The Phone Call

What fear do I excrete
From my heart
When I go over to that phone over there
And dial this old number
That I’ve found in an old diary?
A number which I forgot that I had
A number that might again put me in contact with you
Why do I feel this clamped in anxiety
By just thinking of making this phone call?
What am I afraid of hearing?
Am I afraid that you might be all beter
Out of the psychiatric ward
And you’re doing fine, but you’ve decided
Not to phone me up?
Or is it the fear that I’ll have to face you, talk to you?
…I push all this fear aside, and lift myself
From this chair
I don’t want to think, I’m just going to do this
And I put the plastic receiver against my ear
I feel how it immediately gets hot from the heat of my ear
I dial
It rings!
‘That’s exciting.’ I think to myself,
cause I was hoping that it would be engaged.
then I secretly start hoping no one will answer
but after the third ring some-one picks up
“Hallo”, it’s her house mate Deidre
and she’s sounding chirpy
“Hallo, it’s Sjaka.”
“Hallo, how’r u?”
“I’m fine thanks…” I stumble over a few
of my words trying to explain to her that I
just found this number and while stumbling
I try and sound confident and cheerful and I
Believe I’m succeeding
“I just wanted to know how Mariska is doing?”
“She’s fine. She sounded cheerful the last time I spoke
to her…” I think to myself it’s cool that
Deidre’s visiting her in the asylum
“…Look’s like Australia’s treating her well.”
Australia?
“And she’s taking her medication so that’s
keeping her well”
Australia?
I handle the rest of the conversation calmly,
She left for Australia on the 11th of Jan. and
She’s coming back on the 28th of this month
So she went back to her husband?
I say good-bye
“Send her my regards and ask her to phone me
when she gets back.”
“Good-bye, hear from you soon!” says Deidre
still as cheerful as white flowers in spring
I put down the receiver slowly
so she when back to him?
and many things flash through me
synchronicities of the last month – how that guy
from Somalia on the train spoke about Australia,
how the Murakami book had al these correlations
with things that have happende in your and my life
- and now it all makes sense, all these pieces
suddenly fit together
and over all that’s been, I reach into myself, an find
that I am happy for you
happy, if you have found happiness
and happy that I have found clarity on where u are
so that I now can go on and find my own happiness
I am also sure that you have not
Wiped everything we have shared completely away
That you have brooded over many things, including me
And that you have felt bad about these things for me
And I know that you have trouble expressing your feelings
And I might ask you, “Where you in love with me?”
And you might answer, “There is no way I can answer that question.”
I sit here, you are there in Australia
I don’t know what your thinking, what your doing,
But I’m thinking about the totally irrational, chaotically wonderful,
Electrical charge that passed through us, between us
And I regret that that mythical space
Is probably gone, forever
…But I’d like you to at least tell me!
Tell me to forget about you!!


