Rhoda Davids Abel

My first memories are recurring nightmares
of millions of eyes staring at me
unblinking in the darkness  

what does it mean what does it mean what does it mean what does it mean what does it mean what does it mean to be awake?
to take shape?
to be form inside form? to fork at the sides?
to haunt dreams?
to have wide open doors and windows and everlasting trees burning visibly in the backyard?
when she wakes up and have to avoid stepping on the dead birds spread out through the forest
What does it mean to be formed clay?
what does it mean to smell the wet mist that roll in from the ocean? what does it mean when I see them run and hide?
What does it mean when I give shelter, but am left to fend the elements? What does it mean when they are all gone, but I remain - slowly decaying?
What does it mean to be a forest after a storm?
what does it mean that all the blood, sweat, tears, anger, grudges and frustration melt into my very being and the stench of forced contentment deeply root in my veins?
How do I breathe, or do I take a new breath with all that have taken a first breath in the room furthest from the door?
Do I shape their lives or do they shape mine? am I a god and are these my creations?
How do I hold them after they’ve been beaten with branches broken from the orange trees?
How do I warn them that change is coming?
Do I shake to remove the dried fish from my rafters?
do I groan to warn the cats from stretching their claws down my sides?
My age is counted in fruit cycles, moons and heavy rains
in the memories of those who walked over the mountain
my foundation formed with the tears of the first owners who preferred to live in the caves
and sometimes built dome shaped shelters between the bushes
I am the maker and I am the clay
I am the river and I am fish
I am the babies buried under the oak trees
I am the voice that haunt
I am the Boesman river running
my vibrations wrapping around ankles crossing the cemetery
He said I am a shapeshifter, but I do not hide from those who truly need me He said the fruit trees in the garden are deaf, but we can prune them
They said my shadows haunt them in the form of chameleon colored dogs at night
they said that they hide under the pile of clothes in the corner when the raindrops bang on my roof
He hid like dust in my chimney when the raiders came,
but I see him refuse to see his mother wiping invisible tears from her cheeks
I see her crinkle small notes to fold into her bosoms
I see him staggering up the hill after having suffered humiliation
I see the 13 children scattering up the hills to hide between the ancient rocks
What is a house when it is not a home? Can I also serve as a blanket for dignity?
What is this fence if it keeps everyone at bay that could seek me out for shelter?
what is a fence if it only serves as human made thorns to hook wayward trash?
what is a fence when it freely serves as windows for the wind to rip at my fading and fluttering paint-skin?
What is a fence when the jagged edges cut the claws of birds - at least they still have wings?
These are my markers
these are my walls and this is my prison
this is my foundations with a shiny dung floor- a gift from Bessie the cow
I do not really know time, because I am formed from many elements I shape and I shift
The wind haunts me as much as the raindrops carry my memories to the oceans
I’ve heard some of us have names now, but I do not care about that
I murmur the songs of restitution in the ears of the children
I am a shapeshifter, but I do not hide from those who truly need me I see her crinkle small notes to fold into her bosoms
I see him staggering up the hill
I see the 13 children scatter up the hills to hide between the ancient rocks
What is a house when it is not a home?
Can I also serve as a blanket of dignity?
What is this fence if it keeps everyone at bay that could seek me out for shelter?
These are my markers these are my walls this is my prison
Do not mourn me, because I do not really sleep
I watch and I wait
I call and I listen
I traverse dreams and hope that one day someone will restore my grass reed roof
Now I house skunks, field mice, snakes and eclectic families of insects that ha-ha, dee-dee
and da-da as soon as the farm workers stir
the lone snail licking a path across the wall that remains coolest from the mountain side
the fence shows mercy by keeping the wolves at bay
I remain cocooned since the electricity wires have not yet reached me I only see the occasional metal bird far up in the sky
The pesticide burns my eyes and reminds me of a time
when nothing but warm ashes were used to keep things at bay
I’ve heard some of us have names now
I do not care about that
I murmur the songs of restitutions in the ears of the children
Do houses or homes pray?
Does a heaven exist where we can ‘rest’?
What does a resting house look like or do we remain in the in between?
serving as beacons for souls that move between realities hallways meeting points for the living and the dead
Can I pray to be fully ‘whole’ again’?
can I pray for mercy and kindness?
or I have to continue to choke on the moss that takes over everything?
Are my thoughts even real or am I the figment of a faux memory long gone and forgotten?
traversing the seasons that have become longer and shorter simultaneously as I watch the family growing and moving
dying and then coming back to light windows on fire at night I wonder about the purpose of it all
Do I, like them eventually return to dust in body, but remain only in spirit? can my spirit separate from my body and travel over land and call children home?
to rescue me, adorn me in white, green and blue
to feed my soul so all the march lilies can bloom again
I do not want to be forgotten
I want to be remembered as I remember them all I need purpose
I want purpose
what is a house if it isn’t a home?

2022




 

I do not have answers. Only a crowd that gently follow me. Contradicting wisdom being shared and sweeping rituals that require contortions sometimes spoken in tongues
That sound like the future and past rushing like a whirling sand tsunami - I am fertile ground for healing - a new fearless being knitted (brei’d) together by light, color, wood, rock, protea blood, ocean, gold dust and gifted something madras green and purple wraps.

