The City Breath Project

CITY BREATH trailer

2010-10-27T16:11:00.000-07:00

4 South African cities. 20 experimental films. 4 mins each.

"A breath of fresh air"

Cue, National Arts Festival, Grahamstown, South Africa

"Whichever film you watched, it's unlikely that you would have ever seen anything like it before."

Cue, National Arts Festival, Grahamstown, South Africa

"I was sweating with epiphanies",

"Smart big art in a small genre".

John R Leo, Director, Comparative Literature Program, University of Rhode Island, USA.

City Girl

2010-05-16T11:02:00.000-07:00

Cape Town
Director / editor: Niklas Zimmer
Camera: James Tayler
Performer: Catherine Scott
Voices: Katherine Bull, Deborah Poynton, Renate Meyer
1'00’’
2009

Sitting naked on her balcony, a woman blurs the line between public and private space, exploring both her comfort and discomfort in the city. She muses about why she likes living there and how it empowers her, as well as increases her sense of vulnerability.

Fragmented

2010-05-16T10:51:00.000-07:00

Cape Town
Co-director / Poet / Choreographer: Khanyisile Mbongwa
Co-director / Camera / editor: James Tayler
Performers: Zenande Mankayi, Nicole Olsen
4'53’’
2009

In Cape Town, a city divided along race and class lines, two women can't quite meet and can't quite let go. One gay, one straight, one black, one coloured, the spaces they inhabit connect them, and yet become the thing that separates them from each other. "Fragmented" is a dance poem about the physical and psychological identity of women in the city. They dance in urban spaces marked by masculine architecture that denies the organic curves of their bodies. They venture into marginal areas in which they are subject to intimidation or violation, areas marked by gang graffitti where only men walk safely. Their silhouettes become windows into the cityscape, in a film that dreams of a place where, in a line from the hushed internal monologue of the poem, "I forget your sex and your skin colour".

(Un)veiling

2010-03-31T11:36:00.000-07:00

Cape Town
Videographer: Mandilakhe Yengo
Performer: Alude Mahali
Poet: Gary Cummiskey
2'51’’
2009

(Un)veiling explores voyeurism and the power of the gaze. In the midst of the bustle of constrained living spaces in the city, privacy becomes a necessity but isn’t always a given. The city has eyes; it covers and uncovers and someone is always watching- hidden or revealed. Using the poem “Corner Café” by Gary Cummiskey, as its premise, (Un)veiling looks at the fine line between seeing, being seen and not seeing.

Circles

2009-06-19T12:30:00.000-07:00

Cape Town
Writer / director: Terry Westby-Nunn
01’54’’
2009

The circle is a prevalent symbol within the city - hardwired for signage, transport and mechanical efficiency. Our lives are ordered by the circle, both externally and internally. This video poem asks viewers whether they too are running rings around their city lives.

I walk the street with loose parts

2009-06-18T12:04:00.000-07:00

Cape Town
Choreographer: Louise Coetzer
Editor: Eben Smal
Cinematography: Oscar O'Ryan
Director: Ryan Kruger
Music: Gustav Stutterheim
Producer: Adrian Hogan
04'00''
2008

A dance film inspired by Deborah Steinmair’s poem Dream Weaver. We spend so much time living past one another, we become so caught up in our own small spaces. What is beautiful to see is the strict contrast between a space which normally carries a mass of human traffic, and then to see it empty and deserted. So many of the buildings we surround ourselves with function only from sunrise to sunset and yet there are endless stories to imagine in those spaces after hours. This for me is truly the city alive, with a breath and heart beat that slows down as the day draws to an end. – Louise Coetzer

Between

2009-04-01T11:42:00.000-07:00

Johannesburg
Artist / poet: Colleen Alborough
Sound artist / voice: João Orecchia
2'51’’
2009

Between is an exploration of Johannesburg city space. It considers how daily movement through exterior city space infiltrates and affects your interior world. Between tracks a turbulent journey along a tarred road. It traces the tarmac and the road-markings along the way. Its pace is fast and creates a disorienting viewing experience, as the road-markings and sounds are animated in sync with the speed of the journey. It explores the pace of Johannesburg and the constant, dizzying speed that embodies our way of being in this city.

This Place Forever (excerpt)

2009-03-31T14:12:00.000-07:00

Pretoria
Artist / director: Fabian Oliver Wargau
Composer: Hedley Vincent
2009

This excerpt from This Place Forever is a broken debate between two twenty-somethings about insecurity, love affairs and the environment of the city. The video drastically abbreviates their reflections on the permanence versus non-permanence of life as well as compatibility versus incompatibility between people, becoming in itself something transitory, to be used like the city. The film draws on a combination of poetic visual texts which are displayed as subtitles against the raw sound of passing vehicles and the hushed underlying original score.

To those who belongs the earth shall belong the sky up to the heavens

2009-03-31T14:08:00.000-07:00

Pretoria
Artist / director: Maaike Bakker
Sound: Christian Henn
1’46’’
2009

In this stop motion video of sky scenery embedded with text, the sky becomes a new intangible landscape, an extension of the city. In focusing on the constant search for unchartered territory, the video deals with the theme of the cities limitless and constant transformation. It investigates the old roman principle “Cuius est solum, eius est usque ad caelum et ad inferos“, which roughly translated states: ”To those who belongs the earth..(shall belong the sky up to the heavens)”. The video refers to the city in terms of its never-ending evolvement, to the extent where the only remaining space for development is above us, in the sky. It addresses and simultaneously satirises the rapid course of society’s progress in terms of spatial development.

The sound for the video was created by Christian Henn, only making use of air driven

instruments, a pedal organ and an accordion.

Jackson 5

2009-03-31T14:03:00.000-07:00

Johannesburg
Artist / director: Sean Buch
Camera / editor: Emma Jane Laurence
Sound: DJ Yoji a.k.a Simon Tollman
2’ 50’’
2009

Graffiti artists attempt to create a private space within the city through the act of tagging, writing their pseudonym in public space. Painting is considered by many to be a cloistered process executed in a studio or private space. This video, inspired by hip-hop and graffiti culture, plays on the tensions of the a painter’s public and private identity, and his relationship to the cities of Gauteng. The title Jackson 5 makes reference both to the American Abstract Expressionist artist Jackson Pollock and the Pop group of the 60s and 70s.

waitless

2009-03-31T13:59:00.001-07:00

Cape Town
Choreographer / director: Ananda Fuchs
4’40’’
2009

Three women sit in an empty suburban swimming pool: one who speaks the other’s mind, one who translates into her lover’s language and one whose mind is being spoken. They are all suspended in waiting. The film uses the words from the Leonard Cohen poem, “Dance Me to the End of Love”, as the women’s bodies remember the rhythm of love and of loss and are swept up in the dance, switching ultimately to a lovers’ tango on the beach – a memory or fantasy?

Player 1.1

2009-03-31T13:44:00.000-07:00

Port Elizabeth / Grahamstown
Artist / director: Mark Wilby
Performer: Gary Gordon
4'00''
2008

A man in a desolate warehouse landscape mutters the obsessive rhythms of share prices and stock market reports. It is an accountant’s incantation of shock, the nightmare of a stockbroker, evidence of an addiction that has erased him, adding up to nothing.

Walking in Plastic

2009-03-31T13:34:00.000-07:00

Cape Town
Choreographer / performer: Mduduzi Nyembe
Poet / voice: Bandile Gumbi
Artist / director: Kai Lossgott
2009

Performance artist Mduduzi Nyembe presents a memory of a wounded woman, a dream for an absent father, and a dance in a street market for survival. They are ritual stories of the heartache of the slums – substance abuse, violence, gender inequalities, chronic unemployment, families’ incapacity to provide for and protect their children. Each of Nyembe’s characters, taken from his daily interactions in the township, is left, in the words of poet Bandile Gumbi, "a constant wanderer / always at the beginning of complete circles", trapped in the existential cycle of poverty.

