Oh, I love the games of their names - oh, so
Low, so high, it stops and starts and roars and soars!
Bred - broken from rock - gold .... of Africa!
With a skip and a hop, rushing and splashing
Not like a serenely flowing, deep river Thames
But frolicking like a tumbling stream over rapids:
splashing and foaming, sliding over the slippery rocks...
Hear the bubbles bursting and riding the foam:
Mpho! Maboti! Thabo! Madikane... Bonolo!
Sifiso, Boitomelo, Bakane....Nontobeko!
Hear the murmur of the slipstrams in harmony : Muzuwandile
Motshoane, Mokoni, Zulu, Tshepiso.... Mashamaite....
Seiphisihle... The click and the suck of the drops that lick:
Macingwane, Thebe! Tlhole.... stretches and snaps!
The gurgling rush on the gravelly pebbles: Sekgobela,
Moruakgomo, Kgaogelo, Rirhandzu, Selebogo, Mokgosinyane,
And then the frolicking flow off Kelemongile, Salamina,
Modise, Maredi, Maseko, Moloto in a helter skelter
rush to the sea, where Mosala Selebogo, Molongana...
Nkosi... Ndlovu... Dingiswayo, heaves with the sea!
Wednesday 12 October 2011
THE APOSTROPHE IS CRAZY (C) HC Meintjes
A tail with a large head, the apostrophe -
Oh, the use of the dot'ntail larva baffles me!
Between two nouns, the former is possessor
And the latter, possessed, belonging as lesser
"Siss" (hissing and sassing) being rude and derogatory
Is never doubled - The S after it, is not compulsory
On words ending on -s (for whatever reason)
Like Jesus' words, Moses' law and Johannes' bliss,
Laertes' time and Croesus' kiss, ther's no extra "es"
"For goodness' sake" would hiss if spelt goodness's
And goodness, being kind, deserves no snub, you see!
Plurals (mostly ending on -s) are polite and hiss-free:
One boy'S food (or girl) is MANY BOYS' poison!
But when an extra ES is HEARD, as in Ross's girl
Jess's bridle or James's curl.... it... does spit a bit
To fitm as most singulars and s-less plurals get that 'S
If the possessor is alive and want to possess.
An inanimate possessor is silly indeed
How can you own if you do not think?
so if you are very sharp you will never say,
The hay's stack, but the stack OF HAY
the cast's shape but the shape OF THE CAST!
Now the possessor, being dead, is least and last -
Boy, I apostrophe m (I'm) learning fast!
This role of covering the bunking A -
A good friend will roll call in his stead with a yea!
We see it in mightn't, mayn't and I can't
We slept in an 'otel and you'll see if I shan't!
And then the real clincher, making the dot'ntail
A real nut cracker - not plain to sail!
If, in literature, poetry and prose,
You talk to a subject as if it's real close,
Animate and right in front of your nose,
For instance: Grave, where is thy sting?
Death, be not proud, Wind, whistle and sing!
Apostrophe, you are one difficult thing!
Yes, this direct address is calles apostrophe....
Which aptrly rhymes with catastrophe!
Oh, the use of the dot'ntail larva baffles me!
Between two nouns, the former is possessor
And the latter, possessed, belonging as lesser
"Siss" (hissing and sassing) being rude and derogatory
Is never doubled - The S after it, is not compulsory
On words ending on -s (for whatever reason)
Like Jesus' words, Moses' law and Johannes' bliss,
Laertes' time and Croesus' kiss, ther's no extra "es"
"For goodness' sake" would hiss if spelt goodness's
And goodness, being kind, deserves no snub, you see!
Plurals (mostly ending on -s) are polite and hiss-free:
One boy'S food (or girl) is MANY BOYS' poison!
But when an extra ES is HEARD, as in Ross's girl
Jess's bridle or James's curl.... it... does spit a bit
To fitm as most singulars and s-less plurals get that 'S
If the possessor is alive and want to possess.
An inanimate possessor is silly indeed
How can you own if you do not think?
so if you are very sharp you will never say,
The hay's stack, but the stack OF HAY
the cast's shape but the shape OF THE CAST!
Now the possessor, being dead, is least and last -
Boy, I apostrophe m (I'm) learning fast!
This role of covering the bunking A -
A good friend will roll call in his stead with a yea!
We see it in mightn't, mayn't and I can't
We slept in an 'otel and you'll see if I shan't!
And then the real clincher, making the dot'ntail
A real nut cracker - not plain to sail!