1
She said the lion knocked at the door and she opened it, before he crashed his giant paws over her head

2
I can still smell the scent of burning scalp and Vaseline on a Sunday morning, ready to praise a god in a white hall where my prayers stuck to the ceiling instead of grabbing hands into the sky and reflect like real soothing mirages over the plains

3
Warm kam straightening all the crinkled worn pathways to heaven – having to unlearn all the ways I’ve been constricted, restricted, flattened, bound and gagged with fistfuls of brak water

4
The translucent white snake floating next to me as we traverse the darkening landscape
She offered me the snake in a pot and I recoiled - I still bear the imprints on my skin

5
Walking the long way into town mumbling and begging ancestors to release me from their incessant ringing in my mouth

6
Asking my father how one can have more than one soul in your body

7
I dream of mountains and worn shoes being carried on my back
Of being fed rice dishes by tall women and given drinks by old men sitting on wooden mats outside

8
They said he was a ‘slim man’ and we are his ‘slim’ children. I only later realized how to read code and the others had a sister tortoise that bit the heads of snakes

9
I wrote about first memories being nightmares of millions of eyes blinking, but in restrospect my first memory is seeing a tall being of light entering my room and bringing with them an aura of calm and quiet.

10
I must be a bird
Or a branch on a tree
But I can’t be a person,
because I float and I can’t pinpoint where my body begins and ends

11
Invisible fences rooting tentacle like wires into my feet
They wiped away all the traces of sacred landmarks and the uniform green, yellow and brown where we toil with frozen bent backs
mock us with gaping jaws
Some of us lulled in deep sleep walking through thorns

12
I stood up and said that there is something on some of us that is bigger than circumstance - it still reverberates in my life today - then I couldn’t name
them, but I listened and donned the horns, crawled in the attic and watered all the women
They found me in the desert, looked at me wearing pink and blue head cloths tied under chins and told me they’ve been waiting

13
They showed me as soon as I had consciousness in this body,
That they had to run and hide
And they had to float
They were dragged from caves
But they always floated down the mountain
Me along with them staring up at the ‘best blue for photography’ sky

14
They never left
At night they curled around my body
While others stood sentinel like kokerbome en kamferbome next to my bed I was never alone
They never blinked
But they couldn’t speak
They just took me by the hand and showed me what I needed to see

15
Ouma Katrina said I should stop playing with the flowers, because Didn’t I notice the funerals that came after

16
I never knew mountains could speak,
But I learned when I left her
We are the same
I carry the stones and the trees and the markings and the snakes,
the blood and all the echoes and murmurs

17
I can’t close my eyes
I do not require them to see through all the layers There was never a beginning - never a start
It just always is

18
What if I hear and I listen
Some of us have a choice to dream and let go
I first encountered a pebble, a stone, then a brick, and finally a wall when I tried to close my eyes and turned my back like Jonas

Interesting that that is the story that resonated with me, because when I first saw the man thought the window, standing under the tree - just watching with hat in hand

I didn’t realize

It took me months to grow less fearful and stand in the doorways to hear his faint mutterings
I bought him a suit and I followed him to his resting place in the Karoo

There I found that he had been missing for a hundred years, buried amongst the animals of the field, amongst the rooibos bushes
He could finally rest clothed

19
Yellow, green, blue, red, pink, glass, gold, purple, black, orange, sea green

20
Sometimes I can see the double faces of unsealed parts that need to be carved out to drain the puss and packed with Buchu

We have forgotten

We have forgotten and we need to learn to learn that there is a beauty in standing in the current that disorient and move you when it is time

21
So many thirsting and lost in sea currents Riding Vonk from the ocean to drag all to shore
Some by name, some by might and others I have in heal in order for them to heal

Too stricken and stuffed in museum vaults to feel the tremors rhythmic hoofs of movement calling

22
Full moons drawing the house and garden in hotnotskooigoed

All the candles burning and dancing naked amongst the flower bushes Digging and only finding giant rocks

23
The voice said that they heard me calling as I sat in a circle of the sun I received gifts of wood, glass and green and gold.

24
I had to learn the snake nests do not mean me harm Letting go as I fall backwards in-between ancestors The black/white, the white and the rainbow family

25
Surrendering hurts
Settling for midnight chaos
Twelve white flags waving
And as I twirled being held up by my hair
I heard I need to prepare for the end of my mother

I bought black after I woke up and asked her what is the purpose of having the gift of knowing

She said Pa could mark the dates on the calendar of when people would pass

He even ordered his coffin in time, because that winter the rivers swelled

I then wore red to honor spirit and breath

26
I moved far away from hotnotsvis/hotties, vetkoek and moerkoffie Far away where they said they needed me
No Suikerkanna in sight
But they all came to welcome me
I forgot I am a bird and my roots are tied to the skies and deep inside my bones

27
Water is water and they have communion amongst the stars
The pure deepness of stone built upon stone
Of hair that pleat and crimp like the landscape that can be a burnt offering that fold time and space and as much as you drown
You can find your way by sinking into the ground and firmament of bushy knots that tie you all together

