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Introduction These shorter poems have been fun to write, and I hope you enjoy reading them.
Thanks to My daughter Iona for the cover design suggestion and her collaboration on the poem ‘Parts of a wedding’. My wife Jo for being a wonderfully steadfast, loving, reliable and encouraging woman and for helping me find the space and confidence to write. My mother Sheila Roff for encouraging and supporting me as a writer. My father Bryan Roff for his quiet validation. Several friends who have let me know how much they enjoy my writing – Mitch, Alice, Torin, Dan, Pat, Allen, Dave, Heather and others - I deeply appreciate your affirmation and response.
Published by: WESSA Share Net P O Box 394, Howick, 3290, SOUTH AFRICA Tel: (033) 3303931 www.wessa.org.za ISBN No. 978-1-919991-98-6 First Edition: August 2013 ©John Roff 2013
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Index
It is uncomfortable 3
Guitar players 4
Teachers of teenagers 5
Library 6
Puffadder 7
Snow 8
Two approaches to
the winter sky 9
Dancing with tradition 10
Loose tea brewing 11
City moon 12
DSTV 13
That’s all 14
Poetic mind 15
Home 16
Not lonely 17
At last 18
Yacht 19
In the night 20
Call 21
Projection 22
Hunter 23
Second life 24
Parts of a wedding 25
At the fence 26
Clean slate 27
Called while walking 28
Tree top 29
Breathing space 30
For one second 31
I witness the
crossing over 32
Catching stars 33
Sneeze 34
Time of the month 35
Rain 36
Snowstorm 37
Days after 38
Crinums 39
Depth 40
Buying scotch 41
There is no
benevolence tonight 42
Cloud men, Cloud woman 43
Playground miracle 44
On the wind 45
3
It is uncomfortable
It is uncomfortable to have a pin in your pocket they get your attention keep you awake help you look sharp.
But I would rather have a pocket full of pins than a fat wallet, shiny car, six-figure income, and the slow spiral into numbness.
4
Guitar players
Under the lights, fingers fire a jet of orange notes directly at the jugular of distraction;
it is just as hot to turn and watch the faces feel sonic flames,
they all gaze back and set again the strummed strings blazing.
Inspired while watching Guy Buttery & Nibs van der Spuy.
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Two approaches to the winter sky
Leafless branches claw blue emptiness; bold aloes raise red goblets.
10
Dancing with tradition
There’s a lady in a black burqah carrying her shoes and turning the road into a stage with every sprung step flicked up and skipping to that secret tune,
her smiling feet leap off the tar again again again again. The burqah is a garment worn by women in some Islamic traditions; it covers the body, leaving only the eyes visible.
12
City moon
A steel circle in the gun-metal sky, a spotlight
seeking solace in the soft haze of warm streetlamps. Written in collaboration with Daniel Dix
14
That's all
Must every poem have a hidden meaning? I simply want to tell you that the pearls of dew suspended in a spider's web are beautiful.
15
Poetic mind
Layers and layers and layers of meaning; it is a way we see the world, you fall into the sudden sea of poet thought and suddenly nothing is simple.
16
Home
I may have hatched out in a hospital bed but I was born in the open space of wilderness;
there is more to me than this temporary stay in the hotel of suburbia, beyond the measured street lights, untamed wisdom waits.
17
Not lonely
On top of a tree, washed with wind and swinging,
one cheeky leaf reaches up to tickle the blue belly of the sky.
19
Yacht
As if there were some kind of god
attuned to catch our
whispered prayers,
we hold out aching sails
into the wind,
and wait.
20
In the night
From one candle a flower blooms,
yellow-bladed singularity eternally opposed to emptiness,
a silent petal repelling miles of flailing darkness.
21
Call
Acres of silence surround the quiet soul awake to night’s full noon.
Listen…
the infinite distances, beckoning.
22
Projection of leaf shadows by the sun
Light-netted, a shoal of fish swim out awhile beneath the branches of their sea then shimmer into smooth soft grass.
24
Second life
In a corner of a churchyard lies a hollowed grindstone, filled with water and inscribed, in memory of one who keeps on giving back with every bird that frisks, then soars from bathing in that clean fresh pool.
