Derek Fenton's poetry ...Blind Man On A Zebra Crossing

BLIND MAN ON A ZEBRA CROSSING


POEMS ABOUT AND OUT OF AFRICA

By Derek Fenton


Derek Fenton was born in Bulawayo, Zimbabwe, in 1946. He was educated at Milton School and Natal and Harare Universities. He returned to Milton where he taught English before travelling to Europe.

After several years in London where he worked as a milkman, labourer and at numerous clerical jobs, he emigrated to Western Australia. On becoming an Australian citizen he returned to Africa for six years working in Zimbabwe, Botswana and South Africa which served as the inspiration for much of his poetry.

He now lives back in Australia where he teaches Mathematics and English as a Second Language. His poetry is informed by the experience of being a migrant and the difficulties of adjustment to a new country and alienation from the old.

He has had poems published by Les Murray in Quadrant magazine and a poem short-listed for publication in the Westerly. A humorous poem about the Australian and South African accents was also published in the West Australian.




WELCOME TO COUNTRY

They purloined your house,
Aboriginal Australian
and feeling guilty allowed
you to stay on in a tiny backroom.

Now that they are fully ensconced
you conduct a welcome to country,
but with all the rooms fully occupied
will never get the title deeds back
and they will seldom visit you
in your little room.

Who am I to talk,
a white Zimbabwean
evicted from my tiny room
from where I controlled the house
and fed the household:
Now they are starving
and with the title deeds
don’t want me back.

We are alike you and I
only our colour, justice
and good fortune
separate us.


ON TEACHING A MATHS I.E.C CLASS AFTER LUNCH

What do you see out of that window there?
as kookaburras and magpies lure you
away from my lesson to places where
your life’s dreams and desires once grew.
Come back you students from where you have gone!
To Asia, Africa and the Middle East;
it is time to put your Aussie clothes back on
and tuck into an Antipodean feast.
Now let my equations coax you all back!
from your deserts, villages and terrain:
dragging you once more onto the right track
from the nostalgic reaches of your brain.
But who am I to ask these things of you
when to my Africa, my thoughts just flew!


TSHWALA *

It bore no resemblance
to the amber Castle
my father used to drink
before going on to scotch;
plopping ice into crystal tumblers
cleaned and prepared by Dabson
the cook boy:
delivered diligently
as soon as he heard
the car’s hooter
and the gate
squeak open obsequiously.
Town , the garden boy,
twenty something old
and younger than Dabson
by twenty five
locked the working day out
with wire over a gate-post
and a bow to the baas.
The day done
retired to the back step
for a tin of tea and a doorstep
of white bread and jam

We kids still in the bush
a few miles away
tracking the duiker
supposed to still live that close to town
chanced upon a forty-four gallon drum
of ‘kaffir beer’:
“Sis,it smells!”
We rocked it off its brick base
and guffawed as a Sunday party
flowed down a path fashioned by bare feet.

Dabson will not be able to afford
the mukiwa’s* Castle or Lion beer,
and the few tots of scotch
he pilfered
will not get him drunk enough
to shut out his life for the day.

There will be silence
from the bush this weekend!


* Beer
* White man


SOUTH SEA SHUFFLE

A cynic or medical scientist might say
it is the Amiodarone kicking in
but my heart begs to differ.
The moment I placed both feet
on African soil
and removed the shaking left leg
from the Antipodes
my fibrillation cleared
and the sinus rhythm returned.
It happened eleven days before it should
and my heart tells me it was when
the soutpiel* left leg straddling the Indian Ocean
swung over to join the firmly planted right
in Africa.

At that precise moment
the heart of Africa beat
and welcomed me home;
my Africa, my home.

My head wonders…

* A person who cannot give up allegiance to an overseas country and has his legs in both countries, hence a ‘salt penis’.


OF MOUNTAINS AND MOLE HILLS...A PANTOUM

On that day we three began our climb,
Sir Edmund,the Queen and me:
It was a wonderful time
back in nineteen fifty three.