28
I sing a praise song for the visitors of cloudy goats in the trees

29
I sing a praise song for the forgotten children that just needed to dig deeper

30
I sing a praise song for bee carvings on skin that are maps to caves in mountains
The overlays of reproducing sound invitations that speak in tongues of smell, color, beat and animal sacrifice

31
I sing a praise song to not truly being lost

32
I sing a praise song for being able to realise that love has spoken in my life and has directed me

33
I sing a praise song for not being lost, but being followed by prayers of ancients

34
I sing a praise song for not knowing but learning that brokenness is where the light shines through

35
I sing a praise song, because not all spots are signs of decay, but family markings calling to order wayward ghost foxes

I do not have answers. Only a crowd that gently follow me. Contradicting wisdom being shared and sweeping rituals that require contortions

sometimes spoken in tongues that sound like the future and past rushing like a whirling sand tsunami - I am fertile ground for healing - a new fearless being knitted (brei’d) together by light, color, wood, rock, protea blood, ocean, gold dust and gifted something madras green and purple wraps.

I would like to thank my ancestors past, present and future, broken, healing and searching
This is for all the mothers that woke up when I called. This is for all the broken stern-faced fathers in my bloodline. This is for the spirits named and unnamed who choose not to rest, but to guide  

2022

A seedling

And this is me sleeping
Reincarnated from dreams

Compressed spirit
like dinosaur soft toys expanding in the water
surviving intemperate climates

I am a cloud
And see there’s my keeper standing shrouded in the shadows

Drawn across my body
traces of belonging

Explosions of color contrasts with solemn prayers performed by familiar goat-clouds

Found objects and ethereal tethered heirlooms.

Sentimental moments caught in a mutant mothership.
The junctions between tectonic fault boundaries.
A shape formed by melding and mended sensitivity.

Love, care and control with magnetic wind skeef fractals.
Stitched together by many hands, including those that serenely fold sand blankets.
Retro swarms with gauzy hums -homesick and presaging the entrails for a future, for a home that never was.

Parent plants gutted, interiors with overlapping origins finding ways to clothe, to touch.
Neon graffiti markers for those reburied in the records.
Unseen currents sweeping scores of endangered intimate memories to transcend geographical borders

Gently draping the things that belong to the sky to guard over tender hearts
Stringing the home-made guitar, mirror sparkle like playful carpenter bees

see the peripheral hemming patterns we trace to farm new consciousness
as we ‘come online’ one by one

Bam Bam Bewe –
underground astronaut,
not knowing where the sky went

Annerlike Afrikaners
Temporal neon rats

From Bergloper to Strandloper you are not alone
you are not alone

Segmented ecologies of tieties and mountain shaped slim-vroue timid beat over the Tralala (
cape leopard pawprints Nama stap

in the dust, we are in paradise, again
Kalahari trance state stare (eyes fading into stars)

I save all the hair in plastic bags
not knowing the praise songs
here’s hoping that ancestors speak DNA smoke shuffle click-click-click

I am interested in the body as a circuitous river

What remained is the incoherent acculturation super-blooming, despite the fractures
despite the rippling serpentine swings

A collective wrestling
displacing welts embodying body
creating maps – shape shifting on the body
Artificial skin boundary –
borders crossing from deepest stratum erasing dignity

memory friction – cleansing ritual – praise poetry dance of possession
swift play
Ear splitting calls -now that I am less obsessed with pretty

You have to cry louder than the song

Chorus of the underground
We’re totally Earth alien

a fertile land was found inside me
I dreamt of a Mother ship – (twirling in space)
dark denser knots of glowing gasses

I wonder how many of them truly ‘believed’ or if they just shrugged and went along, because it was safer

I heard the yard was steeped in all the bloods of her slaughtering that they were all called

they’ve gone and let us flail with overwhelming nothingness
But even in nothingness there are subatomic particles and field fluctuations –
So here we stand
planted ourselves
seeds harvested by the wind

Die tjinners het gekom and they are cloud chasers. (The children came. It is what my grandmother kept repeating for the duration of our visit)

‘Tell them about the time you tied a rope around both of our bodies in the ocean - ‘…and then ask me why I can’t dance.

2025




 

Rx true form x rooibos
Journal entry 4.6.2024 by< Rhoda Davids Abel/ sometimes Bamiley, sometimes Bambani

you do not need to record this

landing in four parts
from Bergloper
to Strandloper
to Draadsitter
now Annerlike Afrikaner*

Annerlike as in ‘comparable’?
does that even make sense?
doesn’t ‘Brown/Bruin’ sit easier on the tongue?

you do not need to record this

is this recording on?

recording?

compressed spirits
like dinosaur soft toys
expanding in the water
surviving intemperate climates

is this recording?

you are not alone

are you recording?