If, in literature, poetry and prose,
You talk to a subject as if it's real close,
Animate and right in front of your nose,
For instance: Grave, where is thy sting?
Death, be not proud, Wind, whistle and sing!
Apostrophe, you are one difficult thing!
Yes, this direct address is calles apostrophe....
Which aptrly rhymes with catastrophe!
Friday 19 August 2011
EK IS SEWENTIEN
“O, ewige deining van die grote en magtige oseaan
Wat onstuimig-spoelend jou branders op die rotse stukkend slaan.”
Theo Wassenaar hoor sy enkele polsslag in die oneindigheid
En sy woorde maak my deel van die lewensheerlikheid.
Ek sien die sand, die strand, die son en die see
En my siel dans en dein in ekstase op die golwe mee!
Ek weet, ek glo, ek voel dat die lewe lok:
Tikketikketik – tik-tik juig die klok.
Die lewensvreug van die jeug klop juigend in my lyf
En ek jubel en ek sing want dis plesier wat my dryf
Om te werk en te doen, met lewens drif en vuur!
Tieketiek, tieketiekiedraai… omgeswaai sak die uur.
Want skielik beskou ek ‘n onskuldige kind wat rou en ly
En die pyn wring en skeur, die onreg vryf dof deur in my!
Is ons Skepper dan … O, nee! Nee! Ek is bot en dom-sat van die stryd!
En Tik… ketaktik.. TAK! …. Beur die eindelose tyd.
Ek is ‘n vlammende vuurtoring van skaamte en onheiligheid:
Naarstig soekend na myself, verdwaal in eie onsekerheid!
HULLE spoel golwend, spottend om my verkrummelende voet
In die skuiwende sand, die Tik-tak-tyd spartel : iemand moet boet….
Ek is stof en tot stof en trane geneig, modder, is ek!
Modder suig aan modder en ek val met my gesig in die drek!
God IS, Hy IS ‘n liefdevolle genadige Vader – maar maak alles sin?
Bemin Hom, bemin Hom, tik die tyd, net ek is te seer en …. Te min.
Dan weer sien ek die trietsige randeierkind wat rou en ly
Pateties, selfbeheb, sy is tog nog net so deel van my…..
Dan skuim EK al spottend om haar gebroke voet in die sand:
Skaam jou, sies! Waar is jou trots? Wees wys ; mannebestand!
Ha-ha-ha lag die tyd my honend uit!
Ek asem in en uit, wieg op en af, vae vreugde – diep verdriet:
Stiller waters … dis die honger haaie se gebied
Bang? GA! Ek gaan my gang – los my net uit!
Terwyl die tyd in die donker fluit…..
Ek sien, ek sien tog nog soms die strand – die son en die see….
Maar my siel, stewig geanker, bly aardsgedwee……
Ek weet, ek voel, en aanvaar ; ek word sinies en koud,
Maar sewentien is mos nog lank nie so bitter oud!
Ha-ha! Hoe later hoe kwater, koggel die klok en skater:
Maar net ‘n enkel druppel in die gehyg van die groot-groot water!
“It is man’s destiny to ponder on the riddle of existence.” – Charles F Kettering
(c) HCMeintjes
Wat onstuimig-spoelend jou branders op die rotse stukkend slaan.”
Theo Wassenaar hoor sy enkele polsslag in die oneindigheid
En sy woorde maak my deel van die lewensheerlikheid.
Ek sien die sand, die strand, die son en die see
En my siel dans en dein in ekstase op die golwe mee!
Ek weet, ek glo, ek voel dat die lewe lok:
Tikketikketik – tik-tik juig die klok.
Die lewensvreug van die jeug klop juigend in my lyf
En ek jubel en ek sing want dis plesier wat my dryf
Om te werk en te doen, met lewens drif en vuur!
Tieketiek, tieketiekiedraai… omgeswaai sak die uur.
Want skielik beskou ek ‘n onskuldige kind wat rou en ly
En die pyn wring en skeur, die onreg vryf dof deur in my!
Is ons Skepper dan … O, nee! Nee! Ek is bot en dom-sat van die stryd!
En Tik… ketaktik.. TAK! …. Beur die eindelose tyd.
Ek is ‘n vlammende vuurtoring van skaamte en onheiligheid:
Naarstig soekend na myself, verdwaal in eie onsekerheid!