Sir Edmund, the Queen and me,
vertices of a triangle
back in nineteen fifty three;
edges of an Empire which dangle,

vertices of a triangle,
into three separate seas.
Edges of an Empire which dangle,
totalling one hundred and eighty degrees

into three separate seas.
England, Rhodesia and N.Z.
totalling one hundred and eighty degrees,
two still alive and one now dead.

England, Rhodesia and N.Z.
each with its own claim to fame.
Two still alive and one now dead,
the middle one having lost its name.

Each with its own claim to fame,
a Monarch, mutineer and mountaineer
the middle one now having lost its name
once led by Smith who knew no fear.

A Monarch, mutineer and mountaineer;
lady, gentleman and ,to many ,knave,
one Ian Smith who knew no fear;
and Hillary noble and brave.

Lady,gentleman and ,to many, knave,
Smith who is recently deceased,
and Hillary,noble and brave.
While the Queen still at life's feast!

Smith, who is recently deceased,
lauded by just a few,
while the Queen still at life's feast,
and Hillary brave and true,

lauded by more than a few.
She at the top of her peak
and Hillary brave and true.
It is now left for me to seek

what is there at the top of my peak.
Chances are it will be a molehill.
It is now left for me to seek
my slightly elevated thrill;

but how could it have been clear to me
on that day we three began our climb?
Back in nineteen fifty three
it was a wonderful time!


TIMES PAST

Isn’t it a shame piccanin*
that days like those in Matabeleland
are over
and ashamed
we face one another
in stuffy English railway carriages:
too far apart to feel as we did
on dry, dusty December days
when hot and thirsty
we waited for
the gentle rustling
of syringa leaves
just before
the chilling thunderstorm.
At last cooling breezes;
tiny spots splatter and splay
on dusty drives.
Tiny torrents tear
through sun blistered cracks
to the Matshuemhlope
and you and I
squelched in mud.
Till, stockinged in clay, laughing
we dropped to our knees
moulding mud into cars and cattle
and shoulders touching
chased guinea fowl not caring
that we smelt different
or our language was makeshift.
Until,tired
mud caked on our feet and hands
called home by parents
the gulf of years
we returned…
You to your Khaya*
and I
to my shack!*

*Black child.
*Servant’s quarters. Small,one roomed house in the back garden.
* Term used by Whites for house.


DON’T POO POO THE DUNG HO MIGRANT

Industrious little dung beetle do you ever miss
the shadow of an elephant upon your back,
the reassuring cadence of a cobra’s hiss
or a friendly puff adder on a wildebeest track?
Do you find the dung here to be a little bland
with only roo, sheep and cattle to keep you fed?
In the west do you like to feel the texture of the sand
rather than thick red clay upon your head?
Does the beautiful song of magpies bring music to your ear
or does the go away bird still haunt your tiny brain?
Do winter showers come at the right time of year
or do you prefer the warmth of African summer rain?
“Why do you ask me such questions when I have work to do?
The only thing that concerns me is poo, poo, poo!”



DYLAN MIGHT APPROVE

Do not take it on the chin,
the cards that life has dealt you:
Strive instead to conjure a win.

Throw Jokers in the bin,
kick them out of the queue:
Do not take it on the chin.

Take your own hands and toss them in,
and start the game anew:
Now strive instead to conjure a win.

And if the pickings are too thin,
no point their loss to rue:
Do not take it on the chin.

Seize the wheel and spin,
again, and see what you can do:
Strive instead to conjure a win.

Soon enough oblivion will be your kin,
but you’ll know it’s your own cards you drew:
So don’t take it on the chin,
Strive instead to conjure a win!

A QUESTION ASKED

I do not believe in God or an afterlife
God knows I have tried:
I’ve looked for them in a sunset
or in the face of a young child;
at the watchmakers
and in all the usual places
intelligently designed,
ontologically sound.
Perhaps like the Earl of Rochester I will find
them on my death bed.