Terra Obscura

2009-03-31T13:27:00.000-07:00

Cape Town
Artist / programmer / director: Maia Grotepass
02'00''
2009

Terra Obscura displays the joint layered effects of computerised forces and human intervention on two sites on the developing edge of greater Cape Town. Grotepass interprets the data to mirror and highlight processes observable in landscape changes that occur due to “low density sprawl”. Informal human interaction and natural processes are mapped to random-based algorhythms. Geometric algorhythms create visual structures referring to formal planned development of the sites. This video is an exploration of imagery captured from an interactive installation work with the same title.

TV Programs 001: Powerlines / Web of Life

2009-03-31T13:19:00.000-07:00

Cape Town
Artist / director: Nileru
03’10''
2007

An abstract photomontage work that engages with the electrical power lines which characterizes our urban environment. The combination of still photography, repetition and Solfreggio sound frequencies produce an audiovisual sensory experience which is at once calming and meditative to some, while excruciatingly irritating to others.

The Electrician

2009-03-31T13:10:00.000-07:00

Cape Town
Artist / director: Terry Westby-Nunn
Poet / voice / performer: Tanya van Schalkwyk
2'5''
2009

Cities are the dressing rooms of our dreams / fantasies. "The Electrician" romps through another side of Cape Town's blackouts and energy crises, as well as the mind of a city dweller. Is the electrician a figment of her imagination or is she part of an underground city - alternate to the one we read about in the papers and believe to be true? Reality or imaginary, the city plays dress up with our minds.

Omdat ek die stadsrumoer (Because I chose the city noise)

2009-03-31T13:07:00.000-07:00

Cape Town
Artist / director: Koeka Stander
Poet: William Rowland
Voice: Helene Rowland
03'21''
2009

A video poem that evokes the silent, boxed-in world of creatures living in aquarium tanks, viewed by casual tourists. In them we see our mirrored selves, trapped inside the noisy city landscape. The writer of the poem and song in this film was blinded at age four, but at 69 still has vivid memories of visiting an aquarium.

Waiting

2009-03-31T13:02:00.000-07:00

Johannesburg
Artist / director: Rat Western
05’16’’
2007

Waiting is a lonely, domestic experience of urban, inner-city living as told from the perspective of a particular inhabitant. Waiting was originally designed as a comic/graphic story and was printed in book form, but was converted to a film for exhibition purposes.

Karohano

2009-03-31T12:58:00.000-07:00

Johannesburg
Choreographer / director: Jeanette Ginslov
4'30''
2009

Karohano, meaning pieces in Sesotho, is a collaborative dance video representing three male dancers from Madagascar and South Africa. It is a fusion of video technology and urban dance energy, revealing aspects of African male identity, political satire and ironic gestures. Nominated for Jury Short Award Cinedans, Netherlands, 2008.

I lost a poem

2009-03-31T12:50:00.000-07:00

Johannesburg
Artist / director: Erica Luttich
Poet / artist: Anni Snyman
3'00''
2009

This video poem laments the loss of slow significant contact that a vehicle bound city inhabitant experiences, but also exalts in the infinitely interesting stream of image, noise and thought that flows by. In the timeframe of the automobile, images, moments and themes repeat continually. This transforms the city into an experience of motion and rhythm, rather than locality.

Sound and Sign Language Poems

2009-03-31T12:37:00.000-07:00

Durban
Artist / director: Lolette Smith
Performer: Michaela Smith
7'09''
2008

Sign Language poems are visual poems in their own right, with their own syntax, morphology and poetic rules. In 'Car on a bumpy road' the 'C' shaped hands become the bouncing car wheels while the body wrestles the bumps on the road. 'A' shaped hands clutch the steering wheel turning this way and that. 'R' shaped hands eventually become the smooth road. Cultural/language barriers can be ignored as the poems inform the viewer of the rich diversity of the visual language of Sign.

Orfea Outin by frankblame

2008-12-22T01:39:00.000-08:00

Not a video poem, but an eerie, urban and gritty dance/performance film.

Green Grass by Michelle Firment Reid

2008-12-22T01:30:00.000-08:00

http://www.michellefirmentreid.com

A superb example of a video poem by someone working across genres, as the artist is a painter and a poet and acted as producer of the video, but not as camera person or editor.

CURATOR'S BRIEF

2008-10-01T13:00:00.000-07:00

The basis for City Breath will consist of a collection of around 20 short video 'breaths' or 'gasps', conceptual pieces and brief emotional encounters with places that can not be expressed in the dominant mode of narrative cinema or television. These breaths or essences seek to interrogate the official understandings of our cities given to us in television, film and other mass media.

A selection of these will then enter into active dialogue with the people of Cape Town in May 2009, when they will be presented as site-specific video installations in urban spaces as part of the Cape 09 Biennale. A DVD and video website will be produced to accompany the event, as well as regular movie theatre screenings of the entire collection.

City Breath insists on cultivating private dreams and mythologies in public places. It goes in search of the unspeakable. It makes a point of creating and collecting that which is rejected by mass media, simply because it is personal, because it engages beneath the surface, because it does not fit pre-defined categories, because it might take patience, because it might be raw and difficult, because it might not be popular, because it is not for sale. The project goes against the concept of the 'mass', an illusory category created by the field of marketing, and goes in search of deeply individual encounters, which might evoke strong reactions and stimulate debate.

Interrogating, breaking and manipulating tired historical forms, City Breath seeks new forms, new film making strategies and approaches, new sound and image technologies, new aims and intentions in the tradition of the international avant-garde. It relates strongly the new short attention span cinema of the digital age and the skillfully produced low or no budget film. To this end, City Breath is facilitating and encouraging new collaborations between South African poets, performance artists, dancers, alternative filmmakers, experimental animators, sound and video artists, as well as curating submissions from established artists. The emphasis will be on the emergent genres of the video poem, the screen dance / performance and experimental animation. We will be looking for conceptual pieces that can hold the viewer's attention.

"If Johannesburg is a virus, I was infected a long time ago, and negotiating and challenging the virus is what interests me, and therein lies the intimacy." (Stephen Hobbs) City Breath invites performers, poets and filmmakers to approach their urban spaces and their identity not merely as spectators, but also as actors, intervening in tired representations and unquestioned systems, rituals and places. It opens up opportunities for "aimless wandering, ludic nomadism, shadowing strangers, co-opting the streetwise strategies of direct action, cutting across the grooves of commuterdom - by turns playful and dangerous, such 'senseless acts of great beauty' bear witness to the great Situationist slogan 'Sous la pave, la plage' - under the pavement, the beach." [Ilona Blazwick, 2001. Century City : Art and Culture in the Modern Metropolis. London : Tate Publishing.]

The early deadline is 30 January 2009. The final deadline is 30 March 2009. The Cape 09 Biennale will be held in May 2009. The maximum length for each film is 4 minutes.

Please do not hesitate to contact me for further questions.

Kai Lossgott
info@kailossgott.com
0721198300

MTV Night Painter

2008-08-29T03:44:00.000-07:00

This global MTV branding campaign by the South African production company Fly On The Wall uses poetry and video art techniques.

MTV Night Swimmer

2008-08-29T03:40:00.000-07:00

This global MTV branding campaign by the South African production company Fly On The Wall uses poetry and video art techniques.

