Leah’s Humpback

 From the

Strait of Georgia

she broke the water

into air

with one purpose in her last aborted breach

she beached

to rest herself with death

and not be

drowned

Such mystery

splayed onto the sand

in such an

unbecoming beast

but tragically too everyday

and much too long in not disentangling her thrash

of trawling lines

her freedom

snagged

her powers all but snapped

she lies leviathan with raw and salted

lacerations

and strangely

safe

on warming

ground

Finally

she is cut free

from breath itself

in a visitation more

than all the curiosity

the loathing and the crying

among  

two hundred hands

of little ones

the earth

so quickly

found

Unfettered now

with no cry of dereliction down

into Pacific

deeps

she dips

into her  final

sound

 Allen Goddard

  

With great thanks to Leah Kostamu, for sharing her story of the Humpback

Things look up

On a February flagged veranda

the Alexandra Police Station

in insect stopping heat

floats in song

from jaunty Striped Canaries

taunting mischief

on a bedraggled Jacaranda

I slow as long it takes to stop

uplift my view from rush

for pause to nod to mind

that smiling wisdom more than Solomon:

these feathered upbeats in the leaves

have not a care

or single sweaty page to bring

to a Commissioner of Oaths

Anonymous

Wind on the Witte Rivier

A ruffling southeaster

soon after dawn

ripples a Wellington mountain pool

to wake and blink

then wink white, as if light

layed on these reachless deeps

knowingly hints

at the dazzling presence

gusted and circling in whispers

Water arms furl under the breeze

pushing waves to the banks

countless stones clack in as many fingers

These unfreighted rocks 

under wind on the water

ask seasons of heaviness

changing my gaze 

to answer the blustery now

of this river’s frank youth

All I can say? Yes! I am here

to be torrent roughed, tousled

and cooled

like today’s first sun

sprinkled,

to answer God’s voice over water

unspeaking

like a lad half clothed whoops

ankle deep in the daybreak

all sparkled

then finding breath

leaps

Allen Goddard

A City Butterfly’s Sunny Break

Leaving

 the Receiver’s office

down on Pietermaritz Street

there’s a brightening chance

of ultra violet vigour

tingling on my skin

after a long La Niňa sodden week

 but mind you there’s a

a spiking wind.

Snow in late November!

Yes, far west, high and deep

Beyond the dripping blanket

greys on Inhlazane’s

peak

Between a pavement and a drain

the warming spot of solitude opens flat on ember bricks

unflustered in loud acid puffs of morning traffic.

Little opals glint on velvet, fanning to a standstill

as though puzzling where the city flowers fly

to fill their solar tanks.  

Her formal black and lace of eggshell

halts me like an intersection red.

I almost drop my SARS receipt to see her wink

as if she wants me close enough to hear her say

I know just how much  

the Tax man’s

going to pay.

La Niňa is the Atlantic counterpart to the Pacific El Niňo

SARS  is the South African Receiver of Revenue

Allen Goddard

Make Way

Dry leaves scratch in spirals blown

The hot dust desiccating eyes to leather

Whispering wind she raises caution

Calling out the warning – Make Way, Make Way.

Drumbeats faint the pending timbre

The dogs of earth go running scared

Heavy soon the feet of thunder

Bellows out – Make Way, Make Way. 

Cables spark whilst loosely swinging

Attaching all things earth to heaven

The sky lit graphs of God aren’t hidden

Candescent tell – Make Way, Make Way.

Heaven sinks earth’s veins disgorging

Spewing pungent effluent streams.

Apocryphal Refiners River

Hailing down – Make Way, Make Way.

Spectrum fan the clouds are mending

Fresh baked roads rise up in steam.

Jasmine breath the wind now calling

Renew the earth – Make Way, Make Way. 


Dave Barbour

When did you last

trace those branches twined on sky, touch the light bright leaves
with your soft fingertips,

feel

that

bark-

skin

like

an

elephant's

hide,

stand

underneath long enough to breathe today's fresh oxygen-gift,

and sense

the living roots that even now are wrestling

in harmony with the soil?

John Roff

Record of decision

            Since Queen Victoria,

polo fields turfed the Dorpspruit floodplain  

like an ample cricket ground

from Saddlery to Brickyard and Bird Sanctuary,

but city planners’

paths of development

rezoned this irenic plover park as “prime”

The polo people charged a run of discontent,

interested and affected parties

bated city sentiment

without

the second sight of Noah

yet still the outcome read that

players, horses, heritage

and the leafy common

would be here to stay!

Until one morning SUV or tractor tracks

cut deep

one hundred urban years

in polo sediment

The polo folk just moved away

to a higher private space

in walled and gated

ivory

and weekly markets, meets and nearly all the birds but egrets,

umbrellas, horses, bales and hot-ice boxes

left the fields, replaced

by mounds of blackjacks, khakhibos and rotting refuse,

 but garnishing

the new and Northbound boulevard

steel and glass and gleaming sales floors 

concrete grass

Amafa referenced redbrick,

a lanky littoral zone

topped and tinned

with cyber cipher neon

flashing growth

and with no limits,

mantras promising

the Sleepy Hollow

Vibrant Valley

Makeover

Upgrade shouts a speedy sale of one day’s headlines

but be that as it may

these yeomen of the now

just plough and scatter once a life-time floodplains,

sprawl out pensions,

futures,

venture finance

hastily

but so much less

withstandably

than what remains

and weeds remember

of

the fields


Allen Goddard