15 october 2015

It is a pitch-dark night

It is a pitch-dark night
as if sky is filled with tar
and just here and there I notice stars
and we cat-sneak around
in a dark enemy camp
right through some thorn trees.
 
The moon is not yet out
and I am freezing before
I pass through a bare open piece of veldt
and it’s as if the backpack
does not sit right
and the web belt is scraping against me.
 
Around us there are guards
that we have difficulty noticing
until one of them lights a cigarette
 
and the blue flame
does suddenly brighten his face
and he is just a few paces away
from where we are.
 
Suddenly we do notice
other guards, lights
and vehicles
that drives up and down
 
and when a light
suddenly is switched off in front of us
I can hear my own heart beating
in my ears
 
and we try
to melt
into the long grass
 
and are aware of a vehicle
that leaves a road and are driving into our direction
and we want to cock our weapons
 
but we are too near to
the enemy guards
and between two of them
when that vehicle
does drive up to them.
 
We leopard crawl
to the shelter of few bushes
to escape the light
of the vehicle
and we can swear
that they did notice us.
 
Carefully I draw the knife
out of my boot
and when the vehicle does stop
between the guards
we both we both cock our rifles
which we aim at the enemy.
 
One of the soldiers
who climbs out of the vehicle
walks right into our direction
and the lights of the vehicle
lets him look like an apparition
in the way
that he walks closer
and we both do know
that this is trouble.
 
The man gets still closer
and I can hear
his boots crunch
over the small bushes and sand
where he stops
between the two of us
 
and he has got to be a Cuban
as I smell a Havana cigar
on which he sucks enthusiastic
and the knife feels cold in my hand
while he does unbutton his pants
and he has got to be night blind
as he is not aware of us
while I smell the salty odour
of his urine.
 
It feels like an eternity
before he turns around
and talking in Spanish walks back
and the vehicle
does depart a while later.



other poems: For now and for always, The temptation of being near to her, Your walking away is measured in watt, In the garden (ABECEDARIUM), Just for a moment it is there, There are people, Unknowing we may be living in a war zone, Holiday, I yearn for the secrets of nature (sonnet), At 52 the nuts of my country are stripped, A strange dream (triolet), The beach, the morning, Where star systems do disappear in the nought (sonnet), Come to my flower garden, Warriors of the civil service, This morning the sky glitters blue, You must not show any fear, My dear loving God, Sad tidings, Morning, Mirror image, The sun hangs orange red, Divorce V, Divorce IV (Espinela), Divorce III, Divorce II (cavatina), Divorce, Respite, At times we are only set on passing (American sonnet), The peach tree, The gardener, The old guitar (cavatina), Dear Lord God, Still life, Two sides to everything (cavatina), I have missed my country, The sardine run, He lies stretched out in the sun, Africa, There’s no other country, When death’s fingers do me touch, I wonder where is an untouched place that firmly does stand, You never came, I am afraid, The silent countdown, Without matter, Dare you character?, Once I wrote a kind of happy song (Orléans rondel prime), There is no other saviour, Alone we come into the world (for my mom on mother’s day), With hunger in your eyes, Please do forgive, Hoba West Meteor, When I do consider how my time is spent, I see him doing carpentry, When the two of us met, John Phillip, On Pretoria (Italian sonnet), Return, Cecil John Rhodes (Italian sonnet) (in answer to Rudyard Kipling), Afterwards, I walk in the veldt near to Majuba hillock, Vain are the words and deeds that are mine (Rubiyat sonnet), When I do find no place of peace (sonnet), Why I remember the Anglo-Boer war (John Dee sonnet), Lord, only in Your footsteps (Persian / Rubiyat quatrain), On a night, Far too quickly time rushes on (Persian /Rubiyat quatrain), Like any other person, She lives beautiful (sonnet), Where this world is but a grain of sand, On the day of my birth, The crucifixion of the Son of God, Today my heart is full of joy, A prayer (Sonnet), On my birthday, My heart has gone quite in me (Persian / Rubiyat quatrain), Come to me, Soldier: yesterday, At this place I have been before (sonnet), There had been a kind of loneliness, When the early the morning does begin (cavatina), Constantly I am astonished, When I hold you tight, Life is a gift, Bus trip at night, I have not seen the spark of life, Kamikaze, Lucifer at sunrise, The things in a town, When from me she is out of sight, How chilly like winter, Some times, I love you, Long Beach, As my eyes gaze into the dark night, I see her dancing gaily, Right against the morass, African September, A room in the past, The secret room, It had been a hell of spring with the sun hanging scorching, The marsh, For my darling, with New Year, The old year, Today people are not interested, South Africa is also my country, In this distant country, What fanciful lives we lead, As if they are beacons, You are my darling (sonnet), On Christmas, Last night I dreamt of you, Where are we now?, I had dreamt of you, At night the mind plays its tricks, Inside you and I dance, One Military Hospital, Something about a bird in a tree, While the year hangs skeleton, I gave my love to you, No other painting, Field of maize, The red arum lilies, Would my words, When the front door, At dusk, Child, Cry, Maybe 4, Maybe 3, Maybe 2, To be us, Photocopy machine, I do love Africa, While everything is turning brown outside, The crumbling man, My small Jack Russell dog, With self contempt I stand in the veldt, The fallen Cuban soldier, There is a time when night sneaks in, After the farm invasions in Zimbabwe, The small redbreast sings and dances, I love you, Walls, A child is a strange thing, Baby lies so fast asleep, It is a pitch-dark night, Hecuba, A pastor,

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