MTV Collector Girl

2008-08-27T03:09:00.000-07:00

If there is anything that defies my curator's brief by suiting this project it this global MTV branding campaign by the South African production company Fly On The Wall. It uses poetry and video art techniques to bring across messages that seem really inspiring. Even though they might strike you as rather pretentious and banal if watched twice, Fly On The Wall remains one of the most interesting filmmakers around.

The City Breath Project aims...

2008-08-26T15:56:00.000-07:00

To seek and encourage personal voices and opinions
To dream, remember and celebrate a sense of place as well as criticise and highlight issues and debates
To present an alternative to industrial film making, its products and processes
To encourage emergent forms such as video dance and video poetry through cross-platform collaboration
To encourage new inter-disciplinary talent networks
To promote both emerging and established artists on the same platform
To multi-purpose content for maximum audience access
To create a platform to gain maximum exposure for the artists and their work

Sam Taylor-Wood. Breach. video installation. 2001.

2008-08-26T15:17:00.000-07:00

A video installation by the British artist with a quietly disturbing performance.

Julian Grey. Billy Collins. Forgetfulness. video poem. 2006

2008-08-26T15:01:00.000-07:00

An awesome video poem by the US Poet Laureate and Julian Grey of Headgear. Big time inspiration.

Kai Lossgott. Melissa Butler. parentheses. video poem. 2008.

2008-08-26T14:54:00.000-07:00

A video poem about Cape Town by the South African video artist Kai Lossgott and the American poet Melissa Butler, created to kickstart the City Breath project.

Anders Weberg. For Sore Eyes. video. 2008.

2008-08-26T14:51:00.000-07:00

A recent work by the Swedish video artist.

Jeanette Ginslov. slip. screen dance.

2008-08-26T14:50:00.001-07:00

An early screen dance by the South African multimedia choreographer.

Pippilotti Rist. I'm not the girl who misses much. 1985.

2008-08-26T14:46:00.000-07:00

The Swiss video artist's famous first video, reworking lyrics by John Lennon, seen at the time as a comment on MTV.

Two Gifts

2008-08-26T07:49:00.001-07:00

by Dawn Garisch

I’ve lived in my body in this city all my life
yet have not known this simple pleasure:
you took me to a lake on a fynbos berg.
I entered like a dream, plunging.

We sat on white sand playing
with shoals of meaning that shift
when you lift the lid off words.
You chose to sit alone while I went in.

The mountain offers up this cup
for gulls and clouds to drink; I, mere fly,
baptised my life within its living liquid,
emerging blessed. I heard you say

women want more than you can give; a man
was drowning in your eye. We walked back,
caressed by sensuous air. Your mouth
was tense. I shook your hand goodbye.

slaap

2008-08-26T07:46:00.001-07:00

by Clive E Smith

waar die burger oor my hang kombers
waar die waarheid nuus word en snoes

bang vir slaap en koue dood op naak
my maan die bedlamp brug my dak om bo

kanaal mybad en wasgoed spoel was
haas vir niks en nie 'n baas

sit in son voor heater van god wat faal
kom help my vrou en smaak in mond

sy brand in slaap en hoop vir foet
beenafgesit en reuk in neus van braai

written by Clive E Smith 0834811203 clivesgarage@capepages.co.za

van suk en ses

2008-08-26T07:44:00.000-07:00

by Clive E Smith

ek wen net emmies my hart is vol liedere
moses stoot water uitmekaar net vir my en
die son kom op en glimlag my naam hart oor die horison uit

die koerant se opskrifte is oor my en my hare
en my kuif en sagte vel soos room en die girls
skep lepels vol uit my wange en hulle harte is vol

die meide druk die sweet onder my arms uit
en maak hulle hare reguit
en galop in die wind en die skemer kan dit nie mince nie

die katte trek my tone en begin praat
en lag en se^ my naam hardop en miaaw
nooit weer nie en kry jobs by clicks en discom en pep

ek kannie gly nie
ek kannie val nie
ek kannie huil nie
ek kannie pyn of ly nie
ek kannie traan of stog nie
ek kannie alleen of loun nie
ek kannie mis verlang nie
my wiskey glas het nie 'n onder nie

Exits not taken

2008-08-26T07:43:00.000-07:00

Arja Salafranca

The sky was a dark stain of
muddy purple,
as I drove home this Friday night.
The Coca-Cola sign blinked at me
from the round Ponte building
in the distance.
Jim Croce was singing on my car radio
as cars soared past
in a perpetual rush at life.
The end of a day,
endings, beginnings,
the exits of the freeway
that I no longer take
because they lead to my past,
other lives, people long since
out of it.
They flashed past me as I drove.
Another time I would've been going
somewhere else.
Endings, beginnings,
life's full of them,
becoming one,
blurring into a mass
of exits not taken.
The sky is a dark stain of
muddy purple
as I drive tonight,
I don't know where I'm going yet.
It's the interim,
between the end,
and the waiting for a beginning.

Hillbrow's Festival of Meat

2008-08-26T07:41:00.000-07:00

by Arja Salafranca

A pair of ribs hang together
in isolation from the rest of their body.
Red and pink
packages displayed in the fridge,
neatly wrapped.
These raw pieces
waiting to be taken home,
made brown and disguised
for human consumption.

The Hillbrow Meat Festival
is a shop clean and yellow
celebrating
technology that can grow cattle
on hormones, keeps them inactive
to let the fat build.
We're capable of taking away their babies
for human consumption.

Far away from my home
lies the abattoir
and a head,
still screaming blood,
sits on the wet, red floor.

Far away from that abattoir,
the rest of its body,
on my plate,
ribs and all,
covered in a gravy,
surrounded by potatoes and peas
satabbed into by a fork
and something more ominous,
that I can't define.

On the way to work

2008-08-26T07:40:00.000-07:00

by Arja Salafranca

On the way to work
I see a dead dog lying on the pavement,
one leg lifted in rigor mortis,
a meaty chunk of shoulder flesh exposed.
There are woven baskets for sale
on the opposite side of the road, and round barstools.
The sun burns my driving arm crisp brown.
A desperate woman sells wooden bowls,
comes up to my window. I flick my
eyes away behind mascara-flecked
sunglasses. Her mouth drops a little.
There are men selling bags of avocados
and boxes of green grapes. I say no.

Driving to work I detour
through poverty.
The houses are small, shabby, paint peels
and fades away. Walls are not high,
and many are crumbling. People sit
in their yards and watch rerouted
traffic bump through the neighbourhood,
observing the unusual event as if it were a parade.
The shops are hot, dark holes. The children amuse
each other by buying sweets, walking,
playing in the streets.
It's a different world here,
a world I've been warned against.

Driving home, one night, a dog leaps
into the dark road. I swerve to avoid its black
jumping shape. It's limping, sick,
frightened or confused.
A group of men stand nearby, laughing
loudly, clustered in groups by their cars.
I put my foot hard on the pedal,
the dog disappears, defeated,
limping back into the darkness.