On my gravestone inscribe
‘He looked and looked
but will only see
when He ceases to be!’


AUDITING THE BIG BANG

When someone you know dies
you measure the time afterwards
ticking off anniversaries
as if the person who has died
could sit beside you
and audit them…..
As time passes
audit dates become fewer,
but no less immediate.

For the dead
it is as good
as auditing
the billions of years
before they were born.

ON SEEING A MURDERED FARMER ON THE NIGHTLY NEWS

A farmer my age
lies dead.
His old dog guarding
his battered body
covered
by the sort of bedspread
I used to shelter under
as a child;
its feel caressing
sunburnt, newly bathed
shoulders smelling
of Sunlight soap
and taking the edge
off the cooling
pre-thunderstorm air.
Later
the sun streaming
through rondavel windows,
I’d throw off the spread
and lie naked
stroked by the searing
African sun
unafraid of the future
and the plethora
of perils outside.
Now
cocooned by
antipodean safety,
I sit stunned,
while he
gains none
save from
his faithful dog
who blankets his memory
and trembles
in mourning
and despair.

WHY NO BONNETS

Why at sixty am I writing sonnets
beavering away at those fourteen lines,
instead of polishing my cars’ bonnets
and paying off all those speeding fines.
There’re no sports cars, tucks or toupees for me
to ward off another mid-life crisis:
no younger trophy brides will you see,
nor any Viagra introduced vices.
To keep the dreaded alzheimers at bay,
three stanzas and a couplet, I’ll create,
mentally eating an apple a day,
keeping it up before it is too late.
I’ll only be happy at getting old,
when at least one of these poems is sold!


SOMEWHERE TO GO

I was where I was before I was born
and where I will be when I die
when Cecil John’s pioneer column marched over the Limpopo
making me forever a white African .
I did not request it
as I did not request my parents
or the pariah status I acquired later
as a white rebel Rhodesian ,
or the time I spent in Coventry
when the English and others learnt of my origins .
And most of all I did not request
the love and yearning I feel for Africa
across thousands of miles of Indian Ocean .
Branded a Jaapie here
and rejected by the original inhabitants there
I shall finally rest in that place where I first was
Nowhere.


A SOUR TASTE IN THE MOUTH

Told we were to play soccer
against the local coloured school
our first multi-racial game
Solly Solomon said , ”Sis!
I won’t eat the oranges.
No bloody fear!”
And the question of drinking water
out of their aluminium mugs
was too ridiculous
to even contemplate;
“I’ll only eat the oranges
if I can peel them myself!”
He thundered after silently fuming
while our Master asked for volunteers
and handed out permission slips
to take home to parents.
That evening
his dad wouldn’t let him play
as was his right: and said,
while sipping the tea
poured by Philamon,
a black man
“Jussus that munt* makes a good stew!”


* Derogatory term for black person.


A MOTHER TOO FAR AWAY

My mother died in Africa today
while I was scanning a poem’s metre;
many thousands of kilometres away
as the Reaper decided to greet her.
I had iambic pentameters to write
and more rhythms and rhymes to create:
while her last moments were spent in fright
praying to God before it was too late.
Sons don’t give mothers the love they deserve,
whether the distance be farther or near;
a diminishing exponential curve
which, with time, makes us less and less aware.
If I were dying in my boyhood town,
would she not have put her knitting needles down?