Rooibos needs to be crushed

honestly,
are you recording?

i don’t know how to process certain stories that come through me

beat
distressed
bleat
crushed for oxidation
crimped
produce the distinct brownish-red tinge
a skein of nameless bodies
release earthy flavor

it is a long story how I ended up here… or is it there?
every day choice between –
drinking forgetting-tea or moer coffee

a Spring Queen - strutting on the factory floor
fill out a form at BMD and Rex True Form
where women spoke ‘Burda’ German

schnittmuster
bewegungsweite
cabled twist color abrasion

der rock kann mit oder ohne blende am Saum gearbeitet werden

float
crimp
madras
dimensional stability
madras
creel

a skein of nameless bodies
stitch stich purl
float
casting off

where women spoke ‘Burda’ German

nameless bodies
nameless echoes
Aia & Outa
Echoes

taking shape
form inside form
forming form inside form

forking at the side

Spring Queens - bright fruit being stitch-stitch purled together
shut/shatter
jou moer gesnoer
shut your mouth, but make it annerlik

if you are recording,
see the peripheral hemming patterns we trace to farm new consciousness
as we ‘come online’
one by one

creating the right climate for Maanhaarjakkals to visit –
whisper-howl at the doors –

i stood up and said that there is something on some of us bigger than circumstance
it still reverberates in my life today

then I couldn’t name them, but I listened and donned the horns,
crawled in the attic and watered all the slumbering women

they found me in the desert,
looked at me wearing pink and blue head cloths tied under chins
told me they’ve been waiting
Tietie, ‘hot-knots’, Aia and Outa

Rondganger, Star-chaser
as the spaceship landed on Aurora –

where is heaven when you never see black angel figurines?

Bam Bam Bewe – spaceship for ‘underground astronauts’**
not knowing where the sky went

Annerlike Afrikaners*
temporal neon lab rats
for the culture, for the clan

from Bergloper to Strandloper
you are not alone
you are not alone

segmented ecologies of tieties and mountain shaped Slim-Vroue
timid beat over the Tralala
cape leopard pawprints Nama stap
in the dust, we are in paradise, again
Kalahari trance state stare

i save all the hair in plastic bags
not knowing the praise songs
here’s hoping that ancestors speak DNA smoke shuffle
click-click-click

they’re not coloured-blind$
not all my ancestors get along

i don’t know how to process certain stories that come through me
i definitely don’t know how to shape them or mold them to be more presentable, digestible or how to place them on a platform.

there is a part of me that feel that I would be adding even more disrespect to my ancestors that have already been stripped of their dignity and humanity when they were alive.

putting their stories on display has to not perpetuate those experiences –
thinking about how I should also caution to not strip myself from my own humanity when I put myself on display in certain situations

i am interested in the body as a circuitous river

what remained is the incoherent acculturation
super-blooming, despite the fractures
despite the rippling serpentine swings

a collective wrestling
displacing welts embodying body
creating maps – shape shifting on the body

artificial skin boundary –
borders crossing from deepest stratum
erasing dignity

memory friction – cleansing ritual – praise poetry
dance of possession
swift play
ear splitting calls -now that I am less obsessed with pretty

the sun between dream and reality

waves rising over the horizon
yellow and blue days are here
oceans stringed to the moon
push and pull
familiar
continuous

upright on shaky knees
return from the cold fields

filing dwindling supplies of water
buried deep

you have to cry louder than the song

golden state – in search of my name
trickster homing star

immense parachute of forest blueprints
hungry starts
experiment of dark denser knots of glowing gasses

i dreamt of a Hotnotsgot five days before my mother’s passing
Mother ship - passing

MOTHER SHIP – PASSING

Chorus of the unseen
we’re totally extinct zebra people
earth alien
a fertile land was found inside me

The arrival: made two attempts

the old slave tree memorial in cape town looks like a drain cover
you might notice it if you accidently trip over it as you cross the street

making space to reflect on my upbringing in a religious anti-women propogandist cult
taught zero bodily autonomy

on the same day having more agency to run away from four muggers than i had on the same day to walk away from someone grabbing and groping me on the same day

i was told that she walked everywhere she needed to be
alone, pipe in mouth
crossing mountains, sleeping under overhangs

she and her sister taken from her parents as kids to work as caretakers for a white family
Alone.
how do I feel so weak, coming from women so strong?
Women that birthed children and goats - alone –

who knew we were on the way to NABAGOA
prim starched, flentersrok
black wig, short sides and long fringe
kitten heel hell
don’t try to convert those that are not ready to drink from the water

milk, honey and sugar
how I drink my rooibos
unadorned, with lemon as medicine

i wonder how many of them truly ‘believed’ or if they just shrugged and went along, because it was safer


i heard the yard was steeped in all the bloods of her slaughtering
that they were all called
they’ve gone and let us flail with overwhelming nothingness

even in nothingness there are subatomic particles and field fluctuations –

so here we stand
planted ourselves
seeds harvested by the wind

tenderly fighting over breadcrumbs
layers of innocent skin stripped away
being absorbed back into nature

NABAGOA*** – somewhere, but nowhere – misplaced

farming wind behind your eyes
gathering strings of glimmer voices

please take my hand

no option, because we’ve been forgotten
tomorrow cares for itself

codependent souls
filled with hope
living with braced arms
dancing in the burning bush
a chorus for Moses or was is Jacob?
whatever
we’ve been on our knees but still wake up unspectacular
memories rebooted