I am not

2008-08-26T07:39:00.001-07:00

by Ike Muila

i am not
i am not a roadblock
striker busted or
a steepslope
searching slide sethoba mazenke
forcevuur trigger jazzman star black pajero
suffer gate mourn malombo kite
i am not
i am not a flatroller thesha spin
tricycle green belt tsingandededze
byenbye
even in high vista rows
thiza ntanjane blazer phola cap
banana kar stork sweets badge
dorpenaar topshaela or molaola siphithiphithi
traffic cop sefate
i am not
i am not a town hall speedometer ball
trinity joke
in times of your life span
or a wheelbarrow crank
fix it all tick toes tick
foul feet take your times en fry
i am not

Ek gaan capital

2008-08-26T07:35:00.000-07:00

by Ike Muila

i am going to the capital
for die dae kroning wil van do
or die indeed
lewe soos danger gevaarlike ingozi
ons net eenders like Siamese twins
ekke die en danger
cowsin gwavhavha conspiracy gate
geen thatha ama chance bo my
ek gaan capital
knock knock..,whos there
or wie is daar
jou bra
jou bra who
jou moer

--

Translation

Ek gaan capital

i am going to the capital -
i am going to the capital
for the crowning will of do
or die indeed
live like dangerous fearsome danger
we are both identical the same like siamese twins
me myself i and danger
bullish coward fear driven heart conspiracy gate
no taking chances with me
i am going to the capital
knock knock..,who`s there
or who is it
your friend
your friend who
joe nuts

Kiss kiss

2008-08-26T07:33:00.000-07:00

by Ike Muila

bang bang kiss kiss
suna papa jellybird
madolo restaurant kiss bite the dust
bo die dae tweede double kick punch
thutha mabhakethi
no more eerie plastic air holding
backsite curve of the earth
tagshopspaza kisses above the axis
bums en buttocks fart
freely sonder klagte drive
over chest of drawer kit expansion
amen alleluia dabadaba muofhe
ramasoti offsite revs
dra proper proper
proper pi..,bo peep
amen alleluia folk songs

Blomer

2008-08-26T07:32:00.000-07:00

by Ike Muila

blomer madala
ek is `n ou taxin terries
binne in die toene
change deurdlana
op en af
blomer madala
blomer jozi
blomer joburg
jakarumba spy vanity logo
big short kota
four five limited tamtasie
ek ken jou haba witty madala
haba stalavisto
niks ou medulla oblongata
blomer
blomer madala
ek spin in die toene ek nou die dag
jy sal nie skyf kry nie
check lapha site
calaza madala site
ek vang hulle is net dresh
die een..,is `n ou mdryseni
die ander een..,is `n ou malala
die laste een..,is `n ou mavuka
jy moet onthou
skyf is `n process
where by cigarettes
passes from the owner to the parasite
blomer
blomer madala

-----

Blomer ;translation-hang around

Hang around
hang around buddy
i am an old texas town
inside my toes
changing door to door
up and down
hang around buddy of mine
hang around jozi
hang around joburg
vanity logo foolish spy
big short quarter
four five limited witty case
i know you are not wise buddy
no by the by
nothing like witty medulla oblongata
hang around
hang around buddy of mine
i spin inside my toes these days
you will never receive a smoke from me
check this side
peep cautiously this side
i believe these are three only
this one is for while away time
the other one for when is time to sleep
the last one for when i wake up
you should bear in mind
pass me a smoke is a process
where by cigarettes passes
from the owner to the parasite
hang around
hang around buddy of mine

lunching at the foot of the gardens

2008-08-26T07:30:00.000-07:00

Allan Kolski Horvitz

sir george grey
governor of the cape colony from 1854 to 1861
stands with one foot forward
quite fey
amazing to think he expanded the borders quite efficiently . . . ahem

a malay woman with sagging breasts
adjusts her black veil
strolls past with three small children
dressed in shorts and t-shirts that read:
well done uncle bin laden
sock it to the Yankees

a rat frightens a squirrel
wins the peanut thrown by a bratwurst of a tourist
camera lens as big as his boep

indeed
the heat forces us all into the shade
except for george grey who has to bleach
in the sight of history

*

and in this hour of meditation

the laughter of muscular nigerians
fills the lawns with mangrove swamps and oily deltas
bottles of baby powder masquerading as coke

the clatter of anorexic supermodels strutting down sidepaths
makes schoolboys
burst into pimply flamencos

secretaries in tight pants eating bananas on the benches
send text messages to their boyfriends
imploring invitations to dinner

xhosa cleaners in orange jackets and black hats worthy of halloween
sweep leaves from the feet of bearded Sikhs
sitting hunched over fake passports

mounted policemen nibble weeds
planted by hippies outside parliament on the day
verwoerd went under the knife

streams of curvaceous young women
fail to stop turning old men into yeats
goodgrace ah graciousness ah h a dis g rac e ?

1 january

2008-08-26T07:27:00.000-07:00

by Allan Kolski Horvitz

1

I am flying over joburg

louis botha avenue ribboning
to the north and south
shops front dirty sidewalks

we are four million souls in this city
on the highveld
up from the
o c e a n s

I am flying

wondering
what thoughts and sensations
breed and bear fruit in this city
along streets lined with trees
rain has made green

and it
stri k es me

the first task: reproduce!
without a plan for succession there is no survival
every thing moving (except the cars)
is something living that needs to fuck to survive
(except the plants of course)

I am flying over joburg
louis botha must still be renamed
to mark the new age
(for the moment the general keeps his place
as a memory whose fame subsists in
designating this street)

four million souls

recovering from the new year binge
parties that shake off the shackles
the drinking and eating and laughing and bemoaning
spill into the new year

but
this is also time for reflection and passion
and hope

we need this week away from wagework
this renewal
we need to gather up strength
dream eternal

2

I am flying over this settlement
(named joburg)
waves of hysteria and boredom greet the pilot
the task of ascribing meaning
entrusted to tv anchors and workshop devotees
who declare:

human paths stretch meandering
at their own pace
those who wish to hurry had better show patience
-an inhuman trait not to be expected
though to be fair
those who wish for harmony had better first watch
the action of a star being sucked into a black hole
and then come out the other side
in the form of another primal explosion
to appreciate just what power and violence
can and do ando an do an do a n d o

at the cor e of the act of creation

Cityscape

2008-08-26T07:25:00.000-07:00

by Michelle McGrane

Let me show you heaven and hell:
a city of gold veins and shacktowns;
a labyrinth of mineshafts and asphalt

where the Angel of Commerce and Industry
rises winking from his steel and glass edifice
and the Angel of Kwaito and Minibus Drivers
terrorises the neighbourhood watch.

The electric blue tower pierces the skyline.
The pavements teem
with the nightmares and dreams
of bankers, beggars and designer fiends.

The sparrows swing on the washing lines.
The church bells chime thirteen times.
The sky glows atomic red at dusk fall.
The miner's heartbeat echoes on the rock wall.

PICTURES (The National Gallery)

2008-08-26T07:22:00.000-07:00

by Khanyisile Mbongwa

I SPEAK ONLY IN PICTURES THAT SEE THE EYES IN ME
BUT ARE BLIND TO THE KIND IN ME
IMAGES THAT LIE RIDICULOUSLY HANGING ON WALLS ENDLESSLY
EMERGING WITH CERTAIN SOULS TRANCEEDING INTO THE TIMELESS WITH NO BOUNDARIES BEYOND JUST BEING A MERE PAINTING ON MY WALL
THESE PAINTINGS OF ROMANTIC CHILDHOOD CONCEIVE NOTHING BUT ONLY CAPTURE THE POSSIBILITY OF ME AND YOU
AND I WONDER IF THEY DESCRIBE WHAT IS TRUE OR ARE THEY JUST AN INDICATION OF THE FAILURE WE DO

I SPEAK ONLY IN PICTURES THAT SEE THE EYES IN ME
BUT ARE BLIND TO THE KIND IN ME
IMAGES INNOCENTLY NAKED BUT FRAMED IN THE MIND OF SEXUALITY FRUSTRATED BEINGS THAT CONCEPTUALIZE THEIR INNOCENCE AS A FRAGMENT OF THEIR DESIRES
THAT TRANSPIRES TO BE HOGGING THE SOCIETY ROBBING IT OF ITS HUMBLE PRESENTS
TURNING ME AND YOU INTO A PRECINCT OF PREY VULTURES AWAITING NERVOUSLY TO BE FRAMED FOR A NEGATIVE IMAGE TO CAPTURE WHAT THEY DREAM ON ON WHITE WALLS
WHILST THE WITH RUSTY PAINT DRIPDRIPPINGS ON THE SIDES TELLING THE TRUE STORY OF WHAT WAS

