.

It will come.
let it grow.
have faith.

toyi-toyi

After traveling for eight years through and in and out of this country, I have a baby and a house over here. And it only hits me after so many months, our baby is already sixteen months olds: “I am not a traveler anymore.” I hear it loud and clear in my mind, while I sit on our ‘stoep’ in front of our cottage.

She is taking a nap. Never sure how much free time she will offer us.

“Not a traveler anymore. Not a traveler anymore.’ It echoes loud. The silence on our property leaves much space for the thought. How come it only happens now, this realization? That long after the shift has happened? Was I unwilling to face it to the full? Who knows. The silence is not answering me. She just offers me space and time to wait for the next ‘aha!’ bells to ring in my ears.

Every free minute in the face of these trees, is a bargain.

I sigh.

As it goes in life, it was from the beginning so much easier to accept and drink in the good, the hopeful, the colorful of this country, as a full part of my life. Strikes and power outages were something exotic to think about and observe.

But yesterday, I took a short video clip of another ‘toyi-toyi’ in the central street of our small town. Traditional protest. Singing and dancing. A group of about thirty people. I watched it with Mira on my arms. I hummed along, moved my body and consequently hers, on the sexy, beautiful vibes.

What a contrast. At the one hand this beauty, generously there for all to absorb. At the other hand the raw and sad reasons causing the strike. Municipal workers, stealing millions of rands that were supposed to go to the poorest. Allegations of politicians booking rooms in very expensive hotels with government money. Millions of rands stolen that were supposed to give the rural, poorest communities better hygienic toilets. Many more reasons that I, still fairly new in this town either don’t know or don’t understand yet. Maybe I will always be an outsider somehow.

They dance. They sing. They are fed up with all of this. Yet I don’t hear any screaming in anger.

Buildings were set to fire last year, October. A hospital, the town hall, our community centre. Things got out of hand. Again, the underlying reasons still too complex for me to draw any straight forwarded conclusions.

But I danced with my baby daughter on the sounds of their toyi-toyi. That I do know for sure. An outsider, standing on the corner of Hill Street in the sun. In front of the ATM with the long cue and the Triple Stream supermarket with the broken trolleys. Always an outsider to many. Not in the least because of the color of my skin.

But I, somehow, do own that moment of dancing along. Whatever that means to the community around me. I have become part of this small town.

I often drive to town at about eight o’ clock in the morning. To sit and write in the only cafe in the main street. Away from the needs and tasks of being a mother. Some hours to work on that other journey of me that will never end, no matter in what part of the world I set my foot down. On my rides, I realized that, after moving around in this country, criss cross, for almost eight years, for the first time being at the other side of the equator, I will know in advance where the sun will be on my drive. When I enter town at eight o’clock in the morning, it will be on my left. On my way home at four o’clock, on Mondays and Wednesdays this usually happens, as I turn right into Xhologha Road, the sun will shine right into my eyes. Without sunglasses around, I quickly got to know the most dangerously blinding spots. Now sunglasses protect me against that.

Soon enough, we hit the road again for about four months. I will miss waking up and knowing exactly where the sun will be on my way to my words. I will miss seeing all those differences, so many variations, in that one small town that is also ours now. Surrounded by the mountain, the cows and goats on the road, the children waving at me, the young boys carrying the wood they gathered in the fields on their shoulders, the three flags in front of the café. Oh yes, thinking of it, in the café as well, I know by now in what spot the sun can warm my back at eight o’clock on a cold winters day.

I am growing roots in a land, so far from mine. I sort of dance with the sun, in a town so far from mine. But for our baby girl, this will be the place where she got to know me, got to know life, from her very first breath. That other home will be a story, a place to visit, for her.

Sunshine may move. Toyi-toyi may erupt, but the position of her being our daughter, so beautifully alive, will always travel along in the nearest position. Somewhere inside of my heart. Our closest moon. 

I am. That is a fact.

I am the hope for better times. 

Though I am sometimes worse. 

