POETRY FROM SOUTH AFRICA – Part I: Jim Pascual Agustin, Mario D’Offizi, Kyle Allen, Winslow Schalkwyk, Silke Heiss

This post comprises some of the work submitted by South African poets in response to a call for contributors to www.lamacchinasognante.com launched last spring by poet Raphael d’Abdon. Part II will be available in the May issue of this journal.

For more poems by these authors, not appearing in this post, see the Italian edition of the journal, La Macchina sognante, issue n. 8

 

Jim Pascual Agustin

You May Have A Face But No Name

There’s a photo embedded
in my mind, got it in an email,
subject: spongebob
spotted in Hillbrow.

Someone in Johannesburg had taken a shot
of a street kid sleeping in a rolled up
foam mattress, his dark and skinny legs
sticking out one end.

This image comes to mind now
as I stare at my monitor, at your photo
on the internet, nameless Romanian
boy in the shadows of Rome.

It’s that bed of yours
with a roof of stars or rain

or flood of sunlight
that disturbs me.

It isn’t blood or proximity that turns
you and SpongeBob into brothers,
but that bed.
That fucking bed.

 

---

Mario D’Offizi

Death and Roses

If They never come back
ever
don’t fret
we’ll get to Them for sure
somewhere in time and the scheme of things
death
is just a slight departure from the
norm
agonising for some
maybe most

but what the shit!
hey Guys
is the wine you drink as good as the good shit we
drink down here
merlots pinotages you remember?
maybe you’ve even learnt to turn water into wine

wish I could!
(you must’ve heard the “fish fuck in water” joke down here)
i’ve become terribly sentimental lately
and have started planting roses for most of you
and named them after you

sorry
not all of you
i don’t have that much space
but the desire’s there
and not just for you guys
I’d dig to plant a rose and call it
Jesus
and plant roses and name them after all the children
who daily die
from Somalia
right down here
to my own very frontdoorstep
and all the children who ever once breathed
here’s a good idea
maybe all of us here living in
the here and now
living in the norm
should plant roses
for all the ones we loved
millions of roses
billions of roses
trillions of roses
It’s a terribly thorny place here – as you well knew –
but
maybe
the blooms will help
do you Guys have roses?
i really hope so
see you all some time

 

---

Kyle Allen

You have no notebook.

You have no notebook.
Write poems on your
skin- on the wet tip
of your tongue- write
poems tasting of
water that quench
your thirst-write
poems on the walls
of your mouth and
on your rooms walls
turning everything
into an extension
of your skin, write
poems on your face,
on your clothing,
write poems on
your fingertips, on
your shoulderblades,
on your lips, in the
place where your
mouth is wet,
in the palm of
your hand where
a map is written
like a poem of etched
lines and folds in
a language of skin.

---

Winslow Schalkwyk

For Linda

It was in the way you sat,
Staring at the ocean,
The wind gushing and wailing past your face

But you paid it no mind.

It was the contentment
And the peace you found
While sitting in the garden
That your hands helped to build.

Your name will not be remembered here.
Here you will always be ‘that boy’:

“Tell that boy to bring more sand!”
“Tell that boy we need more sand!”
“Where’s that boy with the sand!”
When we leave this place,
Nestled between the mountain and the ocean
And you have to return
Back to your home
Where there are no concrete floors
And the curves in the steel walls
Reminds you of the ocean,
Below the garden,
That your hands planted.

Remember this moment.

 

---

 

Silke Heiss

Not a thing, but a reliable keeper

Things change, but
my heart
is not a thing –

the seat of feelings
is open to
what these feelings bring –

this mystery of blood and muscle
you can hurt
and kill –

but you can’t
subject it to the rule
of human will –

it can be frightened and confused
by lies
and subterfuge –

a sophisticated twist
of words

can render it accused –

but finally
all that’s false
is refused –

my heart is a reliable
keeper
of all that is timeless.

Things change, yes, but
my heart is not
a thing –

Love is at home
in it.
Amen.

 

---

 

Jim Pascual Agustin writes and translates poetry in Tagalog and English. He was raised in Manila during the years of the Marcos dictatorship and moved to South Africa in 1994. Among his early books Beneath an Angry Star, Anvil, Manila, 1992, and Salimbayan, Publikasyong Sipat, Manila 1994. In 2011 the university press of Santo Tomas in Manila launched two of his books, one in Tagalog Baha-bahagdang Karupukan, and the other in English Any Skin. Among his most recent books, Wings of Smoke, The Onslaught Press, 2017.

 

Mario D’Offizi was born in Bloemfontein in 1946 and died in Capetown on 14 September 2017. He  was a poet and a freelance writer.  Raised in several orphanages and youth institutions since the age of three, he earned a diploma from Boy’s Town in Magaliesburg. His poems appear in numerous publications including the dailies Cape Times and Cape Argus, as well as the journals Carapace and New Coin. He was featured in poetry readings at the Cape Town University, Wits University and the University of Johannesburg, the former “Space” theater and Café Camissa  in Capetown. In April 2003 he was featured as Poet of the Month on the www.jhblive.com website. His favorite hobby was hiking in the mountains, reading and playing with his grandchildren. He is the author of the poetry collection Banana Crates & Wiremesh and the autobiographical book Bless Me Father, published by Johannesburg publisher Geko in 2008 and translated into italian by Raphael d’Abdon and Lorenzo Mari (Bless Me father, Compagnia delle Lettere, 2013.

 

Kyle Allan is a young poet, performer and writer who has launched an innovative poetry album titled Influences (2013), with the accompaniment of many different musical genres paying homage to the rich South African cultural landscape, including maskanda, afro-jazz, mb, house e Kuwait. His poems have been published in several print journals including  Fidelities, New Coin, Kotaz, Carapace e online in Botsotso magazine. His work is also published in India and in the United States.

 

Artist, model and facilitator, Winslow Schalkwyk describes himself as “Artist in motion”.  Born in 1980 as the apartheid regime was waning, among the topics his poems address are freedom and xenophobia. He often performs his poems in the Spoken Word circuits, and is also the curator of some readings, such as Verses Spoken Word, Soul Hop Sessions. For more information about his activities, visit the Badilisha poetry platform at http://badilishapoetry.com/winslow-schalkwyk/

 

Silke Heiss was born in West Berlin but grew up in Pretoria. She is a writer, editor, artist and teacher, and leads creative writing workshops. She publishes in many journals and puts out a newsletter. She has held many readings together with her husband, poet Norman Morissey. She has published seven books of poetry dealing with love, nature and location. among her publications The Island and the Bay.

 

 

 

 

Featured image: Photo by Davide Sani, OpenMultimedia.