HULLE spoel golwend, spottend om my verkrummelende voet
In die skuiwende sand, die Tik-tak-tyd spartel : iemand moet boet….
Ek is stof en tot stof en trane geneig, modder, is ek!
Modder suig aan modder en ek val met my gesig in die drek!
God IS, Hy IS ‘n liefdevolle genadige Vader – maar maak alles sin?
Bemin Hom, bemin Hom, tik die tyd, net ek is te seer en …. Te min.
Dan weer sien ek die trietsige randeierkind wat rou en ly
Pateties, selfbeheb, sy is tog nog net so deel van my…..
Dan skuim EK al spottend om haar gebroke voet in die sand:
Skaam jou, sies! Waar is jou trots? Wees wys ; mannebestand!
Ha-ha-ha lag die tyd my honend uit!
Ek asem in en uit, wieg op en af, vae vreugde – diep verdriet:
Stiller waters … dis die honger haaie se gebied
Bang? GA! Ek gaan my gang – los my net uit!
Terwyl die tyd in die donker fluit…..
Ek sien, ek sien tog nog soms die strand – die son en die see….
Maar my siel, stewig geanker, bly aardsgedwee……
Ek weet, ek voel, en aanvaar ; ek word sinies en koud,
Maar sewentien is mos nog lank nie so bitter oud!
Ha-ha! Hoe later hoe kwater, koggel die klok en skater:
Maar net ‘n enkel druppel in die gehyg van die groot-groot water!
“It is man’s destiny to ponder on the riddle of existence.” – Charles F Kettering
(c) HCMeintjes
Mystification - Nothing Rhymes
We come to school and learn what we don’t know
Cahlil Gibran’s same door as in I went for ever more.
Shakespeare said, we are such stuff as dreams are made on – of?
Nightmares or inspiration? He deepens my mystification.
We are made in the image of the Heavenly Father
Who is spirit invisible, mystical, ethereal, inspiration.
God likens Himself to an earthly father – this father of love and life
Now love mystifies me most. Isn’t mother love the symbol
Of caring. It was Totius who likened mother love as depicted.
Well, “die oue put”, dripping tears of anxiety providing water
Eternally – “dit gee maar immer”
Isn’t mother love rather that litera many splendoured thing?
Mary, mother of God…. Mary Stopes clinic? Empty hearts
And bodies leaving the rotting goo gratefully behind with glee
Their little lives not rounded – never woken from the sleep?
Is “making love” not “ making hate”? Sowing the seeds
Of inconvenience and death? The seeds of death so small that
Even a microscope cannot detect them and yet they reveal
A world in which the virus needs a home – a human cell
Worlds within worlds which we can never see.
Our little lives are rounded with a sleep Shakespeare,
Are we ever really fully awake? There are more things on
Earth under Heaven than are dreamed of in our philosophy.
Twinkle, twinkle little star. How I used to wonder
Disillusionment: a churning, burning, unbearably hot mass of fiery gases!
The moon? Diana, chaste, cool oh so romantic! Oh, no!
A heartless rock: dry, barren arid! Have a heart!
Not Washkansky’s bloody lifeless organ!
Twinkle, twinkle little star, how I used to ponder
A sun a solar system, a galaxy or two or three or three-trillion
The milky way? Infinity, the great black nothing from which
We wake from the eternal sleep to God’s mirror into which
Humans stare always, until the final real awakening.
(c) HCMeintjes
Cahlil Gibran’s same door as in I went for ever more.
Shakespeare said, we are such stuff as dreams are made on – of?
Nightmares or inspiration? He deepens my mystification.
We are made in the image of the Heavenly Father
Who is spirit invisible, mystical, ethereal, inspiration.
God likens Himself to an earthly father – this father of love and life
Now love mystifies me most. Isn’t mother love the symbol
Of caring. It was Totius who likened mother love as depicted.
Well, “die oue put”, dripping tears of anxiety providing water
Eternally – “dit gee maar immer”
Isn’t mother love rather that litera many splendoured thing?
Mary, mother of God…. Mary Stopes clinic? Empty hearts
And bodies leaving the rotting goo gratefully behind with glee
Their little lives not rounded – never woken from the sleep?
Is “making love” not “ making hate”? Sowing the seeds
Of inconvenience and death? The seeds of death so small that
Even a microscope cannot detect them and yet they reveal
A world in which the virus needs a home – a human cell
Worlds within worlds which we can never see.
Our little lives are rounded with a sleep Shakespeare,
Are we ever really fully awake? There are more things on
Earth under Heaven than are dreamed of in our philosophy.
