Abigail GeorgeA WALK THROUGH THESE EMPTY ROOMS Look, it is autumn. Autumn rain. It is the beginning of a brave new world. You don’t understand me. You love me, you say you do, but you don’t understand me. I know of psychiatrists, illness. Disability. I know of...
HEALING AN OLD RELATIONSHIP On the wings and prayer of a dove Leaves falling to the ground. Poet first and writer second. Futility is complex. Gathering...
‘Turn the page, Lawrence, and you will find lessons learned from the mistakes you’ve made. We’re all fragile. It’s what makes us human.’ Patricia shivered. Yes, she could feel it now. Rain was coming on. She looked out the window at Lawrence. It was...
PHOTOGRAPHS (For my mother and my father) I pretend I do not love this city but I do. I pretend that I feel nothing for the women, men and children who rise from its depths in the morning in much the same way as I do, but I do feel for them. I eat...
NO LONGER CHILD (For my mother and father) Her picture was in the paper again. The broken pottery of her soul staring back at her from the page. Writers are in the business of basing the reality of hope on their flirting with nature. Poets are the...
THE INFERTILITY POEM (OR THE SAD WOMAN IN THE PHOTOGRAPH) My cousin has two small children (brilliant, bold, brave daughters). While I have none. Only the distillate of winter’s unquiet. I am staring out of the window at winter’s branches of...
MUST TRAVEL (For my sister) The day has a mothlike quality to it. I make a cup of tea (always for one). Boil the water in the microwave oven while old poems make way for new poems. Once, I lived in grassroots country. Rural countryside. Mbabane...
VERTIGO I’m glad I never gave up On my mother. Even though There were times that I Came close. There were Days when I...
WRITTEN ON THE BODY OF JUDSON JEROME In autumn leaves will be wrapped in water and rot. I lay in between the sheets. With my head from Whitman to Rilke. Coming undone. The driftwood is whitening in the sun. The open mouth of the whale that swallowed...
OPENING PANDORA’S BOX IN YOUR THIRTIES There’s a loss to the windswept day. The waves beautiful but I do not want to go into the water. Feel it against my skin. I’m afraid I might Drown in all of that...
She had never met anyone called Siegfried before. Wondered what he was like when he was a boy being called on in class. Was he teased, mocked, bullied on the playground like she was for her ‘proper’ English? There was only that poet in her distant...
NIGHT AND DAY (For my mother and my father) There is love here. A kind Of resurrecting. A life instinct Drowning in the gaseous life Experience of the mother tongue, Lungs, and hands of the stars. The bluesy ‘contribution’ of The song of a woman...