I SPEAK ONLY IN PICTURES THAT SEE THE EYES IN ME
BUT ARE BLIND TO THE KIND IN ME
THESE IMAGES YOU SEE MIGHT DEFINE BUT DON’T CONFINE THE STRUCTURES YOU SEE DAILY - THAT SMILE, A LIE WITH HUGS, THAT QUESTION WHY THE LINE SPLITTING REALITY, WHAT JUSTICE I ASK, WHEN TRUTH IS LIES EDITED TO DISCREDIT THE PEDESTAL BESTOWED UPON ME
THIS JURYWOULD BE SERVED BY QUESTIONING ITS AUTHORITY

I SPEAK ONLY IN PICTURES THAT SEE THE EYES IN ME
BUT ARE BLIND TO THE KIND IN ME
THIS ENGLISH LANGUAGE UNDERSTOOD WITHIN ME AS MY LIPS ROAM FREELY,, MY MIND RESTS EASILY BUT MY HEART, PONDERS THIS REALITY
OF THESE UNSPOKEN WORDS THAT ONLY MY EYES WITHIN THE PICTURE SEE

I SPEAK ONLY IN PICTURES THAT SEE THE EYES IN ME
BUT ARE BLIND TO THE KIND IN ME
EARS OPEN UP TO THE WONDERS OF THE STORIES FORETOLD
THEN LOST IN BETWEEN THE LINES THE STORY HOLDS
DEPICT THE TRUTH AS A LIE GETTING OLD
WHAT SOULS HAVE BEEN SOLD
WHAT SOULS HAVE BEEN SOLD

I SPEAK
ONLY IN THE PICTURES
I SPEAK ONLY IN THE PICTURES THAT SEE THE EYES IN ME
BLIND TO THE KIND
EYES IN ME
PICTURES THAT SEE
AND I SPEAK AND I SPEAK
THE TRUTH AND LIES YOU SEE
PICTURES IN ME, PICTURES YOU SEE
I SAID I SPEAK ONLY IN PICTURES THAT SEE THE EYES IN ME
BUT ARE BLIND TO THE KIND IN ME

HERE

2008-08-26T07:19:00.000-07:00

by Angifi Dladla

we have smoked away all forms and voices of life.
Our dumb river, like a faint, very faint path, drags itself
timidly across the city. What roar are walls
as we jostle our way to relieve fellow breadwinners.
What chatter are computers and mobile phones
playing with the unseen, reliving our childhood.
What hiss drive faeces and urine down
under our feet. What hoot are wheeled coffins
carved strictly for Kyalami and the highways.
No need of cockroaches, ours are two-legged –
just to spite our Mayor. Serves them right
when police, in winter, burn their rags
and with teargas fumigate their crevices. Here,
we all die from want, noise, crowd and loneliness
diseases. Corpses and carcasses live long
in coolers, waiting for the last festival in the bowels.

Here, flowers grow in pots, their gnarled roots grope
upwards, like their cousin stems, to the Almighty.
Small men masturbate from balconies.
Seeds splash on heads and shoulders of passers-by.
In corridors of trade, a troupe of gangly girls
with plain grins as smiles, promenade around
as if the floors they tread on are queasy. Then,
bingo! After a short interval – strip dance and
extras! dubbed sex engineering by our new nobles
dying from obesity in private villas. Here, hard
their experts slap the newly-born, giving them sham
violence and X-rated madness preparing them
for this life … Infants and their counterparts – toothless
wrinkles grow apart in quarantine to avoid exchanging
word of earth; word of the hereafter. Here, we lock
juveniles in jail or asylum as prematurely psychotics.

GRAFFITI-PRAYER IN A CHURCH TOILET

2008-08-26T07:17:00.000-07:00

by Angifi Dladla

We wish wee, we waz deh Bushshop’s Chillen;
deh God of Isryel, he woud do deh res’.
We wish wee, we waz Politishen Chillen;
to Eleet Schools wee, we woud dhrive.
We wish wee, we waz bhorn to Eggzayls;
Heirs to Hi Konnekhshins wee, we woud bee.
We wish wee, we waz from deh Oryen’;
Yoga it woud meyk us suttle.
From infinit slum shackhs wee, we come;
named aftah deh Hevvy Politishens, wee deh shackhs
chillen. Dis iz deh time, now, show dem enjel feys,
Gabhryel of long agow!

In Woodstock tier die wind

2008-08-26T07:15:00.000-07:00

by Danie Marais

’n week al lank.
Ons dak kraak soos die maste
van ’n ou seilskip in ’n storm
en die wolke maal en mor
oor Tafelberg se rand.
Aan die berg se voet lê die stad
oorbelig en uitgewas
soos ’n ou poskaart.

In Stellenbosch het jou senuwees ingekonk
en jou wil versaak –
oor die telefoon sleep jou tong
en tussen die snot en trane deur
hoor ek nie mooi wat jy probeer sê nie:
wetie & seblief & slaappille & rotgif & drain cleaner
& hospitaal & uitgepomp & ingespuit & jy oukei, ja, oukei
is min of meer al wat ek verstaan …

In Woodstock skeur die wind
gepas
terwyl ek wag vir die telefoon om weer te lui.

As die wind gaan lê
sal dit stil en skoon en leeg wees,
maar terwyl die palmbome stuiptrek
en die telefoondrade skud
is dit moeilik om te glo.

In Woodstock teister die wind my nou
met wetie & slaappille & rotgif & jou groot sagbruin oë
en alles deurmekaar

en êrens lê jy soos my afgekapte hande
in ’n voorlopige lakengraf
en lek verdriet en dooie gebede in jou kussing.

Ek wens ek kon sê ek verstaan nie
hoekom mense in noodweer rotgif & slaappille
en hul onskuldige lywe vol merke sny nie,

maar in Woodstock skryf die stukkende wind
jou wanhoop met wolke
huil jou woede deur die vuil strate en kartonmense

vir iemand om te hoor.

As die wolk skeur oor Tafelberg

2008-08-26T07:12:00.000-07:00

by Danie Marais

"It's coming, keep the car runnning"

The Arcade Fire

Op pad huis toe in die laatmiddagson
op Eastern Boulevard
sien ek ’n watte-wit golf
stadig
oor Tafelberg breek
en teen die krans afspoel.

My ma sê as dit gebeur het
sou sy as kind in Tamboerskloof
op die sypaadjie gaan sit om te kyk
hoe die wille Suidoos die hemel
teen die berg afblaas.
Die prentjie van my ma ¬–
’n dogtertjie van 10 ¬–
wat bang-bang lekkerkry
met haar oë op die berg
laat my na aan haar
en die jaar 1955 voel.

Onafwendbaarheid het ’n vreemde bekoring
as dit soos ’n onstuimige wolk
oor Tafelberg rol.
Jy kyk na die noodwendigheid
van berg en breek
die hopeloosheid
van asem teen klip
die blinde soen
van hemel en aarde
ma en kind
en jy weet hoekom mense nie anders kan
as lag en huil
en vashou en verloor nie.

Jy volg die lyn van die kabelkarretjie
wat in die kolkende wit woeling verdwyn
en jy weet die goeie en die slegte nuus
sal jou altyd weldra bereik
waar ook al jy of jou ma dan is.