© 2005, Sjaka S. Septembir

waiting for your tsunami

eating my shepherd’s pie and waiting for you tsunami
my heart is an organic pyramid structure
and ticks in the fashion of an antique coo-coo-clock
my blood sends shadow cut-outs of
old time composers, namely Sigfried
Wagner, Engelberg Humperdinck, Dr. Wilhelm
Kienzle and Richard Strauss, through
my veins
i’m waiting for your tsunami. my dried
protea eyes watching for the flight of your hawk
heart. watching with my telescope and binoculars
for the shadow of your heart on my water filled horizon.
i spoke to the grumpy professor next door
and he has calculated that it is about 4 hours
till you hit, and i know the dept of
your love and subsequently the depth
of your hatred. i can already picture it
30 meters of vengeance rising from your
beautiful fragile body
all those kilometers of sensuality
in the curves of your body that i loved
and orgasmed in, with blood and digital
contingency, now twisting up like a cobra
to crush my being
i’m waiting on your tsunami and remembering
how much we loved, as i move my
now empty plate away over the glass
table.
i throw the newspaper to the side as i
see how you repeatedly sat out here with me
on this balcony overlooking the Atlantic Ocean
how you smoked your cigarettes with shaky
delicate hands and we had to guard that the
monkeys did not steel our nartjies and banana’s
and how we laughed at their clever attempts
how your eyes could laugh!
…but now the flat is empty
and i’m waiting for you tsunami
while i sip on ancient tea, eating
a slab of top deck and breaking a wind
my heart still mechanically tic-tocking.
the composer’s tune in my blood
has changed to that of Don Quixote
and you are coming
i can feel you
approaching fast
i laugh cause the professor with all his calculus
and computers, knows nothing of women.
a whole community of people comes knocking
at my door, urging me to evacuate. i chase them away
with my own special brand of yoga-karate
and then i choose to sit down again and wait.
i know you my love, so i’ve been stocking up
on your favorite mayonnaise and chocolate cake
so as to soften your impact…
but chances are that you will be blind
and this will be futile
against
your fast approaching attack
as further defense i have put up three medieval
shields and asked and angel and 2 lions to keep watch
from the roof top, but i fear this will be just as futile
against your might
finally, 3 times a day I do ritual prayers with
wine and cupids to strengthen my pyramid heart
cause this is my only fear
if my heart folds, everything else will crumble
i have prepared and i’m intuitively ready
for your approaching tsunami
my phone is charged and switched on,
i have topped up with airtime
all i can do now is patiently wait and see
if i can withstand the impact of your anger
that anger that i traced in you, back to
the first sprouting of your family tree
back to Frankfurt in 1733
i’m sitting here
patiently waiting for your tsunami
…cause after denial comes anger
and i told you last night
that it’s over
that we have to break it off
that i never want to see you again,
and you were all to… calm about it


- ©Sjaka S. Septembir, July 2004, Durban

the sound of my voice

(photo by Esti Strydom)

my manufacturing psycho penis-machine
my fruit tree laughter in Van Gogh’s sun
my nutty half-moon mind
my bubbling champaign ego
my extreme pointless inner corrosion
my meditation on my icy will
my praying to Pan and fortified fornication
my penniless thoughts
my shaken fear factor vicissitude
my stride of golden mermaids
my crescendo of poetry, saluting
and wailing up in me like a cherry orchard
swaying in a warm breeze
my tongue filled with all of this
slides into your mouth like a wailing siren
and over all of this my voice blows
hauntingly
a non directional desert wind
touching your skin
and the skin of ten thousand people across the world
bringing in the smell of fresh blood

Valentines poem

(for Talja)

dissecting Valentines day
securely carving open its flesh
in search of you
the truth of you
I’ve never seen you blush
do you blush?
do you speak in tongues,
with Dionysian bliss outside our orgasms?
can I slash you open to your youngest days
to where your stoned and singing along
to Alphavil’s ‘forever young’
to where you diligently pull up your school socks
and are in disguised wonderment about the world
that teases and hollers at your senses
o, my Valentines, can I rip open the super hero
shirt of this - the 14th of Feb 2006 -
and reveal a togetherness of us two
that fly’s to Pluto, a togetherness
that shoots out webs from our wrists
and stops planes from crashing into
twin towers, a togetherness that weeps
lonely mothers tears hidden in a room
and at the same time shouts out with fire
“Dis lekker om Talja te wees!!”
“Dis lekker om Sjaka te wees!!”
a togetherness…that holds the heart beat
of the sea in our every fragile embrace
I dissect Valentines
in search of all of this
in search of gently… finding all of you and
beyond this
stroking your cheek