SOMETHING TO SMILE ABOUT AT TUOL SLENG.*

Sombre students and tourists shuffle past rows
of people long dead
mostly terrified or dazed, dishevelled:
eyes blank staring through the camera
and then two, just two, smiling....
Their eyes seeming to sparkle a bit.
Who has not lingered on the pair
and wondered why?
The way to these phalanxes of piteous photos
through classrooms converted
into torture chambers.
The steel beds where many perished
in agony, screaming,
pleading for death's balm
like grotesque works of modern art:
large photos on each wall,
the last victims lying twisted
in tormented peace;
implements of torture adorning
each frame, left as they were.
What made these young boys smile,
knowing what would happen to them?
Had they been thinking of some happy event,
or, in an act of defiance,
taken control away from their captors
refusing the invisible blindfolds others
had been forced to wear in their expressions?
It would be good to think so,
but perhaps they were just simple.



* Khymer Rouge torture and interrogation centre during Pol Pot's reign.







In 2000 Robert Mugabe and his ZANU PF party enrolled a number of dead people
onto the electoral roll and organised for live people to vote on their behalf. It was one part of the election rigging which led to their victory and deprived the opposition of its rightful representation.
The ‘ghost voters’ had their fingers dyed to prevent them from voting again!
In March 2008 another presidential election will take place………

SONNET FOR SOMNABULANT SPIRITS

An election in my homeland today,
people queuing in the African way:
Patiently in whatever shade they can find
with democracy, peace and hope in mind.
The enfranchised will exercise their right
waiting stoically way into the night,
while some who are still on the electoral roll
wait silently in their allocated hole,
where they were buried so many years before;
their rights now impossible to ignore.
It is they who will get Bob over the line
with all their ghoulish marks one at a time.
But who will check their fingers, check for dye,
six feet under where their crosses cannot lie?




In 2005 Robert Mugabe set about clearing the cities of shanty dwellers who would be likely to support opposition protests against his government’s draconian measures….




SONNET FOR SILENT SHANTY DWELLERS

Somnabulant spirits returned to rest
loyalty to Zanu put to the test;
not only just got Bob over the line,
but unmarked fingers pointed to the sign
that those who are still alive in the city,
are now targets of oppression and pity.
People struggling to keep families alive
finding it impossible to survive:
if they could just make it into the bush,
they would not be able to avoid the push
of government forces pulling shacks down,
and stopping trade on the streets of the town.
If they are strong enough to resist,
Mugabe will curtail them with a fist!















During Operation Marambatsvina , “Operation drive out rubbish” a two year old child was crushed under a wall felled by Mugabe’s forces!



HOME SWEET HOME

It wasn’t a mansion in Milton Park*
with bright chandeliers to keep out the dark;
no crystal glasses from which we could drink
no Wedgewood plates piling up in the sink:
without carpets, curtains, tables and chairs,
it was our home for a number of years.
We cooked our food on a makeshift fire,
drank our tea out of tins warmed on wire.
Our sadza* was muhle* but had no stew,
while during the day not very much to do:
Mugabe’s men came and tore it all down
forcing all the others out of our town.
As for me, two years old and not very tall
they extinguished my future under a wall!




* Milton Park- An affluent Harare suburb
*Sadza – polenta
*Muhle- good


BORN TO RULE

At the final whistle we were way behind:
we had stretched the rules as far as we could,
knowing that our supporters wouldn't mind,
for our intentions were nothing but good.
There is no way we'll accept the result
for we have never done anything but win.
We've always been an unstoppable cult
who have never had to take it on the chin.

We demand another few minutes more
so that we can knobble the opposition.
That way we can definitely ensure
the impossibility of concession.
For our football team is ZANU PF
and Robert Mugabe is the only ref!

REGAL REMATCH

At the kick off we were primed and ready:
we had completed all of our training.
We knew there was no chance of its raining
as our captain’s faith in God was steady.
It was He, he said, who had won the game
the last time we’d beaten our opponent
without skill or luck as a component;
so we can expect much more of the same.

Now our adversaries have all pulled out:
a result of maiming their supporters.
Their hopes and dreams all efficiently slain:
our preordained result beyond all doubt.
We won’t listen to all those reporters
who say we’ve destroyed democracy again!


