Free Verse
The Wind That Rolls
The Kalahari Thorn Bush
Standing
here on a flat land that verges on desert but never
converged into smooth dunes and even slopes of sand
A place where the winds race from the Atlantic with
full drift
but lose its fierceness as it finds nothing to bash
itself against
swirling over stones and rocks and bullying rootless
thorn bushes
rolling them about for no reason except to confirm
their absurd existence
Disillusioned
father leaves home early
not returning in the evening
mother fears the worst
father talking the previous evening
of death
stroking the border scars on his body
crying “why did we die in the war!”
mother sends me to the military graveyard
in Maitland walking the numerous rows of white
crosses
tombs revealing the loss of 17 years old boys
fighting the communist insurgents on the borders
of Namibia and Angola
finding him asleep on my oldest brother's
grave i wake him, tell him to come home.
struggling with him i never saw him sobbing
before
grieving the death of his child who fought
for country and cause
cursing himself saying that he pushed his boy
to protect the homeland
from the nation’s enemy
cutting his face with the pins
of the pro patria medal and crux Honorius
he received for bravery
he cries
“for nothing my child, nothing!”
A
Taoist Reading Being and Nothingness
1
Looking into the sky
I only see
A black hole universe
sucking in stars
asteroids and whole planets
exploding and vanishing the millennia
only to start up again
somehow I feel a certain treason
my life will last one Samsara season
and death will enter my consciousness for no
reason
emptying
the detail
of my life
2
The
old Taoist seeing the predicament
Takes his fill of wine
And forgets himself
Between the buzzing bees and breathing trees
Death being a mere condition to be free
