Grondwerk

Rustum Kozain

Drunk on rum and wine, neighbourhood
thrumming with youth and lights,
the words that come to me now
like a long lost lover I can believe
I had, or even want to have had:

granaatboom in an aunt's backyard;
behind the pigeon coop, in the big yard
that holds the hanslam, mischievous
eight-year-old twins smoking wilde dagga;
and from the kitchen, gemmer, anys, kaneel;

and dennebol of summer, dennepitjie;
and when dry how the cones knetter
in a brazier, gellieblik; brazier of my youth
on a street corner or next to a building site
in the dead of winter of a dark decade.

My bra, my brother, ghazilam,
friends now gone god knows where
in alcohol, in debt, in silence
perhaps now closer to God.
All the words

always for light relief, the tragi-comic
in a play or in a colourful ad;

never, weinig
liefkoos
verlang
verdriet
o koud
die windjie skraal
moordkuil van die hart

always caricature but never
when heard from my mouth
its ordinary sadness
triestig
like a day-long rain-filled day.

LitNet: 04 May 2006

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