Post by thoth on Jul 29, 2009 14:59:50 GMT -8
I'm not sure if this is prose or verse, any comments are welcome and yes it's long. W
It was uncomfortably warm that day,
I had been riding since sunrise and needed a break.
Some distance off the gravel road,
a shady bush-willow, stood
alone in a patch of stony arid land.
It invited me to rest a while.
Ah yes! So weary of the dust, the endless bumpy track
and nights when lonely thoughts wander
to dangerous places that are best avoided.
There were times this journey seemed pointless
and the destination obscured.
Turning off the road, I stopped
beside that old stunted tree and dismounted.
I lay down on the red sun-baked soil and watched
as beams of light danced through the leafy canopy,
making the four bladed seedpods of the bush-willow
flash like tiny red lanterns in the dappled stillness.
It was pleasant lying there in the cool shade
and closing my eyes for a moment,
I listened to the sounds:
The hot engine of my bike clinked as it cooled.
A family of finches squabbled in a nearby thorn bush,
and in the distance, the Piet-my-frou’s lilting call
stalked through the dry savannah,
while turtle dove’s constant “cu currrrr cu - cu currrr cu”
relaxed my anguished soul.
Presently, just as they have each day since she went away,
the memories returned.
Her face appeared, building in my swirling thoughts,
detail brushing in like an oil painting until,
as always, the shifting colours of her north-sea eyes
emerged to my will.
I was getting good at this.
Like a Grand Master, I re-created her gaze,
smiling at first, into my own eyes then
widening in ecstasy, they focused out to infinity
and her soft satin face, became almost angelic as she peaked.
She pulled me tightly into her as our bodies fused together
in liquid delirium and I could smell her warm sweet breath,
hear her soft moans and feel
her teeth scraping gently on my neck.
Then, something intruded annoyingly into my private dream.
The carefully assembled images swirled and scurried away,
back into their shadowy refuge
within my troubled mind.
The sound of birds returned, and I a truck
rattled slowly down the corrugated road.
Presently I heard a whisper, a voice that seemed
to emanate from the branches above me.
Softly like wind through pines, choral and harmonious,
beautifully dreamlike, it sang to me
in a strange sibilant tongue
that I could not understand.
Mesmerised, I listened to the seraphic song
and wondered if death had finally arrived
to take me away from this miserable existence.
So often I had prayed for this – to be with her together, forever -
yet always was denied.
Reality check;
Birdsong all around, the tinkle of cow-bells,
the distant voice of a herd-boy singing a tribal song
and the prickle of grass on my back.
Cheated once again!
I opened my eyes to look around.
My motorcycle, leaning on the kickstand a few paces away,
dark and glinting in the shadows glared
disapprovingly at me.
Clearly, the “Black Bitch” was not ready
to resume our journey just yet.
I concurred, and shut my eyes once more.
That fascinating song from the tree canopy continued,
swelling and fading, returning with a new urgency.
A divine chorus, pitch perfect yet impossibly sad
in a rhythm and key undiscovered
by any modern composer.
The voice,
That of a beautiful woman?
no – many women!
Not calling, nor crying,
not asking for help
yet somehow desperate to be heard.
I had the feeling of listening to an opera
or watching a tragic play.
The words were strange and simple,
in the rhythmic language of an unremembered age.
They called from the mists of antiquity,
their meaning obscured by history.
Only an impossible sadness remained,
echoing back from an ancient canyon,
a rift in the collective human soul.
I felt pain in the song
rising slowly up, billowing like an
angry African storm cloud until reaching a crescendo,
becoming physical in form, it speared down on me as I lay
transfixed on the ground.
Abruptly it stopped, reverberating away,
into the un-navigable
wastelands
of time.
The pain remained,
a knife of betrayal piercing the small of my back.
The Piet-my Frou called loudly above me,
aggressive and gloating from somewhere in the bush-willow,
where the beautiful voices sang moments before.
I rolled over, realising that I
had been lying on some sharp object.
Searching beneath the trampled grass for the source of my discomfort,
I found a stone.
Like a flattened faceted jewel,
tear shaped, it fitted perfectly in the palm of my hand.
Heavy and very hard with keen edges
and a pointed spear-like tip;
slightly chipped.
In wonder, I began to recognise the form,
the ancient coffee coloured weapon.
Its concave facets skilfully knapped from
glass hard rock – unmistakable to anyone who ever
paid attention to a museum exhibit as a child.
I rode on,
leaving the stone axe behind
on the sparse dry grass beneath the bush-willow.
In the hours just before dawn,
the pain in my back still returns,
and the haunting choral voices from the past
sing in their mournful key from the semi-dreams
of sleeplessness that constantly disturb my fading images
of loving North-sea Eyes.
Piet-my Frou is a popular South African name for the red chested cuckoo.