25
Parts of a wedding
Rain walks across the sunset like a girl in a grey wisp dress.
Sun behind clouds pours light on her path.
The skyline is smudged by the brush of her feet.
The earth throws flying ants like confetti.
Written with Iona Roff (age 9)
26
At the fence
A long taut grid of woven steel keeps me from touching fields of winter grass,
but the hands of hope, in the welcome sway and rustle of a million silken stalks, will not be contained.
27
Clean slate
Years, grumblings, feud, unhappiness, finally a long night - coffee, silence, sherry, forgiveness;
next day, he picks dog turds off the lawn and greets the morning with a cup of tea.
28
Called while walking
The cliffs above beseech me like the living things they are, to loose my sweating hold upon the briefcase of conformity and sink these thirsty fingers into soothing stone that always rewards departure from the familiar with clean cold conviction.
29
Tree top
Summer she was a green-draped swaying shelter, haven friend-of-birds cheerful sort of place,
later, ungreened by weeks of fierce brittling light, her taut brown canvas hands finally let Autumn go.
31
For one second, high above
Sweeter to me than any human music, a Bateleur sang, its raucous toad-like bark of a call charged with all the hope of wild places, where dreams still grow.
The Bateleur is an eagle found in remote parts of the African bush.
32
I witness the crossing over
Cool magic of the round mirror dissolves at moondown,
sunup draws together all the dozy elements of day, re-convening light’s warm work.
33
Catching stars
I throw the poem out onto the tide and wave of all that is, hoping to hook a fish like me; for it is in that true unloneliness we are affected by the shine of purpose.
Longing for a bite, I must play out my lines into the dark, perhaps to catch a star that, moving, does not move too much.
34
Sneeze
For once, instead of shouting, I sit down and watch a troop of comfortable monkeys in the upper branches of a Plane tree picking buds like peas, and snacking without haste.
A muffled sneeze from up there makes me think of how alike we are, the apes and I, instead of seeing motley fruit-thieves I discern a kindred body, and share my blocked-up nose with joy.
35
Time of the month
I know I’m not a woman and I’ll never understand, I’m sorry that it’s so painful for some of you and so bloody inconvenient,
but could ‘that time of the month’ ever be celebrated? Is it not beautiful to hear creation’s ancient rhythm singing through you, reminding us of birth, fertility, growth, beauty - all that is so good and yes! in every wondrous woman?
36
Rain
Splashing up from scarlet flowers into open empty air –
a skyward flock of red-winged starlings.
I wanted rain, but a cloud of birds was the water I needed.
37
Snowstorm
A spinning swarm around the sun, light flakes of snow blot the rain and fall, in little living silences;
some land, as bold as bees, right on my warm and hopeful tongue, some drop to earth sighing, stop, and blink into the grass.
38
Days after
Snow lies sleek on the soft rolling couch of the hills, like a scatter of cats with white tums to the sun, all fast asleep in no hurry to move.
40
Depth
Sodden sea sky rain tears trickle low-slung cloud a bulging canvas bursting bucketfuls blustering deluge surge flood torrents millions upon millions gushing litres gushing
the steady sea consumes it all, keeping rhythm, not blinking.
41
Buying scotch
An extended family of whiskies, like pipers on parade, hiding their true nature the way only a clear liquid can conceal its treasure;
rows of bottles running down the shelves draw up to mind the bubbling water of their starting, those peaty streams which catch the North Atlantic rain and hold but never tame that churning wild water.
When you reach out to take that bottle you are not buying whisky you are grasping Scotland's good clean air, woven with peat and kings and dreams, and the bold West wind blowing.
42
There is no benevolence tonight
Stepping out to face the pounding gun of wind whipping trees across the moon, lacerating clouds,
no mercy
hammers my face ripping off the pub's warm shell,
run for the car and cringe behind a thin windscreen below the torn and glaring silver eye.
43
Cloud men
Extruded
like shaving foam
from a brewing storm,
a hundred rumbling
bellies bulge
into a still blue sea.
Cloud woman
Please look up;
as if in prayer,
one cloud
edges the cautious pillow
of her pregnancy
into an open sky.
44
Playground miracle
One wrist-flick, a Frisbee is born, and a thrown-out plastic lid turns into hope.