Bam for Bamiley
Bam for Bambani
Bewe, because we’re skating on thin ice

i race
i rate the reference

2024




 

At 22:55 PM a bird tested grounding
It sat coiled hair to the air
on a barbed fence, entwined in wire, electric, twisted, snared
This is a body
this is a body performing standing in space this is body with memories of nightmares of millions of eyes staring at it unblinking in the darkness
A body that frequent the borderless land of the skies
unblinking
a nameless body, a nameless echo
what are the terms for those whose names are unknown?
This is a brief history of a body
soft fluid name changes between them, they and me and her and he
I am this is body neither here or there, but rather crisscrossing streams
I/we speak in tongues of mine, yours and theirs
I dreamt we were together
remaining suspended
blue whale-like clouds just underneath the surface
breaching at sunset for a chorus
We/I remain nameless until this body is baptized in salt
I’ve briefly heard names in dreams, but then reverse spun forward... adrift once more
tying gossamer strands of here, there and now together
Not fully being able to grasp the ungraspable unfound as I eat the light
bound to ephemeral disruptions
Inducing a cascade of reverberations
We became velvet night birds Unseen
We are left carrying the angioedema ghost weight of carnivorous mountains throughout every organ in our bodies being carved from inside out
Flexing stabilizers as we jump through the navy purple and gold summer sky –
because it is always summer in dreams –
How do we avoid the stone-crush traps? the snares?
Almost being obliterated by venom
we shift – we form – we trace the hallucinations – the delusions
Opium birds look up
look up
your empty head
your blank eyes
How did we end up here?
at this halfway house to no-where? consuming the ephemeral - eating the light – light eater
Three trees been bent over by cosmic winds gazing into the endless holes dug
Hey, velvet night bird can I tell you a secret?
Momentarily inaccessible, displaced
I am tired of being told who I am and who we were
Spoor sny
tracking interrupted
Intermission to run future – bird twirling
Here
there and now
Ascendance – close your eyes – dance with the ghosts – where we wield salt water as a weapon
Where we
children chocked on water-based custard dessert
Chicken on my head trying to peck out eyes
Years later chicken becoming the first indicator of ancestors trying to climb through my flesh pecking at my skin
reaching the furthest distal
Twirling in the reflection of eternity – watching black birds choke on skies full of poison – falling to the ground – resting fitfully in the wet green moss
Intermission
I can’t drink water on an empty stomach daily wrestling an acute responsiveness to internal and external stimuli
One foot in the here and the other in the third space
I encounter spirits in the ordinary places that I frequent
in the dream spaces I appear in white hallways of a childhood home
during the day I am sometimes nudged to take time to meditate by whisper people that live in the corners and doorways
Being held in the dark about who I am always a fine line dancing the dance of night science
They say a cobra never forgive or forgets an enemy or a friend
always squeezing and pulled by my hair into the ether
Twirling as one does
THIS IS A BODY THIS IS A BIRD
How does one engage with a body that represent a map of colonialism and enslavement?
At which point am I appropriating my ancestors?
A ground station for transmissions a satellite for dreams calling home
Space holder
Translator
Receptor – recorder - processor Sorcerer, witch, dreamer, healer Collector of clothing
Fluidly moving through forms This body – a fluid therianthrope In constant metamorphosis HUMAN
TREE
PLANT
MOUNTAIN
ANIMAL
THIS IS A BODY PERFORMING BODY FOR YOU
This is a brief history of my body

2023




 

