Friday, December 13, 2024

Top 5 This Week

Related Posts

Goethe, Rilke, Tolstoy, Woolf: Poems by Abigail George

GOETHE, RILKE, TOLSTOY, WOOLF

Alanis Morissette playing inside
my head. UFO in her eyes. A drum
made out of her mannequin limbs.
There is a desert in angelic
Poetry. I never forget these truths.
I am here on earth for a little
while where we flirt with the
Temptations of the world. Everything
is useless if it is not conquered
by love in the end. Humanity is
the unseen. The world is not my
Home. I have left the radiance of
the sunset and stars of childhood
far behind me. In my dreams I
return to the swings. The park but now
it is all gold. On golden pond.
Gone are the passages. Goethe. Rilke.
Instead, what remains is the heart
of worship. Church. Hymns. Tithing.
Us, humanity desiring the same thing.
Long-term misery no longer making
Forward progress.

=====================

THE PSYCHOLOGIST

There was a near death
Experience in the family.
We are at the game reserve.
Amongst mountain lions.
Blank strangers came.
They came with disorder.
Writing disorder.
Once spooked swans in a dream
I found myself on their lake.
Drowning in fields of black water.
Our eyes are made of fire.
She is the baby of the family.
Competition started at the swings.
Their lungs must be a mansion
covering the sharp milk estate of
the ghetto moon’s craters.

All named after Jesuit priests.
To do lists unfolding.
I am online. Repair.
That is where you will find me.
The magic of celebrity.
Of fame on earth planting itself there
Like Sherlock Holmes.
I drink in the lines of her face.
In the corners of her eyes.
Her mouth. I have lost her for good now.
Every season from childhood.
My spiteful humanity.
My shadow. I cannot catch
up to her. To our shared lessons
from our educationalist father
In the old fashioned wild.

=====================

HER BOLOGNAISE, LASAGNE, AND PAELLA

The English blood in the Khoi
Girl. The portrait of a young
Girl and handsome boy in
a giant sandpit. Both as hungry
as tigers, wolves, and lions.
My sister was my educationalist.
She refused to accept my myrrh.
My gold. Frankincense. My face of love.
The lines of her face shimmer with
glitter like the stars. Her genius is sexy.

Everyone, man, woman,
is in love with him.
She is a celestial being. Navigates
the world as an independent
Woman. She is a feminist.
A doer. A thinker. An intellectual.
She smells like a pineapple. Wood.
Who knows why we do what we do.
Once we used to dance
on the sea of grass of our
childhood. Once we were
puppets. Our doll mouths pulled open.

The world as humanity knows it
Miles away. Cracks showing in the system.
Coo. Coo. Cooing like babies.
Cooing like birds. Ostriches
With their heads in the sand.
This is a love song for a sister.
After all these years of feeling small
In her presence. It is Christmas
On the land. There is glitter
In her blood, on her skin, in her hair.
Life sails away from beyond
My reach at her kitchen table.

=====================

MY FINGERS OLD ROOTS

The divine strings of strategy.
Every year we had a new puppy.
Losing those animals does not matter
to me half as much as losing her.
A dense pain-body moved within me.
I imagined my parents
putting up house opposite
the hospital where I was born.
I imagine them moving furniture.
They guided my soul. She did too.
What she wants is a novel me.
What she wants is for me to grow up.
I am thirty-six and still left
out in the cold. Still living it “up” to her.
My rival’s expectations.
You will never find her in
an encyclopaedia. She will not
accept flowers. Tears for rain.
Rain for tears. Driftwood like the surgeon’s
Glove is temporary.

=====================

Poems: © Abigail George
Image: Pixabay.com

 

Abigail George
Abigail Georgehttps://www.goodreads.com/author/show/5174716.Abigail_George/blog
South African Abigail George is a blogger, essayist, short story writer, screenwriter, novelist, and poet. She briefly studied film in Johannesburg. She has two film projects in development and is the recipient of two grants from the National Arts Council, one from the Centre for the Book and another from ECPACC. Her publishers are Tendai Rinos Mwanaka (Zimbabwe, Mwanaka Media and Publishing or Mmap), Xavier Hennekinne (Australia/New Zealand, Gazebo Books), and Thanos Kalamidas (Finland, Ovi). Her literary representative is Morten Rand. She is a Pushcart Prize, Best of the Net nominated, and European Union Poetry Prize longlisted poet. Her poem “The Accident” was Identity Theory's Editor's Choice for Spring. Ink Sweat and Tears chose her poem “When light poured into me at the swimming pool” as a September Pick of the Month, and she recently made the shortlist of the Writing Ukraine Prize 2023. She is a poet/writer who believes in the transformative, restorative and healing powers of words. Her latest book is Letter To Petya Dubarova (Australia/New Zealand, Gazebo Books). Young Galaxies (a poetry book) was released in 2023 from Mmap and a memoir When Bad Mothers Happen is forthcoming. “Clarissa, Hector and Septimus Redefined” was recently published by Novelty Fiction in Kindle format.

SAY SOMETHING (Comments held for moderation)

Please enter your comment!
Please enter your name here

Popular Articles