It concertinas over my skin,
around my wrist it trundles
on those stumpy limb nubbins
neither veering left or right.
Sublimely unaware of distance,
even when it lifts its round
jaw-bound head,
the yellow and black larva
searches only for a green world
to clamp onto.
I pluck it up from its lonely trek,
place it onto a Mulberry bush -
the fuzzy slinky pauses,
then commences to chomp down
on one more world,
a place that in time,
will be converted
to a yellow and black
grubbiness.
The grumpy wind cries through bottle glass and bone,
Grain silos whine like widows at the gate,
Each sunrise shows up but exits the dongas alone.
The main street sighs,its colors ages out of date,
A dronkie in overall insults the deserted mine,
His guffaws crack,deranged,underneath the weight.
The spaza still sells nyaope and wine
And phantoms line where concertinas used to play,
Their sounds of tiekie draai to hosannas of turpentine
Youngsters pursue tyres that stagger,then spin away,
Grime hides their glee,fields no longer yield,
Old topies sit like statues at close of day.
You comprehend-beyond the rot,
The shattered shield,
A determined ditty reverberates tenderly through pain
The child loves to go to the park and pick up sticks.
Like a dog, he will try to bring
one impossibly long stick home,
but he is 4 and by 4 o’clock
he is getting tired.
He still will not let go of one end.
He totters to the car like this,
at the carpark
he is actually sleepwalking.
I wake up,
a wandering hermit crab slips back into its shell.
Time concertinas,
the mind plays tricks in too much light or dark.
It’s 4 in the morning,
I’ve been gripping the end of a twisted sheet.
Strange,
but I want to take it home.
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