But I am. 

At least, that is a fact.

I am the girl that wakes up in the morning, searching for where her confidence has gone to.
I am the girl that needs to learn to speak again.
I am my lack of confidence.
I am her little baby body, so close and warm against my skin.
I am my quest for self - love.
I am the story of the forest guard, losing his shack due to the early winter winds.

I am the country, burning.
I am the fear for global warming.
I am the pesticides on food.

I am her unspoiled baby life, still rich in front of her.
I am the change. Some change.
I am the television screen.
I am my friends in Europe, who walk through their luxurious streets, so full of their seductive shops.
I am a lot of bread with cheese.
I am the head, too wide for all the corners of my mind.
I am the way I try again, each and every day again.
I am our township friend, who calls us early in the morning, so very drunk.
I am corruption that won’t go away.
I am the change as well.

My skin breathes in and out this world.
My skin receives.

I am the mangoes sold along the street in Durban.
I am the Afrikaans street names over which they fight.
I am my Facebook page, too full of facts.
I am the one that needs the change.

I am the ocean in Kalk Bay, where an old lady died, bitten to pieces by a shark on her early morning swim.
I am the baby girl, so eager to stand on her own feet.
I am the body, craving sexual touch and wet, wet longings.
I am the way we start again. Again.

At least, I am.
That is a fact.

I am the donkeys down in Grahamstown, pulling an old wooden cart
I am the bright green skirt of the woman selling her ten banana’s in front of Pick and Pay.
I am the chicken, waiting to be killed.
I am the things I keep forgetting to write down.
I am the black sign, selling apple crumble for twenty rand.
I am my mental notes, my downfall and my rise.

The world breathes through my pores. In & out.

I am the one that lost its core.
I am a mirror, broken.
I am the glue.

I am the Fuze Tea, Coca Cola, Fanta and Valpre.
I am pollution.
I am the famous Facebook picture of a seagull wrapped in plastic.
I am our oceans, drowning.
I am the time to change our environmental policies.
I am that time running out of time.
I am Sowetan township jazz.
I am my homeland that I left behind, to find myself drinking rooibos tea on a small farm near the border of Lesotho.
I am the one with a mind wondering how to connect these dots.
I am the mother, screaming like never before, when the baby girls comes out of the womb
I am the weatherman, having to warn for yet another tropical storm in Florida.
I am the politicians, refusing to fund environmental agencies.

I am the change.
& I am all of this.

I am my poor overheated head, waking up one morning in a sleepy, small Karoo town.
I am my body, all my cells that carry all these memories.
I am the questions in my feet.
I am the sheep, being slaughtered at five o’clock in the morning.
I am the snake that bit the cow.

I am all of these confusing facts.

But I am.
At least that is a fact, for sure.

I am the muscle of my heart.
I carry bits and pieces underneath my thirty eight year old skin.
I am my quest for better, more.
I am the skyscrapers in Toronto on a sunny Sunday morning.
I am the millions of impressions, stored somewhere inside, gathered all throughout my life.
I am the oak tree where the thunder strikes.
I am the ripe lemons on our property.
I am the emails, waiting for replies.
I am the enter, page up, page down, F9, F7, 6 & 8 buttons.
I am the whole world, stored beneath my skin.
I am the revolution, yet about to start.
I am the buckets full of water underneath our leaking roof.
I am the big silver jewels on her right hand.
I am the old diamond mine in Kimberley.
I am the zama-zama’s, searching with their bare hands for tiny lost valuable pieces on the outskirts of the old industrial town.
I am the wetlands, thirsty for the rains.
I am my jealousy for her successful career at three o’clock in the morning.
I am the coke, the crack, sold in my hometown’s harbor.
I am the white expensive pen that someone stole.
I am the dangerous consequences of your guns.
I am the small scale farmer, considering a tragic suicide if the rain won’t come for yet another day.
I am - again - the memory of all my cells, carrying these views, stories, smells & people.
I am the urinated, dark corners in the back alleys of Paris.