Journal entry early 2024
Date unknown
Time: usually between 00:00 AM and 03:00 AM
Reflections between muting the lights and hovering in the between
‘Berglopertjie’
The ways in which they climbed out of my skin and then coalesce into an army of eyes and soft hands...
the way in which they fret about like mist covering the mountains...
the ways in which I farm the orange-peel strings of dreams to knit triangle lightyear liminal third spaces
for alien thought to Bam Bam Kapua
- to dance Morse code on my skin ...
I have a destabilizing view of reality...
sometimes I wonder if she/the mountain used yellow wool to tie her soul to mine the morning I was born...
perhaps she wanted more when the ambulance carrying my laboring mother almost ran off the road...
but she settled for caressing her thoughts and green velvet hazy memories in my mind...
it’s a possibility as much as anything else...
how do I explain ‘just knowing’ about future, or ancient past... the soft ‘hey’s’ when I’m about to fall asleep...
the violent shaking when strange short creatures clawed and squeezed into my throat...
blurring my body and theirs...
tilting my bed as soon as I lay down...
being swallowed by everyone’s nightmares and pain...
the lizard like squeeze moving from my head, to my throat, to my chest...
universes colliding and being scrunched together and spat out by my acidic tongue...
the way I was sure one day I will look over a fence and a German shepherd will bite right into my face, but that isn’t that random..
maybe if we children didn’t help ourselves to the berries in the tree next door that would never bother to be ripped into reality...
every single time I start writing I hope that this time.., this time... and this time..,
I will find other mementos that hope to make it to the surface... not the circular regurgitation of trauma scented verbs...
but I am fused to the membrane of territorial mountains...
I’ve built up contractile rings to rip my filaments from theirs...
a fascination built during my teens by reading all the books in the library...
all the books...
korma curry mild two dick dragon with a tail that exists in a universe where all goes...
and the ghost blended reapers of alien bird porn that I still can’t wrap my head around...
I also don’t try, because I refuse to google bird anatomy... purity culture wasted on those early forced ripe fruits...
insulated against nothing - us brown and black children left to our own decibels/devices...
which drags me right back to the start of my story...
stories that are mine, but yet not fully mine..
those inherited from dna information theory stored in skin..
redundant since the world still spins as it did 400 years ago..
and 224 years ago..
as my grandmother laid in cargo in a ship...
her daughter’s eyes not for a moment adjusting to the dark...
the roiling fever of the ocean perhaps a distraction to the imminent arrival of her second child...
finally spat out on a mountain that welcomed them in the echo bossom of her folds...
each generation being bent over lower until they are stooped with faces so low they can’t but have an intimate sense of the soil..
as they tell me, ‘the owner said... work means I don’t want to see anything but your assholes in the sky...
and still the mountain forced them back upright... to find leverage in small pockets of hope...
i foam at the mouth as I say ‘hope’, because I am gatvol, tired of being told that we should get over it..,
its been a mere 30 years... I am 39...
I repeat, 30 years of freedom in the most technical sense...
I gladly stare all their demons in the face and process all that pain..
but why should we go at it alone...
not all my ancestors were victims,
some of them gladly swallowed their share of blood...
why are we not holding healing reparation/ repentance circles for our white ancestors ..
instead of urticaria I might be utricularia...a sophisticated carnivorous creature...
instead of focusing on prey but pray .. even when my gods are mountain- oceans, orbital moons and trees...
whistling thunder with sharp unerring winds...
that will also allow myself to gentle when more are called to wash the blood off their hands...
but first I must be the muse for devastation as I practice WWE with the gatekeepers at archives, libraries and institutions that keep my heritage captive...

keen to share if I can proof my worth as ‘one of the good ones’ as they cherry pick dance wine-drunk with all those that white screeched with them...
us the forgotten ‘happy vermin’ that have to suckle at the bitter teats of our grandparents-
and as we starve - like they did - of food, kindness and humanity / we must bear witness to it all...
they raised us hard, because the world wants to continue... to eat us... I have to thread with kindness still..,
never can we rest at night.. neither inside or outside...
we scrub behind the fridge and between the tiles.
We obsessively control the way in which we store our plates -
the plastic one always on top because the ceramic plates are bullies...
all because someone’s grandfather decided that the only joy on the farm is the daily ritual of having my grandfather bend over with his pants pulled down, to whip him in front of the others...
but we must get over it...
even if we remember that most of us were the children of the farm owners, but you inherited your slave status from your mother...
so now here we sit and we lay and we look down at ourselves... in discomfort and disgust...
disassociating
- I am exhausted by the wildness of the words pouring out of me -
the ways in which my skin remains tender to the touch...
coming from a long lineage of peoples that provided comfort to those during their last days, but also were there to birth all the new...
having stretched beyond my borders to accommodate and witness for hundreds and thousands as I sit together with them... paging through the death paper trails documenting their lives....
As I mourn with them I also recall the dreams in which I give them water....
As we gently rock together, folding and knitting memories together...
Berglopertjie. the diminutive of Bergloper. The person that belongs to the mountain.

2024




 

He said the trees in the garden have gone deaf,
but we can prune them
Proteas don’t fear fire
I wonder why someone can be gone, but also not gone-gone
dead fish still blink here
and stare at the living wearing flower patterned dresses with
and I drink Buchu on an empty stomach
frayed white collars
She told me the smaller shark seemed harmless
I tried to see but I must be a bird,
but it grinned at her and told her she won’t make it out alive
because my eyes fly over fences and wires and signs,
it grinned though and since proteas don’t fear fire she will
that say that they shoot on sight and ‘oortreders sal vervolg word
continue to blink
I must be a bird
We play hide and seek in the twilight
She said hie-jy jou moerskont kom huis toe! She said there is dirt and then there is real dirt
pondok
but the wooden doors have moving faces
and as you run through freshly cut grass
the shadows briefly stroke thin long arms down your sides
proteas don’t fear fire though
She said sing and he said sing and they said sing
they all said sing-sing
I think of all the types of proteas
and how they seem to sleep when planted by human hands
He said in order for a spring to live it must have an uitloop,
I said my heels are red, because one day a man got off a boat
walked through a field and slapped his hand on the arch of a
anders loop dit weg
we dug that day and we stood knee-deep
I don’t know about springs, but I know about echoes
I forgot about the proteas but they must still burn and the fires
are still coming
I know about voices and I know about warnings

2021




 

