A friend gave me the greatest gift
He introduced you to me, one night
You might remember him
He’s also dead now.
His name was Leonard, a writer, wrote historical stuff
The night he read me your poems he was knitting a jersey
I’ll never forget, because it was funny to watch
he was knitting, reading and in between
gulping down bunches and bunches
of ripe red wine, Tassenberg
Remember him?
He told me he was at your funeral – or wake – with friends and they
all drank whiskey and read your poems out loud
He told me about your taxi-driver lover,
I forget his name and about your baby Simone
He didn’t tell me what colour are your eyes
Are they brown like the murky
waters that strangled your life away
with icy fingers
It doesn’t really matter
Your poems matter most
I’m not going to teach you
to suck eggs
but South Africa is almost free
And Nelson Mandela is President
You probably know that.
In which case you’ll know
that Madiba gave to the world a little gift
when he read aloud to listening millions
one of your poems –
my favourite poem –
that ever-living ever-breathing sad sad story. You know the one.
No comments:
Post a Comment