THE JOY OF VICTORY

The stadium was full to the rafter
with supporters from opposing teams.
One side about to realise its dreams
the other only sardonic laughter.
They were all compelled to attend the game
but only one team ran onto the field.
It wasn’t too hard for opponents to yield
or for the victors to get all the fame.

After the victory lap was complete
they double checked each supporters ticket
to make sure that they had enjoyed the match.
But with such a lopsided scoresheet
they certainly couldn’t call it cricket,
or claim to have taken a fair catch!


LAUGHABLE LAURELS

Our captain stood on the victory dais
his face a continent of beaming pride
knowing that our win was without bias,
in spite of the fact the goals were too wide.
Our supporters were overcome with joy
while theirs all seemed completely subdued.
We were so proud of our inspiring boy
for the opposition had not even booed.

As we began one more victory lap
our opponents began to shuffle out
while the overseas press had turned their back.
Madiba and Desmond stamped on their cap
of both their feelings there could be no doubt….
We all know Robert can resist any flak!

TREACHEROUS TRIOLET

There are some of us who deny the part
many of we whites played in Zimbabwe’s fate.
Self deception had become a fine art
for those of us who had denied the part
we played in its calamitous start
by leaving our sharing until too late.
Why then do some of us deny the part
many of we whites played in Zimbabwe’s fate?





















A gentle piss take…………


SONNET FOR A SICKIE

An epidemic at my place of work,
three colleagues have taken another day off;
but you could never say it was a shirk
here, where a sickie’s as good as a cough.
Where I come from it would be like a theft
for taking something you haven’t earned,
some might call you morally bereft
with your fingers ethically burned.
But here in this land of the long weekend,
it’s easy to make them a bit longer:
it’s not as if there is a rule to bend
as a right it couldn’t be much stronger.
It’s easy to take off just one more day
I have heaps, but will not give them away!



FIVE WEEK FEVER

It’s a virus which strikes with impunity
from which there’s definitely no escape.
No way of building up immunity
or any kind of a protective drape.
It always strikes with clockwork precision
which the target body can never deny.
Just how does it make such a decision
to elicit a pre-programmed reply,
from teachers who think of themselves as sick
on the fifth week of a ten-week term?
Just how does it know the moment to pick,
it must be one hellava clever germ?
When the sickie fairy weaves its magic spell
how can any self respecting Aussie stay well!


PORK PIES*

It has been suggested that Australian employees be asked to take a lie detector test when applying for sick leave.



“It’s completely un-Australian!”
The union delegates were heard to cry.
“A concept which is totally alien:
making our sacred sickie fairy die!”
What need is there for a lie detector,
when the Aussie worker can be trusted
to tell the truth to any inspector
who is trying hard to have him busted?
He is always backed by fellow workers
with ,”You look really crook!” before and after.
No-one can see their colleagues as shirkers,
even in the face of ironic laughter.
Besides, polygraphs’ exorbitant cost,
will always outweigh pilfered wages lost!



* Australian rhyming slang for lies

A NOT TOO LONG TREEP!*


I had only been here for a very short while
when a dinkum Aussie told me his plan,
in an accent which was later to make me smile,
since I was concerned for this poor Aussie man.

“I’m going to Rottnest on a ship today”
he proudly announced in an Aussie twang.
“On a sheep to die,” I had heard him say,
while not too sure of Aussie Strine* and its slang:

I pictured him astride a Merino,
paddling away as if it was a board,
until the poor creature had begun to slow
a watery grave its only reward.

You should have used a sile* instead, old mate,
or better still a twin Yamaha motor,
to avoid such a terrible fate
and not use up your good luck quota.

I spent the weekend in a state of worry
at my Antipodean friend’s demise
preparing the ways to say I was sorry,
but I was to receive a pleasant surprise

When he arrived back at work on Monday
without even taking his usual sickie.
“It’s been so good to get really far away,
even if the weekend was such a quickie!”