Premonition
We are far away from home and the birds are singing a warning song Ara keep us warm as we semi-lucid sing this devotion song
hollow saint
bent superstar
devoted our lives to your kingdom simulation bring the water
bring us rain
let this demon angel sing
Higher
On the other side of this side on the other side I see you
Ascension
It is a new day
we will not rant
comfort us touch us
we are believers
we dance in the moonlight desert
our golden skins blessed with ultra-love
Rapture
I hear your voice and then the rain takes it away again Awakening
Ara is what Ara is
There are no goodbyes that matter in my bones
my bones
the waters continue to rise
far away from home
strangers to gods
contorting transparent bodies absorbing celestial satellites
/Xam
Tethered to the dawn
We ride out the last storm what is left behind
to breathe
ARA ARA
ARA ARA (Afrikaans)
Voorgevoel
Met die helm gebore
Ons is ver van die huis af en die voëls sing 'n waarskuwingslied Ara hou ons warm terwyl ons hierdie toewydingslied
half slaap-wakker besing
Heilige
Gebuigde superster
Ons lewe gewy aan u koninkryk-simulasie
Bring die water
Bring vir ons reen̈
laat hierdie demoon-engel sing
Hoër
Aan die ander kant van hierdie kant aan die ander kant sien ek jou Hemelvaart
Dit is 'n nuwe dag
Ons sal nie huil nie
Troos ons tog
Raak aan ons
Ons is gelowiges
Ons jou kinders
Ons dans in die maanlig-woestyn
Ons goue velle geseën met ultra-liefde -gawes Wegraping
Ek hoor jou stem en dan neem die reen̈ dit weer weg Ontwaking
Ara is wat Ara is
Daar is geen afskeid wat saak maak nie
in my bene
in my bene
die waters bly hoer styg
Ver van die huis af vreemdelinge tot gode
verdraaide deursigtige liggame
absorbeerde hemelse satelliete
/ Xam se kind
Vasgebind aan die dagbreek
Ons ry die laaste storm uit
Wat agterbly
om asem te haal
ARA ARA

2021




 

Hoe maak ‘n mens ‘n berg wakker? Hoe maak ‘n mens ‘n berg wakker? Slaap met jou oë wawyd oop Wakker drome in geel
Versmoor in jou moerighyt
Loop buk buk oor ‘n brug in die middel van die nag Ly onder die blou lug
Maak tyd vir hoop
Sit jou liggaam op display
Just be alright, al is jy nie alright nie
Soek vir die tussen plekke
Val boontoe
Verdwyn sommer net soe
Inside my body reside memories without names Lost in kelp oceans of hidden questions of belonging and ownership
Questions of self and soil
I am a bird bound to the sky
I am an object with pearls on my wings
Sky on my body and moonlight teardrops hanging from my tightly coiled hair
Hair like the landscape of the dry Karoo, bushes sparsely woven together
Iamabirdboundtothesky Lost and forgotten
Too light, too dark
Jovial and kind
Lost in translations of heritage and power structures claiming a place in existence
I am a bird bound to the sky
Here are the marks on my body of wings gently scraping over vineyards and orange groves
Grasping under the milky way
Finding ancestors and gods alike wandering around in the sunlight
I have been lost to myself since before I was born
I am a ‘we’ that was birthed of an ocean of different nations washing ashore
Suppressing trauma
Smiling through the storms
Raging to a god that doesn’t know us
Trying to fill a void
I can hear the moon whisper of orbital clouds that vibrate my names
Of echoes of birds that never walked on the ground But I speak in foreign tongues not recognized by the wind
I am a bird bound to the sky, but am I lost?
I will rinse my mouth with aloe and buchu oils twitter at the violet skies for miracles
Playful
fleet-footed lightly dancing in the warm rough sand
A tinge of forgotten scent of fish
Memories of fire trances, smothering boats and choking on chains
Burning spice offerings to gods
I’ve been told ‘child you will never find peace’
 ‘you are a melting pot of warring bloods raging through your veins’
It is just the way of our people
we rather hide behind a bush or tree laugh off the trauma
I am a bird between sky and soil
My soul continuously transforms in a multitude of hybrid creature beings
Sometimes my parts visible through the haze, but mostly I remain on the margins
I must be a bird or a branch on a tree
But I can’t be a person, because I float and I can’t pinpoint where by body begins and ends
Invisible fences rooting tentacle like wires into my feet
They wiped away all the traces of sacred landmarks and the uniform of green, yellow and brown
Where we toil with frozen bent backs
They mock us with gaping jaws
Some of us lulled in deep sleep walking through thorns
I must be a bird invisible as far as the eye can see As I seek comfort in the in between
My ghost everywhere
Liquid whispers between my skin and yours
We in this body
I am a bird
Here are my marks
Accessed from re-remembered family archived saved in dreams
Two winged, four winged echoes wrapping around ankles in the cemetery
I am a bird
Here are my tattoo markings
I use to jump dimensions like in the old times Like the elders said
Trapeze the hallways and corridors where the old time and new time warp
Where we move fluid and shapeshift
I can hear the moon whisper of orbital clouds that vibrate my names
Of echoes of birds that never walked on the ground, But I speak in foreign tongues not recognized by the wind
I will rinse my mouth with aloe and buchu oils
Having to unlearn all the ways I’ve been constricted, restricted, flattened, bound and gagged with fistfuls of brak water
I twitter at the violent skies for miracles Burn like dust winds and stars
I am a bird and I stood up
I donned the horns, crawled in the attic and watered all the women
They found me in the desert, looked at me wearing pink and blue head cloths tied under chins and told me they’ve been waiting
Me along with them staring up at the ‘best blue’ sky
I was never alone. They never blink
I am a bird
I am a rainbow translucent snake
I am a Rooikat with more than one soul in my body
I am a silent tree in the garden, but pruned until I could speak
I am also a mountain that sleeps
I carry the boulders of hurt and the blood of baobab whispers
I will become translucent
Drown in perforated black skies Giant sky waves will consume me
I will swallow the sun until the waters remember myths of my existence
I am bird, but I am not lost
This place knows me and calls me by my names
I am a bird and my heels are red, because one day a man got off a boat walked through a field and slapped his hand on the arch of a pondok
Between sky and soil, I am a bird bound to the sky, but birds do not get lost in the sky
I am a bird between sky and soil
My soul continuously transforms in a multitude of hybrid creature beings
Sometimes my parts visible through the haze, but mostly I remain on the margins
I guess what I am unlearning at this moment...now... Looking at reclaiming movement
In my body
My cultural heritage
I am a bird
I am a translucent snake
I am a Rooikat with more than one soul in my body