A woman's journey

2008-08-26T07:10:00.000-07:00

by Bulelwa Basse

The universe itches
at the soles of her resiliernt feet,
with its persistent requests

step-by-step she treads tactfully
towards the accomplishment of each,
without a sigh in sound

Even when her shoulders emulate
the shape of her burdens,
the corners of her eyes
crease with a smile,
whenever she is greeted
by the innocence of her kind

Her arms, welcoming,
Her intellect, provocative
Her tongue, gentles enraged hearts
and her beauty, silencing

Grown men break into infant tongues
in her presence,
clumsy over her supremacy
Many have competed
and all have self-ridiculed,
in a quest for opulence,
yet priceless is her worth

Her love is nothing short of God:
She seeks connection
with every soul she meets
Found love, first,
before knowing who she was

In random tragedy
she learns hard lessons
Through loss of many sentimentals,
gains internal sharpening

Her eyes widen with awe
per universal orbit
And with life's surprising schooling,
steps the world
with a little bit of wisdom

Her footprints unravel mystery
Her word speaks comprehension
And her exchange rives consciousness
Like stitches on assembly on a quilt,
every encounter is history recorded,
as she journeys with all the living's aspirations
Dreams, their successes
Mourns their losses
Cries their tears
And fights for the feeble-minded one's sanity

It is this essence of woman
that propels the world
to dreams fulfilled
Gives birth to characters of excellence,
cultured minds,
conquering attitudes
and celebrated spirits
Because hers, has always been blessed
with the power of building
not only a home, but also a nation

Garage

2008-08-26T07:09:00.000-07:00

by Gary Cummiskey

Knock back on the counter
Your superstitious coins,
the couple in the car opposite's
screaming, she might
pull a gun on him. The
leaves lift gently on the breeze
WE'LL DISINFECT ETERNITY
The smiling petrol attendant's
lost in an ancestral
hallucination.

Corner cafe

2008-08-26T07:05:00.000-07:00

by Gary Cummiskey

I take you
to the corner cafe.
It is empty
so we slip down behind the counter
and start to fuck.
Afterwards,
when we are getting up off the floor,
we see the owner lying in the
doorway, dead.

Matthew said:

2008-08-26T07:02:00.001-07:00

Lots of people in
Plumstead, Dad, play pianos
at night. It's lank sad.

(by Gus Ferguson)

Classifieds

2008-08-26T07:01:00.001-07:00

by Gus Ferguson

Goldfish
coming to Cape Town
seeks bowl in city flat.

Cinnabar, Muizenberg:
An eyesore with
a splendid view.

Haikus

2008-08-26T06:59:00.000-07:00

by Gus Ferguson

Eight o'clock - The cars,
how urgently they rush
to reach the traffic Jam.

The city lights -
a bed of glowing embers.
We dread the kindling wind.

Perspective

2008-08-26T06:58:00.000-07:00

by Deborah Steinmair

I crossed the street
But a tree got in the way
I had to cross the sea to get the picture
Hanging from a window of your mother’s house in Graz
I saw our low brown house
swinging from the southern cross
From here it’s plain to see
We live on the head of a pin

Dream Weaver

2008-08-26T06:57:00.000-07:00

by Deborah Steinmair

I’ve been bleeding for a week
deep in the night I watch you sleep
in the first shiver of winter
I walk the street with loose parts
my mind a memory card
head crowded as a cupboard
the pope has died and
wet leaves decompose in your garden
under the backside of Table Mountain
late at night I memorise you
like a prayer at the kitchen counter
with your cd collection scattered
like loose change on the carpet
at the tail end of April
with twigs, twine and twill
I renovate my heart for you
hoping, oh hoping it will do

Unaccounted for

2008-08-26T06:56:00.001-07:00

by Deborah Steinmair

All sensation belongs to
The memory of a moment ago
And all the moments of your life and mine
The primary school sandwiches at lunchtime
The lakeside picnics, the boozy bashes
In seedy kitchens the minor car crashes
Led inexorably to the moment
That used to be the present
We spend the minutes of this morning
Sitting in a greasy spoon in Woodstock
And graffitied on a wall across the street
The name of your ex-girlfriend who didn’t get well
In loving memory of Estelle

Revelations

2008-08-26T06:54:00.001-07:00

by Kai Lossgott

what ails me
what grieves me
bereave me the place where once a person stood

I saw Jesus and
the summer child light up
on every street corner in Seapoint
a legion of mute sentinels extinguished at dawn
calling from invisible phone booths
their farewell into the passing cars
a number not too high and not too low

just a second ago past my window
in the guise of a boy with a beard
standing too steadily on that corner
like the trees who know of too many
boys for sale ago, and the ones
who don't come back, and how much that cost
Jesus at sixteen with dreadlocks
how many leaves would you trade
to let strangers
touch you in that way
to play saviour to the night
all done up like a wise man
a wild man, a saint searching for saviours
Tomorrow in the day
you will be gone, and what has taken root within you
communing with the dark and silence underground

And you with your stockings ripped and torn
the crown of the witness
platinum blonde upon your head
like the may maiden the christians burnt
or the christians who were made holy
burnt by others
Saint of these latter days
with your cheeks of blood
you too facing the street
blunt and arms dangling by your side
dandelion gushing white and reverent
I don't recognise you here
guarding the block
You have no curfew. Noone knows
your tiny feet stand guard here tonight
tomorrow in the second aisle by the cashier
heavy with my tinned food and frozen fish
I won't recognise you,
or wonder how it is you live

The Mountain Is

2008-08-26T06:53:00.001-07:00

by Tania van Schalkwyk

The mountain is
smoking dope, puffing out smoke and starting fires. A troubled hooligan.
Or maybe a freedom fighting terrorist. Or just a crazy bored house wife circa 1954.

As the sun sets, the clouds turn to pomegranate juice trickling
down her sides. The city is hazed by a menarche game of pyromania
as dusk drips with veld fire. Arson toys with self immolation
like playing doctors and nurses at a new age self help conference for addicts:

Tell me where it hurts.

Well,
my eyes itch.

Is it the light or the smoke?

I want to wear binoculars and a microscope at the same time so I can get closer
to the mountain. See inside. Journey to the centre like Jules Verne
and maybe discover understanding of what lies beneath this unmoving rock.
Feels so fluid. Following me everywhere in the city
like a moon does on all hi-ways of this earth.
Making you feel special. Cared for. Chosen. Thy will be done.

And yet the mountain burns just like the moon eclipses sometimes. So solid
and yet tonight it could disappear
like villages in a tsunami.
And continents in an ice age
and a body in cancer.
I am reminded of my grandmother’s death bed
and how her blood feeds mine, just like juice.

Just like the sweet sticky air clings to my thighs and cakes me in red.
A strawberry tart prowling the streets, protected by her mother’s anger,
maybe wanting to be eaten by wolves- but killing them first.
And blanketing them up in the catacombs of matriarchal soil,
beneath the night fog that beds our city as the wind sirens a panic howl.
Not a cocoon preparing for birth, but a burial chamber mummifying.
The black widow has spun her tale of revenge. She has kissed and made it better.
The mountain is dark and grey now, tinged by cloud echoing electricity
like the silver of my succubus eyeballs.
Screams die as more lights are switched on and dinners cooked.
After sex there is always silence. And sleep.

Tomorrow, if the mountain has vanished before my waking sight
it will still be there in the morning’s dew.
Clouds will gather and suck up water from the earth and form precipitation.
Tears will fall. Lives are lived. And juice is drunk.
Like a Mayan blood ritual to appease the fire gods,
we build pyramids out of our lives
in an attempt to survive. Sacrifice ourselves to the altar
when all there is
is a playground.

Shelley House Foyer

2008-08-26T06:52:00.000-07:00

(from Rain)
by Mike Cope

Sign in at security.
They don’t ask for your ID.
It’s a farce.