“Not nearly as far as I thought you’d gone!”
I told him with both mirth and much relief.
“The holiday I thought you had been on,
would have required a rock solid belief!”



*Treep Trip

*Strine Aussie way of saying, Australian

*Sile Sail


STICKING TO HIS GUNS

It happened in fifty-eight
on the south coast of Natal.
My brother and I called from the surf for lunch,
on our way up the beach with Mom;
screams and panic as a shark
attacked a fellow land-locked Rhodesian
taking off her arm.
Another Rhodesian, white of course,
plunged in, punching the creature on the nose
driving it away
and , with a lifesaver, became an instant hero
carrying her through the hysterical crowd
scything screaming mothers with kindly blows
to the newly arrived ambulance.

The black man who had earlier run down the no-man’s land
from the nie-blankes *beach
to warn the European one of its approach,
realising he would not make it
rushed into a white’s only hotel.
”This is a net-blankes* hotel! No natives allowed!”

It is as well he stuck to his guns
and they phoned the hospital immediately;
just as it was Nelson Mandela
stuck to his;
and treated his gaolers the way he did.
They were both unheralded then,
only the one much later.


* nie-blankes non-whites
* net-blankes whites-only

WASTED LIVES

I saw him twenty three years ago
The man on today’s news:
Tall, bearded, in complete control
Interrogating a suspect who
He had bundled into a police van
An hour earlier at the border.
Now he shuffles, still tall,
But stooped, eyes haunted
By nearly as much time as Mandela in gaol;
His heart broken and diseased.

Back then beneath a benevolent boulder
The peaceful sound of a dove in his ears
He threatened a cowering black man
For God knows why;
While I sped past
Outrunning impending ambushes

Today he dodges the media
Waiting in ambush
Dazzling him with lights
Baying for his story.

Before, I knew him only by reputation
As he plied his devious trade;
Convicted as a South African spy
For assassinating an innocent taxi driver
And several years on death row
Only to be pardoned by Madiba*
Arch enemy of his employers.

What are his thoughts now
As he speeds off to the comfort
Of the country he tried to thwart.
He ,at least, can ponder the rights and wrongs
Of what he has done
Unlike my friend Robbie
Killed in a chopper
Thinking too, that what he was doing
was right.


* Nelson Mandela

A SONNET WHICH BEGS THE QUESTION

Poems nestling beside an s.a.e,
Lovingly placed in a pristine envelope;
Each carefully folded in two, not three,
And each carrying its creator’s hope.
Sestina, a pantoum, villanelle and
Especially, of course, good old free verse:
Perhaps with a sonnet though not too bland;
Unless a haiku might suit: nice and terse.
Ballad with an arm around the others:
Light verse (perhaps a bit to too un-p.c.)
Included only for a band of brothers,
Stationed to the right of prose poetry.
Hoping to all snare the poetry prize
Maybe
Each
Showing
Itself
To
Be

Wise!



AN EXTENDED SONNET WHICH BEGS THE QUESTION

Poems nestling beside an s.a.e,
Lovingly placed in a pristine envelope;
Each carefully folded in two, not three,
And each carrying its creator’s hope.
Sestina, a pantoum, villanelle and
Especially, of course, good old free verse:
Perhaps with a sonnet though not too bland;
Unless a haiku might suit: nice and terse.
Ballad with an arm around the others:
Light verse (perhaps a bit to too un-p.c.)
Included only for a band of brothers,
Stationed to the right of prose poetry.
Heroic verse not needing a disguise,
Maybe envelope rhyme as a surprise
Each hoping to snare the poetry prize!




AN EXTENDED SONNET WHICH BEGS THE QUESTION

Poems nestling beside an s.a.e,
Lovingly placed in a pristine envelope;
Each carefully folded in two, not three,
And each carrying its creator’s hope.
Sestina, a pantoum, villanelle and
Especially, of course, good old free verse:
Perhaps with a sonnet though not too bland;
Unless a haiku might suit: nice and terse.
Ballad with an arm around the others:
Light verse (perhaps a bit to too un-p.c.)
Included only for a band of brothers,
Stationed to the right of prose poetry.
Hendecasyllabic hiding in disguise,
Maybe envelope rhyme as a surprise
Each hoping to snare the poetry prize!