2023




 

This mountain specifically
there is a history behind this mountain
I look at the mountain
I can imagine what it was like in the old days
It used to be the hunting and walking grounds of the Khoikhoi, the Sonqua, the /Xam and the other indigenous tribes around here
The way we know it today from this side right over to the other side
We were taught
here they created a blockade for the people and every day when I walk around the mountain I have pictures of those places where they created watching posts
the Dutch, English, Germans and the white Afrikaners
Every time I climb the mountain I think about this I feel homesick
When you climb that mountain
and the noise around you remind you of what it used to be
especially when you are on the one side of the mountain
you make a lot of noise and there is an echo a sound
and it hits the other side
also with a sound
Also, when the mist rolls in
it has a very important meaning
for me there are two
it brings a certain coolness
and the old people believe that when the mist rolls in someone will die
It’s bad luck; the mist
I have a favorite spot on the mountain
I can see over the plains into the distance
In the distance is a point known as the place where you found rhinos as your eyes walk the distance
You look towards the bay
those people by the sea are lucky
they have what’s called zebra’s peak as a beacon when you’re at sea and the mist is too thick to spot the land
Instead of a lighthouse they have zebra’s peak
As soon as the sun breaks through
and they see the beacon
it doesn’t matter how lost you thought you were you’ll find your way
You can sit there and look over the plains and see the wheat fields
Patches of them with vineyards in-between there you see the red Karoo
the earth is literally red there
when they plow and the dust turns in the air then then
you are full of red dust
Then you get to the Hoek (corner)
where they had the first winery in this area back then they made sure the name left a yearning in the farm workers; in everyone’s mouth
a sour taste
a sweet and sour taste
Most of the noise you hear nowadays are that of a hawk and her chicks
her screeching is what stands out most at the moment
So loud
In the valley you notice that the sounds of the pheasants are getting softer and softer
it is a colorful mixture of sounds
And in-between the sounds of the birds you can hear old bobby and his crew planning another farm raid
This mountain though
it brings me a sense of peace being there
a calmness and stillness that I can’t describe  

2019

We’re on a silver beach with navy blue waters
I can touch the milky way glittering between my fingers
past, present and future holding hands and kissing each other with golden lips
Briyani-gatsby wind-chips and appel bompies where two oceans meet
where all the oceans meet
Born
not from a mothers’ womb
you just appear one day
a modern-day miracle
to roam the plains and the mountain tops
A new creation an abomination
People made of humans, trees and animals arriving on rocket ships like space Jesus filled with a universe of star dust
pulled from all four corners
I gave birth to a child that pulled a boat from the ocean
soaking wet, realizing this is not where my body is
Trees growing above me
a pink chested bird nesting in my hair a coiled snake staring into my eyes
We dove off mountains
we saw our children’s skulls crushed on rocks we flew
we dove
the wind
the wind
the wind carried us down we float
Indigo skies and the moon came down and kissed the sleeping mountain
dancing circles around me
Stir up teargas clouds
as the feet of hundreds of children hail down on the pavement
sounds like metal thunder
We hid in caves and the fires roared around us as the foam of the ocean rage to rid the new world of vermin
dark heathens
star fire
Sometimes my soul flicker in and out of my body
between the here and there
over oceans and mountains
between crevice, crack and rock
flicker between understanding of lives lived
between memories shared and shattered Echo calls incessantly wake up traveler get off your knees
you are everything
the spirit of a Kriel, a Xhoi
The water snake stirs the salt waters
when you close your eyes find where Dawid dug up roots
I ran with the gemsbok
snakes curled around my ankles crossing deserts
I held her heart as I washed in her blood
Light eyes like cowry shells staring waiting for us to wake up trace our roots cross the blue globe over and over
Everything
we are the all
We stood up
we grew tails to swim
even when the hunger claw and strangle
we become trees and we bend our branches to fight lions

2020