The bored man at the desk, poor sod,
ignores your smile and little nod.
(Kiss my arse.)

Glass and steel and sliding doors;
the lift-shaft goes to all ten floors
of this place.

It’s all angles, modern, hard,
square as the holes on an IBM card...
in your face.

Waterkant Street

2008-08-26T06:50:00.000-07:00

(from Rain)
by Mike Cope

Waterkant Street, Waterkant Street:
Not where famous people meet.
A few smart shops but mostly not;
Waterkant street is no hot spot.

Motor spares, shoe repairs;
The businessmen don’t put on airs.
Cash is mostly what you pay.
The bars are open night and day...

The Mansion: An Anti-Poem

2008-08-26T05:58:00.000-07:00

by Tania van Schalkwyk

The mansion is white.

It has no clutter, but under-floor heating
and a wraparound view of the city.

To enter the mansion you need to either live there
or know someone who knows someone who does
live there. You have to ring the belle bell —
an art-deco-repro door handle with TV com
and wait to be buzzed in —
walk through the plaster-of-Paris lions
flanking the entrance. And then you are given access

to a sushi-laden minimalist very long wooden table.
You will be seated under a bourgeois chandelier,
entertained with noise masquerading as conversation.
You will sit, toes caressing the slick warm tiles
mind blinded as you inhale
and watch many people come and go —
but never remember their names.

You will recognize these faces around town, in shops and bars —
but never speak to each other again.
You have all come for the wide white open space
this mansion provides. The thought of having to close the emptiness
with plenty of meaningful communication alarms.
So you’ll argue over which CD to play loudly
and silence each other’s talk with.

After exhaling,
you will take a tour of the mansion,
leave the kitchen, its built-in aquarium and ice-making frigidaire,
pass the bare lounge’s ubiquitous plasma screen,
walk and grope along large, serpentine walls —
look for a photo, used razor, scattered dirty washing,
opened library book, some sort of personal touch, anywhere.

On the walls? On mantelpieces? In the master bathroom? By the jacuzzi?
Maybe in the toilet bin? And you find nothing —

but a rolled-up note with which to powder your nose,
so that you too can accessorise

the mansion and its abundance of emptiness.

The Electrician

2008-08-26T05:55:00.000-07:00

by Tania van Schalkwyk

I understood I could change things. That day, I walked along the main street of Cape Town, changing light bulbs from red to green just by looking at them. This simple trick caused much trouble and mayhem. I wondered how much damage I could do by expanding my new powers to a broader field.

This thought scared me, so I went to a doctor who sent me to a shrink. Neither believed me and now I’ve gone and closed down Koeberg Power Station with my mind.

Nuclear leak they’re calling it, but the birds know better. They see me walking the streets at early light when the first cars roar in the belly of the beast. Mostly at dawn pre-feeding time when all is quiet, hushed in sleep. Then, the early morning travellers sound loud as they begin their hunt. And I am compelled to change light bulbs and sometimes even switch them off all across town. It is my mission to stop the rush of human traffic. It is a dangerous job. But still, I enjoy the challenge of a good black-out. And I feed the birds to keep them quiet.

werk toe ry

2008-08-20T00:51:00.000-07:00

- Toast Coetzer

die man agter my ry ’n nuwe BMW
’n swart wolf
met ’n blink smile
by die rooi robot
koop hy die Cape Times
die verkoper neem sy munt
maar beduie op die koerant
die prys is op
ek sien sy verbasing terwyl hy
die ekstra 50c uitgrawe
R5,50 vir die Cape Times
what next
he must be thinking

10 000 of 20 000 of 30 000 Cosatu-lede
is veronderstel om die stad vandag te verlam
maar dit lyk nie of dit enigiets
aan die verkeer gedoen het nie

die vrou langs my
eet ontbyt
uit ’n silwer
stainless steel bakkie
agter die stuur van ’n
VW Caddy
sy lyk laat

die Big Issue-verkoper
by wie ek gister gekoop het
(Angelina op die cover)
draf vriendelik nader
en ons groet mekaar deur die oop venster
met toegeklemde vuiste
wat liggies aan mekaar raak
soos mense in 50 Cent videos
met mekaar maak
as hulle homies is

ek hou daarvan om die Big Issue te koop
wanneer ek voor mense in groot SUVs staan
(ek ry ’n Beetle)
dan gee ek die verkoper R20
en sê hy of sy kan maar die change hou
dit het nog nooit die persoon agter my
ook ’n Big Issue laat koop nie

twee ander mans
drentel verby
die een op ’n kruk
die ander met
’n gesnyde half loaf brood
die een trek twee stukke concrete
regop met sy voet
ek sê hello
hulle sê howzit

die lig is groen
en ek draai regs
ek is amper by die werk
die olimpiese spele begin eersdaags
die World AIDS Conference is aan in Mexiko
Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn is dood
my pa is in die hospitaal

ek parkeer ver
van die gebou af
en stap ekstra stadig
oor die vloer van die Foreshore
na die lang koue korwe

selfs as ek my hande opsteek
sou dit nie wys
bo die golwe nie

Kliptown Shantytown

2008-08-12T06:55:00.000-07:00

by Siphiwe Ka Ngwenya

Kliptown shantytown
dreams silenced
by the morning rain
footsteps of running commuters

kliptown shantytown
the sky loses its brains
in torrents it starts to rain
people use tables as boats

kliptown shantytown
when day is young
women wash clothes down the river
children swim like fish in dirt

kliptown shantytown
frogs croak crickets chirp children snore
and nakedness entangles with passion
till dawn

Things that make the skin itch - a two part monologue

2008-07-29T14:21:00.000-07:00

by Bandile Gumbi

Giving up

They announced
Change took a detour
To council with an old friend
It was around teatime
He is detained

We know once old friends get-to-gather
The moss grows under feet
He might be rooted for millennia

The progressive movement can wait
Change has been around for ages
Its agile youthful feet
Use to act just in time
For a bygone revolutionary moment

These days
The heart might be in the right place
But change is delimited by age
Just, maybe its time for a new age

Giving In

I will not look you in the eye
The blank space next to your left ear
Holds much fascination
I t does not affect my nervous system
Nor aim to initiate involuntary communication

Yes, I will look at the cityscape
Pass by on the right side of your ear
It rushes past like I do
It asks no questions
And I am not giving any answers

I will not take up any particular struggle
I was not born of my mother’s struggle dreams
But conceived in between idle chatter and shopping sprees
On Longmarket street

Indifferently numb I will not comment
Answer only when spoken too
There is nothing more than this

Insanity

2008-07-29T14:19:00.000-07:00

by Bandile Gumbi

While your body
Stands at the shore of your past
Your yearnings take a flightful dive
To the depths and contours
Of the land of your mother’s mother
As the perpetual identity puts to rest
The juxtaposed questions
At the right angle of your confusion

You have always seemed
To be swimming up-stream
With the diligence of a mad woman
Catching flies in midair

Your fears are buried in the still waters
Only to resurface
With the floods

A constant wanderer
Always at the beginning
Of complete circles

You smell the winds
Before they have blown the house of cards
Where you have taken refugee
Reminding you of the oath
Your poetic heart pledges your destiny too

You have kept us all
Gasping for air
As you ride the tornado
To your metamorphosised self

You have knocked yourself
Against the shadows of doubt
As you search

Chop-Change

2008-07-29T14:16:00.001-07:00

by Bandile Gumbi

Fast Forward
To pressure cooker
Cockiness

Born free
In a microwave
A figure on a leash
Of another micro-economics scheme
Domesticated
By the silverscreen
A dog
With a god complex