A NUT FOR LEAVING HOME?

Did all the gum trees I once saw at home
migrate from Australia and then roam,
as so many have done all over the world,
their nuts picked up and summarily hurled
to lands needing a fauna to endure.
Hardy pioneers planted to ensure,
windbreaks protecting many a farmer’s wealth,
or, in Vietnam, predicting a soil’s health;
but when they get there they are never the same
metamorphosing again and again.
Ugly foreigners looking not quite right
who won’t budge or disappear overnight,
just like migrants coming the other way,
like it or not, we are all here to stay.



T0 TEST OR NOT TO TEST


There are some teachers in Australia,
who say a test can never really be a test
of a student’s success or her failure,
because that person is never really at her best.
When having to perform under pressure,
how can she show what she can or cannot do?
It cannot be an accurate measure
of the skills she is able to get through.
Better to let her show her worth in class,
or even in a task which she can take home,
for then she is guaranteed a good pass,
in her producing a quality tome.
As for the others, they are not really so sure.
‘Tests test one’s ability to endure!’


INDIAN SUMMER

Prepare you cricketers who visit this land
for your reception will be far from bland
and you will be sledged by the Media first,
who pretend it’s after the truth they thirst:
while what they do is to demonise you
so that even you, will not know what is true!
Then the spectators who swallow their slant
and when taking up the distorted chant,
are fully convinced that what they see is right.
Whatever happens, ‘it is not a fair fight!”
If you get past the umpires all swayed
by ferocious appeals and cricket well played,
is it possible to beat this sledging band
of pampered cricketers from this hard land?





RISING IN THE SPRAY

He asked that his ashes be scattered
over the Victoria Falls, ’the smoke that thunders.’
Although I shall not be there,
I’ll picture them cascading over
the mighty chasm as it roars its approval:
and his indomitable spirit rising
with the spray into a dazzling blue sky
only Africa can produce.
David Livingstone said that it was a sight,
so beautiful that angels must have gazed
down upon them in their splendour.
Fred will be with those angels now,
regaling them with stories and charming
them as only he can.
They will taste his friendship and love,
as we once did,
and will still do
in our memories of him.









A TRUE STORY WORTH TELLING?

A Sestina

If I told you about my life’s story,
you might not think I was telling the truth.
“Not another Danny Archer* wanna be!”
you’d cry, for every Zimbabwean had
experienced so much more than us, they say:
while we have no way of checking their worth.

I begin my tale for what it is worth.
It can’t be like any other story,
for everyone’s is unique they say
with its own particular brand of truth.
Mine began uneventfully and had
taken quite a long time for it to be

one which is exciting enough to be-
come so much more than just a few bob’s worth.
Someone lying asleep in the park had
been,” brutally murdered end of story!
I swear Mom that is the absolute truth.”
Or some other fantasies I would say.

“Some drama in my dreary town,” I’d say,
for that is how I wanted it to be.
But all too soon I was kicked by the truth
coming to realise life and its worth;
in learning my old schoolmate’s sad story.
It’s poor old Robbie who suddenly had

lost any future he might’ve had, and had
died without being able to have his say
in the tragic unfolding of our story:
for he, poor Ian, was not destined to be
able to get all of his money’s worth
or contribute to our personal truth.

I have attempted to tell you the truth
about a small part of my life which had
been representative of all its worth.
There is still so much more that I could say
of ambushes and murders, which would be
a validation of my life’s story.

If it’s told the truth, it’s for you to say.
If it had, it’s up to readers to be
judges of its worth as a true story.



*A swashbuckling Zimbabwean soldier of fortune in the film Blood Diamond.