Bush-willow is a hardy tree common in the dry regions of Southern Africa.
It was uncomfortably warm that day,
I had been riding since sunrise and needed a break.
Some distance off the gravel road,
a shady bush-willow, stood
alone in a patch of stony arid land.
It invited me to rest a while.
Ah yes! So weary of the dust, the endless bumpy track
and nights when lonely thoughts wander
to dangerous places that are best avoided.
There were times this journey seemed pointless
and the destination obscured.
Turning off the road, I stopped
beside that old stunted tree and dismounted.
I lay down on the red sun-baked soil and watched
as beams of light danced through the leafy canopy,
making the four bladed seedpods of the bush-willow
flash like tiny red lanterns in the dappled stillness.
It was pleasant lying there in the cool shade
and closing my eyes for a moment,
I listened to the sounds:
The hot engine of my bike clinked as it cooled.
A family of finches squabbled in a nearby thorn bush,
and in the distance, the Piet-my-frou’s lilting call
stalked through the dry savannah,
while turtle dove’s constant “cu currrrr cu - cu currrr cu”
relaxed my anguished soul.
Presently, just as they have each day since she went away,
the memories returned.
Her face appeared, building in my swirling thoughts,
detail brushing in like an oil painting until,
as always, the shifting colours of her north-sea eyes
emerged to my will.
I was getting good at this.
Like a Grand Master, I re-created her gaze,
smiling at first, into my own eyes then
widening in ecstasy, they focused out to infinity
and her soft satin face, became almost angelic as she peaked.
She pulled me tightly into her as our bodies fused together
in liquid delirium and I could smell her warm sweet breath,
hear her soft moans and feel
her teeth scraping gently on my neck.
Then, something intruded annoyingly into my private dream.
The carefully assembled images swirled and scurried away,
back into their shadowy refuge
within my troubled mind.
The sound of birds returned, and I a truck
rattled slowly down the corrugated road.
Presently I heard a whisper, a voice that seemed
to emanate from the branches above me.
Softly like wind through pines, choral and harmonious,
beautifully dreamlike, it sang to me
in a strange sibilant tongue
that I could not understand.
Mesmerised, I listened to the seraphic song
and wondered if death had finally arrived
to take me away from this miserable existence.
So often I had prayed for this – to be with her together, forever -
yet always was denied.
Reality check;
Birdsong all around, the tinkle of cow-bells,
the distant voice of a herd-boy singing a tribal song
and the prickle of grass on my back.
Cheated once again!
I opened my eyes to look around.
My motorcycle, leaning on the kickstand a few paces away,
dark and glinting in the shadows glared
disapprovingly at me.
Clearly, the “Black Bitch” was not ready
to resume our journey just yet.
I concurred, and shut my eyes once more.
That fascinating song from the tree canopy continued,
swelling and fading, returning with a new urgency.
A divine chorus, pitch perfect yet impossibly sad
in a rhythm and key undiscovered
by any modern composer.
The voice,
That of a beautiful woman?
no – many women!
Not calling, nor crying,
not asking for help
yet somehow desperate to be heard.
I had the feeling of listening to an opera
or watching a tragic play.
The words were strange and simple,
in the rhythmic language of an unremembered age.
They called from the mists of antiquity,
their meaning obscured by history.
Only an impossible sadness remained,
echoing back from an ancient canyon,
a rift in the collective human soul.
I felt pain in the song
rising slowly up, billowing like an
angry African storm cloud until reaching a crescendo,
becoming physical in form, it speared down on me as I lay
transfixed on the ground.
Abruptly it stopped, reverberating away,
into the un-navigable
wastelands
of time.
The pain remained,
a knife of betrayal piercing the small of my back.
The Piet-my Frou called loudly above me,
aggressive and gloating from somewhere in the bush-willow,
where the beautiful voices sang moments before.
I rolled over, realising that I
had been lying on some sharp object.
Searching beneath the trampled grass for the source of my discomfort,
I found a stone.
Like a flattened faceted jewel,
tear shaped, it fitted perfectly in the palm of my hand.
Heavy and very hard with keen edges
and a pointed spear-like tip;
slightly chipped.
In wonder, I began to recognise the form,
the ancient coffee coloured weapon.
Its concave facets skilfully knapped from
glass hard rock – unmistakable to anyone who ever
paid attention to a museum exhibit as a child.
I rode on,
leaving the stone axe behind
on the sparse dry grass beneath the bush-willow.
In the hours just before dawn,
the pain in my back still returns,
and the haunting choral voices from the past
sing in their mournful key from the semi-dreams
of sleeplessness that constantly disturb my fading images
of loving North-sea Eyes.
Piet-my Frou is a popular South African name for the red chested cuckoo.
Bush-willow is a hardy tree common in the dry regions of Southern Africa.