Twinkle, twinkle little star. How I used to wonder
Disillusionment: a churning, burning, unbearably hot mass of fiery gases!
The moon? Diana, chaste, cool oh so romantic! Oh, no!
A heartless rock: dry, barren arid! Have a heart!
Not Washkansky’s bloody lifeless organ!
Twinkle, twinkle little star, how I used to ponder
A sun a solar system, a galaxy or two or three or three-trillion
The milky way? Infinity, the great black nothing from which
We wake from the eternal sleep to God’s mirror into which
Humans stare always, until the final real awakening.
(c) HCMeintjes
THE POEM FOR MKANSI VUNENE
I am, Vunene: Vunene Mkansi –
My essential identity – my dark destiny?
Rooting me: sounding the rugged kranzes
The murmuring streams of the land –
Hear, in Vunene Mkansi, the soughing of the wind
The moving, inspiring, informing wind.
The whispering, winds of change …
Skakespeare says our little lives
Are rounded with a sleep – how strange
To hear his brief, grave truth, yet survives.
Unchanged, on the soughing of the breeze
The shared, waking wind
The whispering wind.
We inhale the wind, the invisible wind of life
Babies gulp the air on waking from the abyss of sleep
Alive, searching, yearning, aching …. Human strife
Against entering the eternal sleep to keep
The gusty, corroding, traumatic tornadoes… at bay!
The final doldrums… lost at sea… we weep
For the winds from Betlehem,
I wait for them.
With the spirit of the wind, I will find my soul
And my woken soul will soar !
For I am the future.
My essential identity – my dark destiny?
Rooting me: sounding the rugged kranzes
The murmuring streams of the land –
Hear, in Vunene Mkansi, the soughing of the wind
The moving, inspiring, informing wind.
The whispering, winds of change …
Skakespeare says our little lives
Are rounded with a sleep – how strange
To hear his brief, grave truth, yet survives.
Unchanged, on the soughing of the breeze
The shared, waking wind
The whispering wind.
We inhale the wind, the invisible wind of life
Babies gulp the air on waking from the abyss of sleep
Alive, searching, yearning, aching …. Human strife
Against entering the eternal sleep to keep
The gusty, corroding, traumatic tornadoes… at bay!
The final doldrums… lost at sea… we weep
For the winds from Betlehem,
I wait for them.
With the spirit of the wind, I will find my soul
And my woken soul will soar !
For I am the future.
(c)HC Meintjes
The little Herdsman - MODISE (a true story)
Modise shrinks into the darkest shadow...
At the angry shouting, stumbling and cursing:
Ta demands food - thunderous his brow!
He carefully removes his watch... Now searching....
He brings down an empty tin can on Ma's head:
Bang, Bang, Bang, now give my food to me!
Modise did not cook the pap; there is no bread -
Their last Induna was swopped for the BB.
Modise, like dough on a stick. Modise,
A rope, with knots for knuckles and knees
And his shadow like a bent-over, crooked D:
He has never heard thank you, nor please.
In his shadow he's awaited peace in passed-out rest:
Ma lying spread-eagled on her bundled blanket...
He covers her clumsily, somewhat, with her Sunday best.
The Ta in tie and jacket is snoring on the bed.
Modise gently wraps the baby in Ma's other attire
At the ashes he patiently strings onion rings
On a green stick to fry, tula-tula he softly sings
As some of the conca eyes still shine with hopeful fire.
Copyright(c) HC Meintjes
At the angry shouting, stumbling and cursing:
Ta demands food - thunderous his brow!
He carefully removes his watch... Now searching....
He brings down an empty tin can on Ma's head:
Bang, Bang, Bang, now give my food to me!
Modise did not cook the pap; there is no bread -
Their last Induna was swopped for the BB.
Modise, like dough on a stick. Modise,
A rope, with knots for knuckles and knees
And his shadow like a bent-over, crooked D:
He has never heard thank you, nor please.
In his shadow he's awaited peace in passed-out rest:
Ma lying spread-eagled on her bundled blanket...
He covers her clumsily, somewhat, with her Sunday best.
The Ta in tie and jacket is snoring on the bed.
Modise gently wraps the baby in Ma's other attire
At the ashes he patiently strings onion rings
On a green stick to fry, tula-tula he softly sings
As some of the conca eyes still shine with hopeful fire.
Copyright(c) HC Meintjes
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