A TRUE STORY WORTH TELLING?

A Sestina

If I told you about my life’s story,
you might not think I was telling the truth.
“Not another Danny Archer* wanna be!”
you’d cry, for every Zimbabwean had
experienced so much more than us, they say:
while we have no way of checking their worth.

I begin my tale for what it is worth.
It can’t be like any other story,
for everyone’s is unique they say
with its own particular brand of truth.
Mine began uneventfully and had
taken quite a long time for it to be

one which was exciting enough to be-
come so much more than just a few bob’s worth.
Someone lying asleep in the park had
been,” brutally murdered end of story!
I swear Mom that is the absolute truth.
They are not tall tales, I swear Mom” I’d say.

“Give me some drama in my town,” I’d say,
for that is how I wanted it to be.
But all too soon I was kicked by the truth
coming to realise life and its worth;
in learning my old schoolmate’s sad story.
It’s poor old Robbie who suddenly had

lost any future he might’ve had, and had
been killed without being able to have his say
in the tragic unfolding of our story:
for he, poor Ian, was not destined to be
able to get all of his money’s worth
or contribute to our personal truth.

I have attempted to tell you the truth
about a small part of my life which had
been representative of all its worth.
There is still so much more that I could say
of ambushes and murders, which would be
a part, a small part of my life’s story.

In truth there’s so much, so much to say.
If only there was time, time for it to be
a tale worth telling, a valid story.



*A swashbuckling Zimbabwean soldier of fortune in the film Blood Diamond.


CUP CLERITHREW HIDING IN A SONNET.

The brothers Du Plessis:
they were two not three.
Each very good at rugger
which was a bit of a bugger
for the England front row
and their lineout throw,
which they couldn't keep up
and it cost them the cup.
For a giant called Matfield
was the one who steeled
their hopes and their throws:
but that's how it goes...
You can't win them all,
especially without the ball!


A HOLIDAY INTERRUPTED
A carefree European woman tossed
into a bubbling Bali surf cauldron.
Moments before gambolling like children,
no thought of holidays cut short, life lost.

Scythed down by a foaming, furious snake:
flung over in a ferocious death roll,
speared into the ocean's ant lion* hole
while her husband and son scream in her wake

helplessly watching her slipping away.
Until a lifeguard gliding on a board
offering a brown umbilical cord,
plucked her gently from the venomous spray.

Bargains with God over, soothed by the sun,
sobbing uncontrollably until calm:
softly healed by a family's balm,
no need for promises to become a nun.

Will she look at life differently now
savouring each moment as if her last,
or rekindle love for future and past
as minutes,hours and days slip by her bow?

Like when my heart began to fibrillate
and I stared into an ant lion's lair:
time and drugs turning me away from where
the here and now had truncated my fate.

When we both remember the ant lion crater
our senses are immediately heightened;
life's view momentarily enlightened
until time wipes them away much later.

Balinese avoid the sea at all cost:
Gods and ancestors live in places high.
The ocean is where evil demons lie
and fishermen's lives are easily lost.

So be very careful to venture there
especially if you don't swim too well,
even the blandest of surf can be hell
for unskilled Europeans who dare!


*An insect which digs a conical pit in the sand and buries itself at the apex. When ants stray into its lair they are unable to negotiate the slippery slope and slide into its jaws. Found in Africa.


LITIGIOUS LITANY

The two of them could not see it coming:
both of them, the owl and the pussycat.
They could not hear the warning drums strumming,
they could not hear the drums, rat a tat tat.
Even with its big brown eyes the wise owl
could not see it coming, hear the drumming
as lawyers, accountants and chainsaws prowl
the old trees used only to insects humming.

But she should have! The roots loom large and thick
and by looking down and treading with care
she should have avoided that awful brick
seeing the dangers that were lurking there.
Now owl and trees will have to pay the price
for our fear of the litigator’s slice!