I am my mind, waking up in foggy clouds, trying to make sense of this.
I am the way this list could go on, & on.

I am the French croissants we ate on a drunk Thursday morning, in the middle of our midsummer holiday in the South of France.
I am the fog, the frog, in my own mind.

But I am.
At least, that is a fact.

I am the children of Hiroshima, with distorted limbs, forgotten by the lenses of the world news.
I am  my mind, travelling so wide and far.
I am my cells, searching for a way out of this contrasting and confusing world.
I am my body, longing for a hot rose petal bath to wash away the surplus of impressions, stored beneath my skin.

Who are we, & me?
At least, I am. That is a fact.

I am secretive background statistics, searching what they could sell me now me today.
I am the leather notebook with the old and torn out pages.
I am the tons of sugar in your blue milkshake.
I am the way this could go on, & on …

I am the last leaves on our tree, before the autumn season comes.
I am the way the airplane flies through different time zones.
I am the fear our baby girl will catch a cold, or worse, some TBC.
I am the AIDS – patient who regrets his unsafe sex in drunk and desperate times.

I am the many lives I touch.
I am my thirty eight year old skin that carries all these segments of our world.

I am. We are the glue, at least.
At least, a beating heart holds all of this & all of us together.

I am the way my cup of coffee seems to pull and stretch my skin.
I am the hospital deep down in the rural Eastern Cape where nurses sing their early morning prayers before the many patients enter.
I am the doctor, saying she doesn’t have the experience, nor the means to help my bleeding body.

I am this endless list.
I am the deep desire for some purification.

I am my chest, holding some sacred space for that desire to stand up straight again.
I am my right hand, ten active fingers and my left foot.
I am your long kiss, drowned in early morning smells.
I am the way you hurt your body.
I am the the way you’ve filled the air in desperate times with harmful, poisonous words.

I am this endless list.
(But) At least I am, I am!

I am the silence in between your words.
I am the big, cold fridge with Castle light, Black Labels and Amstel beers.
I am the slow walks through my sleepy hometown.
I am the father, thinking he will get rid of HIV by raping his six months old baby girl.

I am confused.

I am. At least, that is a fact.

I am the prayers for the rain. 

I am the catholic holy water, sprinkled on her African painful back for seven days in a row.
I am the church bells, minarets.
I am the garlic in the Turkish meatballs that kept me awake, one night in Istanbul.
I am the fights with all my selfish teachers.
I am the tenderness that radiates from all her tiny baby fingers.

I am the way I don’t invent any of this.

I am, we are these facts.
One fractured, broken world.

I am, we are, somehow, the glue.

I am the contrasts of our dreams, our nightmares.
I am the New York city flat, too small to store the fancy bike.
I am Parisian subways, smelling like cold, sour sweat and urine.
I am the many books, unsold.

I am the way this list goes on, & on.
I am pealed, cut and fried potatoes, waiting to be eaten.
I am that special baby smell.
I am my hunger for redemption, truth.
I am my small white lies.
I am the improvisation session without end.
I am the rusty saxophone.
I am the laughter, responding to your silly jokes.
I am the YouTube channel that I forget to Google.
I am the unexpected sexual encounter with the soccer street artist.
I am the phone numbers, email addresses that I forgot to memorize.
I am the angry, bitter letter, sent more than ten years ago, that I regret.
I am the playful break.
I am the endless list.
I am my memory that stores, withdraws, receives.
I am the deep blue ocean.
I am your lack of food.
I am the bottle of champagne with pieces of real gold that we drank in the Parisian gallery.
I am the toothpick that serves it’s purpose well.
I am the fresh, new canvas, waiting for the paint.
I am her anger because we had sex before our marriage.
I am the way I never want to leave you.
I am the urgent hunger of our baby girl.
I am the change.

I am the riots, burning tires, in the Transkei.
I am the goats that cross the streets.
I am the car that needs to take me home.
I am the broken, dirty window.

I am, at least I am. Because we are.