Swallowed a placebo
Drank half emptiness
Shooted-up
Powdered wet dreams

They raised their asses to the camera and farted in the west
The stench still lingers
In our southern palates

As we drink black naked beauty
With our café laite
While stroking our weave
In the name of independence

We're definitely stuck
Between the s's
Of assimilation

A banana is an exotic fruit in Africa
When chasing
Coconut dreams

I've learned to make do with plenty
Worshippers of the scarce rarities
Might as well
Take the backseat burner

They say on this one-day
A camouflaged chameleon
Crowned in plastic thorns
Claimed the thrown of a lion

They play games with hyenas
On their playstations
Bombed-out
Bombarded
In blasphemy

My girl-child fear and I
Have since had a one on one
On issues of faith and power
Joined the procession
To our god mother courageous

These days
I pen this revolution with an anxiety
Of a timid bastard child
Of political correctness
With my tail on fire
Before the hunters
Of the funky and hip
Fit my soul into a hipster
Auction the Word
For plastic smiles and
Chop –Change

New Year Wish 2006

2008-07-29T14:15:00.000-07:00

by Phillippa Yaa De Villiers

The stars were all just doing fine when with a whee of joy the sky fire spiders burst upwards and stopped just between us and heaven’s diamonds and exploded in candelabra of colours upstaging the stars which quietly went about their usual business, occasionally exploding and not at all impressive next to the fireworks. Nature is distant. Sixty million light years away a comet crashed into blackness and nobody knew so nobody could be bothered because right here (and charity does begin at home) we watched the spiders burn and die and reached for another whiskey and kissed the closest person and wished once again for another one thousand things or just one thing that would make us happy

Our wishes caught fire
Roared into space, exploded,
And rekindled desire.

How to stay warm in the city

2008-07-29T14:11:00.000-07:00

by Phillippa Yaa De Villiers

The Yeoville winter evening
loves its people
skin to skin:
this seducing season that
stripped the trees now
tongues nipples into hardness;
charcoal breath caresses
naked necks and runs
its freezing fingers over faces;
strokes
the limbs with
intense
sustained
relentless
lust.

As the molten heart of day submits,
the city inherits
its transient gold,
but we resist the insistent evening’s kiss
with its
traces of death’s embraces;
we quit the cloying cold
for
our private and modular,
singular accommodations;
one by one
we blow to flame our comfort
and surrender
to domestic rituals:

Yeoville, imboula mountain
The lights of flats like embers.

La Villette, September 2005

2008-07-29T14:10:00.000-07:00

by Phillippa Yaa De Villiers

The subway station:
empty eyes, the flaccid legs
of passive passengers,
invisible violence of silence in
this inhospitable home:
a transient family of
strangers speaking indifference
in seven languages.

Below a pouting nymph in crusted lace
sits a daughter of Allah, her face
framed by the sombre constraint of her faith.

Frozen images
entice her eye,
kitchens and lingerie
advertising intimacy.
Cold stares of
fellow passengers
denying her
humanity.

Rails clatter, and she rises to greet
the evening train, her eyes alive, meeting
this rushing tube of motion, exploding open.

The man’s divining eyes
turn over the pebbles of the evening faces,
discard them
till he finds her,
his everyday bride,
married to the moment,
their eyes
celebrate a union:
here, at last
they are
at home.

Kissing in Public

2008-07-29T14:07:00.000-07:00

by Phillippa Yaa De Villiers

I want to see more lovers
kissing in public,
their mouths open,
eyes laughing,
hand-clasped buttocks
breast-to-breast,
naked love sandwich
garnished with clothes.
I like to see that
electric charge
as loving eyes cross the
silken
swathes of hungry air
to be together;
as lovers rise from the park pillow
sweep non-existent grass off each other’s
backs and bottoms,
hands all over
each other.
I want to see more lovers
creating islands of intimacy
in the cold sea of
eyes cynical
eyes prying
eyes envying:

waves throw themselves up to the highest cliffs
then retreat, disillusioned, to their sulky, salty self;
doomed to remain
on the continental shelf.

The rain children

2008-07-29T14:06:00.000-07:00

by Phillippa Yaa De Villiers

They permeate, the poor, their eyes and knees
as thin as rain, these children staring,
as democracy parades through the streets.

Glue substitutes for blankets and teats,
the streetmother grey concrete skirt uncaring:
they permeate, the poor, their eyes and knees

and hands reproach, demand, confront, entreat:
tightly walleted, my conscience, and unsparing
as democracy parades through the streets.

Rain fills my well-fed stomach. All my feats
are washed away with soul’s comparing:
they permeate, the poor, their eyes and knees

as cold as sorrow. Presidents decree
but rain soaks paper promises, tearing,
as democracy parades through the streets.

Like driving drops or drizzle, paring
warmth from skin, dissolving, wearing:
they permeate, the poor, their eyes and knees,
as democracy parades through the streets

The River

2008-07-29T14:04:00.000-07:00

by Phillippa Yaa De Villiers

One day the Hillbrow Tower started to cry.
Real tears poured down its sides
collected in the gutters,
and ran down Banket Street,
and when
the other buildings saw the tower's sadness
they started to weep in sympathy.
Soon the whole city was sobbing,
the tears joined other tears
and filled the depressions and valleys.
They covered the koppies,
and collected in City Deep,
cascading over Gold Reef City
flooding Fordsburg
and soaking Soweto.
They flowed until they became a river
that carried us into the night,
where our dreams grew
taller than buildings
taller than buildings

I lost a poem.

2008-07-29T13:58:00.000-07:00

by Anni Snyman

Mind you,
the last time I had it with me
was on the corner of Jellicoe and Oxford, turning
right. I thought I had stuffed it
into my bag of memory, but this morning when I looked for it
scratched amongst the paper slips, receipts and echoes
of yesterdays conversations and thoughts –
I just. could. not. find it.

Can't put my finger on it
in this wordless pit of grime
that collects at the bottom of my knowing.
Mind full.
Chewey sweets and broken endearmints
glossy coins, shadowed eyes
pigment scattered everywhere
Who's to say what it was worth?
the Nobel or the Nothing?
Was it stillborn loss or merely menstruation
Is it now a blessing or a curse
ghosting about, seeking its maker?

Thought I would clear things out,
allow it rise again, but
it's not in the emptiness of yoga
either, even though I stretch and stretch
no mind
sweat dripping on the mat
no mind
breath on my tongue,
no mind
Ohmmmm in my throat.
oh my

All I can remember is
that I lost it
and that there was
a scrap of sense
to it.

Nevermind.

Begging

2008-07-12T07:13:00.000-07:00

by Siphiwe Ka Ngwenya

begging has become a profession
unemployment our occupation
every soul wandering on city pavements
turning poverty into fiction
I always read words of pain
like graffiti scribbled on these sombre faces
& hidden smiles
sore lips & quivering bruised hands
who have learned the art
of lying without hurting
from those who speak diverse tongues
of the streets
of blistered hope & lynched dreams
I see them everywhere
For I am just a poet
Trudging their gravel road

Soweto

2008-07-12T07:12:00.000-07:00

by Siphiwe Ka Ngwenya

Womb of black souls
White with stains
Signs that welcome a stranger
Mean caution
Not coition
Traffic lights red at night
Just yield
& take flight
Sorrow & joy
Lead to you at sunset
Traffic jam of dreams
In the void
Come Friday
Come month end
Ghetto vibration staggering
Couples cuddle
Muggers lurk
The law lives on the loot
Before they shoot
Angelic bodies gyrate to kwaito music
Maskandi takes the lead
When glasses smash on walls
Between a lull of emergency sirens
No ambush
Not even derailing
Of the train dripping
Gravy
I cannot taste