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It has been such a long road – Alfred T. Qabula
This poem is one of the last pieces composed by Alfred T. Qabula (1942-2002), a poet from the trade union movement in Durban in the 1970s and early 1980s, famous for “Praise poem to FOSATU” and as one...
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Derek Walcott, A Far Cry from Africa
A Far Cry from Africa A wind is ruffling the tawny pelt Of Africa. Kikuyu, quick as flies, Batten upon the bloodstreams of the veld. Corpses are scattered through a paradise. Only the worm, colonel of...
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October, Java
October, Java The buzz of scooters die down past the bamboo compound revamped for tourists tramping to and from an ancient temple. Fresh and flushed by showers, groups and couples compare their pics...
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A Manuscript belonging to a girl whose body tasted so sweet – Aslan Abidin
A MANUSCRIPT BELONGING TO A GIRL WHOSE BODY TASTED SO SWEET – Aslan Abidin (transl. from Indonesian by Mikael Johani) —circa 1789 what could be crueler than our own beaches? they ran many ships...
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Self-portrait in blue
Self-portrait in blue When you look sometimes, when you don’t mean to see, but on a turn from reaching for something else – analgesics or the shaving brush – you catch the fugitive blur in the mirror...
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This carting life
This carting life I met History once, but he ain’t recognize me. – Derek Walcott, ‘The Schooner Flight’ On pilgrimage down damp steps, deep inside the British Museum, among boxes stocked roof-high, I...
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Christmas Eve
Christmas Eve Almost all is ruin – the Mozart fugue that fails its promise of deliberate consolation, the unending ticker and swish of a sprinkler outside, and the roads angry with traffic in...
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For W.
For W. 1. Ohio, 1994 When the shutter clicked, you jumped back and hated me for that one moment you had glanced into my camera, as if my shutter had fallen like a guillotine through parts of you. I...
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Royaumont Hash-up
This essay was originally published in Home Away (Zebra Press, 2010), edited by Louis Greenberg. Sadly, the book is being remaindered, an all too common fate for books in South Africa. “Paris, a kiss”...
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The wind in the morning
The wind in the morning The man wakes from dream to nightmare, his night-aged knees buckling over rubble outside when he emerges from the black mouth of his house its burnt shell a meagre shelter from...
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