A correct map of 29 Columbine Road

would include the corner honeysuckle hedge and two houses with high walls. Not ours, at first. When did it change? A pink hibiscus in the corner bed is where the hiding-place might be. Two white-yellow oleanders each side of the gate, their seeping white sap not safe. The wet path, too, when it rains the

Bump in the road

Normally reliable suffered a rare failure, taking over on the second day Before grinding to a halt. We’ve experienced an anomaly which made shutdown a precautionary measure. It brought a premature end. It’s crazy: The media and everything. When I was in high school, as part of an English literature exam we were given a

The call home

The tides of tomorrow and tomorrow and the next tomorrow sweep into crevices of shored shells. The waves nudge these hollows of yesterday’s habitat into the barrels of tomorrow, tomorrow and the next tomorrow. There the shored shells break with tomorrow, tomorrow and another tomorrow dashed to granules that lip the tideline. Salted foam seeps

Gazing, as we do

At the beginning of this month I wrote of the bumper crop of archive poems for November. Here are the last few from the files of 2012 and 2013: A Bequest of Wonder, a poem inspired by a painted banner of Chinese silk, a Chinese artist’s portrait and two detailed Shunga prints. I do. Do you?, in which all the antics

Wild horses fling their thoughts

I’ve clearly stepped into my own Back to the Future DeLorean. A post scheduled November 12th was made live today. Consequently the post found its way into the back list. I can only plead autumnal illness and an addled brain. Please read about “Wild Horses Don’t Break.” Writers with chest infections sometimes do. P.S. Number III is my

Wild horses fling their thoughts

I love this poem – “Wild Horses Don’t Break” – so very much. To date it is one of the poems I’d be happy to have on my gravestone. Not that I like the idea of being buried in a cramped plot. Fling my ashes to the dunes and the sea! The wild horses of

a Real Book with an ISBN and everything

The South African edition of Shining in Brightness is at the printers! Pictured above is the cover proof that came in last week. Note the genuine ISBN barcode. This makes it a Real Book and by law a dozen copies will find their way to legal deposit libraries across South Africa. The artwork is once

Now, to – I must address

The speaker of “An address from a lectern” is, in my writer-narrator’s mind, a young woman from the Eastern Cape. From the poem itself, I guess it would be difficult to deduce as much – and that she is presenting to an audience in London. I wished to find a woman speaking from a lectern as the accompanying

Lettered objects finely wrought

I did not set out to write poetry. I intended to write Novels. And anyway, I am of the view that much superbly written and evocative poetry already exists. The Shadows of Giants loom large. At the moment I have no illusion about even coming close to their kneecaps, never mind shoulders. This time last year

Time and tide

“Seashell unknown 3” by Wilfredor – Own work. Licensed under CC0 via Wikimedia Commons. Time and tide, a mermaid’s song The tides go out. Can you hear me? The waves roll back – Did you know? – with the shells discarded that morning: reclaimed nonpareils for below. — Mermaids and singing maidens have featured before in