#mahikeng

[francois26-blog]

WRITING ON BREXIT

WRITING ON BREXIT FROM DEEP IN THE SOUTH-AFRICAN VELDT maybe we can warm ourselves with ancient memories maybe there are old scarlet uniforms somewhere in the house the kind we wore in that place they called "veldt" making us perfect targets for those steely-blue-eyed farmer sharpshooters no more perfect enemy to Empire ever devised Ah, yes this uniform has so many bullet-holes hard to imagine if indeed we won what was the sacrifice if indeed we won

[francois26-blog]

WINTER POEM

WINTER POEM I was wintering in a town of ferocious sun thinking on what to fix my discontent summer might bring the insane heat which we, for our sins, have ratcheted up a notch loving to see ourselves scalded, baked chefs of our own bad boiling over broth the war with ourselves, within ourselves, gone as global as it gets.

[francois26-blog]

MY EMPIRE

MY EMPIRE "... and more slow" Andrew Marvell my Empire fading in its twilight this zone of stones and Imperial ghosts ragged memories perfect stage for it to happen Ah yes, drop the f fuck the k Mafikeng, Mahikeng, what will they call you tomorrow? no name can do justice but let's sit on this stone, this rock, small as a pebble, huge as a meteorite and try to scry scry figure out the future if we can't have premonitions, really lucid visions like that prophetic seer Siener who foresaw everything (so they say) and as the soul wanders wormholes into time-travel let's see if our fingers have stretched as far as our imaginations have touched the very stars the mind envisaged one mind at this moment, since now so collected or not still stuck in paradigm of killer impatience, brutal agency (lie of divinity notwithstanding that we were born into) jungle law written into our code into whatever colour our matter and so failing the stars we did make our own consumed our world to do so but hey, what a sight for the prophet: every atom going supernova in our own backyard)

[francois26-blog]

AT THE MUSEUM

AT THE MUSEUM place of stones and bones and jewels the silence of the past the pictures that have no voice to speak but she is here to launch her book (how far it needs to sail, how high it must soar) and we are with her now magically aloft, staring down like the gods exhilarated, even as we are sad-eyed for so much of could have been is written here between the lines so much strange promise that has been lost for here are the faces who were not solely of their moment, or turned to the past but facing us squarely, asking us about a future that was absolute conjecture, looking at us directly as if we are what they never, could not, or always imagined she reads the poem from her preface and like sky and Earth like Earth and sea here is where the personal meets the political here is the dance that (forget the shifts in style) we have always done across the sand over stone and bone roads freshly cut, still wet the tarmac