Coming into Windhoek
underwing
the lazy rust of
blood-stained sheets
left too many weeks
dry-aged
everywhere you look
there’s inspiration enough to entitle
a season of Mentalist episodes
I entertain a Hollywood plot
a tragic crash
untimely end
our blood and guts
spilt Chinese lacquer
seeping into copper
rather too fanciful
I admit
were we truly to fall
grey metal mote would be all
barely denting
dusky damask
the night Mandela died
it seemed that every being
retired to mourning
muting hush
plains once dazzle a dozen
become bereft of black striped tan
hyenas held their laughter
holed up in their dens
jackals even lost
their unstinting hunger
no springboks no oryx
no kudus no ostrich
at dawn this land
lay barren as we passed
till beyond Fells Spring
we saw the king himself
and then
as if the moment marked
returning back the way we’d come
his subjects danced
One late morning in Tintswalo
six rhinos stepped onto the road
only minutes from the lodge
while our eyes were on the warthogs
i felt it, the rush, the stir
the fist around my heart but
it was my first trip out
and the moment’s grip on me
was stronger than mine on it
Tutta is 9 years old
a young black who’s already lost one calf this year
her number one, three years old, has left home
alone she alternates seasons in the Palmweg
we’ve driven three hours through volcanic sere
to hear the walkie talkie tracking
of a sighting
a family
two boys
and a spot under Mocampo tree
this time i know better
i snap her up
we meet up again
at desert rhino camp
in the Palmweg Concession
at communal dinner
it turns out Sasha drinks
red wine even vodka
it’s just champagne
bungs up his tummy
he confides i discover
warm and funny
it’s his stutter keeps him silent
not he’s sullen
and yes, he still foregoes
the pureed lentil soup
but only because
if he eats it he must see it
he explains meat
should be meat
see, what i’d pegged as pique
was simply sensitive
and as the evening went from pork to apple crumble
eating pie and humble
i had to unsnap those early judgments
i’m much too fond of making
for neither he nor Yanick
were Gasprom or ex-OSS
or anything remotely sinister
instead, they bake
Russian and Ukrainian
ceramic tiles for sale
in europe’s many markets
(in which trade there plainly is money
enough to marry models)
saving one last shallow surmise
of mine still standing
Sasha won’t drink champagne at breakfast after the balloon ride.
He just won’t.
From Kiev to the Namib, he prefers neither heat nor ice.
He just doesn’t.
But air-conditioned malls and the night F1 in Singapore
Light his eyes
They do.
And Elizabeth, blonde-haired teen bride on his shoulder.
She does.
On the blimp
We’re east of english
closing on orthodox
The Frankfurt fraus on Maine
descend from Greeks
And the Swiss Germanically vie
their scars from knee surgery
Our pilot once was French
which Maria also speaks
who’s with monied Moscow Yanick and
who teases Sasha
because there’s so much still in this wide world to see
and absolutely nothing
about our glide in the heavens to be grumpy
At 5.58
we were third
at the gate
to Sossuvlei
(that ivoried clay pan
with its sentry
titan dunes)
we’d outpaced the gloaming
third would hardly do
so we sped for first
overtook Messrs
Sunway Safaris
the first first bus
caught up with
the South African passat
which, tailgated, would yet not let
don’t blame the city slicks
these dunes too are whet
to slicing blades
whipped up to peaks
by grinding competition
between two winds
between the desert and
the deep blue sea
we raced home from the volcano
the all-day drizzle
cooling to graupel sheets
peeling off the windscreen
sheep and cows long since winter-barned
only stout shagged studs
watch us speed past
unperturbed by snow-blizz
patient for their turn
snowfall sundance
the gentrifying slips port side
(geography as semiotics)
where FOB and FAS once were matey
genteel lodging sidles up against F & B
free alongside ex-works
androgynes sip cocktails indoors
even as, just a slipway aft,
welding sparks fly
across the crisp dry dock
did we all watch that movie once?
pseudo-steamy
pubescence
barely played*
perceived as porn
by certain
uptight
west atlantic
islanders
for the rest of us
there’s silica, magma
a toasty dip on winter’s noon
vulcan heat that warms the citiy
*brooke went on to better things; chris, alas, we still wonder about ….
local lore has it that
a fleet sheep
slipped, bleat
to shepherd who
abseiled to the rescue
only to both be trapped
avalanched
whereupon
beneath the crevasse
t’was sheep led shepherd
home to hearth
little bo peep
redux
antipodal 2011 