Zero Gravity

Poems on Mafikeng

Ocean and Basket (At the Mafikeng Ocean Basket) (for Mpho Moshe Matheolane)

We gabbled on about

Takeshi Kitano's "Brother", black

Emperor Hadrian, Borges, Bulgakov, science and religion and the traits of

sun sign Leo and

Gemini moons.

Not your typical Mafikeng fare. Outside the charmed circle I

suppose the town continued its

drab, stolid existence or

degenerated a tad (infinitesimal tad more) not bothering to

learn the quantum truth of

possibility, or reimagining, of

stooping to analysis, diagnosis,

pleading, begging

for a chance to overhear

to figure out the phenomenon

of time and

space distillation, how

just for a moment the word, the

idea can centre everything

before passing,

refusing all temptation to

take root,

stay or linger, feel

one with the wind, inclined

towards the air, like

seeds, in their

nature to be transported away.

**************

Mamang in Taung

Onthatile

licks the

mist-

moisture off

a

leaf

(classify this

as a species lust soon

to degenerate into Art)

Modiegi

having fashioned a

twig-spear

looks for canaries

to skewer, should

augment her breakfast.

Above, the stars have

spread out in expectation,

move unseen except

in the eye if God, where

time is always

24 frames per second

(adjusting for

renaissance or

interregnum).

Here I am

a billion blinkings later

at the Taung cultural calabash, laying me down

by rivers of alcohol

fixing late nite bites, doling out

restorative black coffee

drawing a line under

all that has happened this Karoo day

thinking of all

the Hubble stars out

there for real still

enough to catch and

fill any

pocket

as we return to

our old backyard, place of origin;

figure out the price.

*************

They made a

documentary about Mafikeng

stopping a few times to

makes sure the name was correct

sent all the footage, every

last shot

by courier to the editors

whose job it was

to make the portrait credible,

the narrative convincing,

to cut out the delusional, hallucinatory, Alice-in

-Wonderland spin

to turn

the impossible into

just a tall order.

*******