weight and the mime dog

Weight and the Mime Dog
went jiving in the Vietnam jungles of 1940’s hat’s
went penny whistling in old streets of coats and dresses
that they found in cellar rooms of purple grandmothers
who drift in deaf worlds
they had to climb Kilimanjaro to reach the attic doors
had to curcum-navigate their merry-go-round of excitement
so as to be as silent as possible
little Weight and his flying Mime Dog
tip-toed kwela guitar tunes over dark creaky floors
there little hearts racing like Easter Traffic
little pirates feeling their blood thirst for treasure
obscure conquistadors of erroneous wanderings
Weight and his Mime Dog
awoke the rituals of play
called on graves of ancient Greek actors
with trebling alto voices and noses full of snot
they enlivened the attic with such joyess play
that the businessism of time went out the little round window
and when mothers voice search-partied through the echoing house
a tactical hasty retreat had to be juggled
an out of breathe Weight and a hidden away Mime Dog
gathered in an official capacity in front of mothers stomping feet
Weight gave his snake charmers smile
and all of that would have worked
if his head wasn’t still halo’d by Grandma Sally’s little old church hat
Weight was sent to the dark side of his room
the big moon of trouble loomed in Fathers 7’o’clock return

- ©Sjaka S. Septembir, 2005

(Things have calmed down after an overly hectic period peaking at the handing in of my thesis and the death of my gran. This poem references that kind of granny idea, and it's fun...)

Park In Hotel and the girl from Jozi

“Right on time, right on time, won’t you be right on time,
all night long?” – Neil Diamond

she opened the door, her smile ringing bells
we hugged and then she went inside.
i followed
her steps where virile kings and queens
her shadow that of a lizard
across the white tiles i slinked into her fortress
the way a beautiful city slinks into it’s citizens’ hearts
she climbed onto the double bed and made herself comfortable
her naked flesh lips formed some word like ‘debutant’
as she pointed at me
a song by REM filled the room
i poured red wine into a glass from the open bottle
she lit a cigarette and offered me one
erotic blue-green devils made a dancing glint in her black stare
she was wonder woman I was the green lantern
she suddenly got up, walked across to the hotels window and
dropped the blinds. in her subtle hand gesture
i saw the inferno dance with tecnomuffins
“We’ve got 20min before we got to be at Raffiki’s.” i said
she turned the lights down low and
lay down beside me on the double bed
my eyes slid down her soft black thighs
i could see a lacey red panty
i felt a fully charged bulge rise in my pants
as i turned to meet her i new we where going to be late
but as our lips met, my one hand digging into her afro
the other circling her knee
i knew as clear as surround sound Dolby Stereo
we where right on time

-©Sjaka S.Septembir, 2005

i blow up your vagina to the size of a billboard and hang it for the world to see

i apologize incoherently
with acoustic verve
i lay down chess moves in your brow
as i stroke your wanting thighs
you’re a little lustful one
begging for war in your snake
moves, belly dancing an allegiance with
Dionisus in red dusty clouds
i moonwalk hyhina back-words into shuffling my trickster
cards up my sleeves, looking to pull out the golden hard-on
that’s needed for this feast, a zippy fiesta
yet, your mouth is dry to my tongue
and when i taste the walls of your wriggling cave
it all goes Japanese on me
so i slowly recycle to goat skin tents of surrender, whilst my hidden
army marches around your walls with
psalms squeezed between their thighs
and the panty parts the ankles of the promised
land, and i do a NASA calculated landing
with gasping vector’s as blog’s and websites
swarm in the aura around your vulva, whilst planet
g-spot goes up in Nero flames,
goes up in the saddest pleasurable Moulin Rouge dirge
to hang against the eternal walls
of my guts white scented Zen art gallery
and waves wash through this 23h53 applause
from the crowed of barking heart angels
watching over us

Gartner’s hype cycle

hype my digital hieroglyphics
that I leave for you as 12 signs of love
i burn flames against the night
high in the skeleton of our vibing love
lets recycle our touch, my goga
lets eat at each others innards in little winks
measured by purple Buddha barometers
‘Hail, the hype of us!’ I shout on
the corners of Woodstock, advertising
us to every bergie
hail the hype of our togetherness
as little boys piss in the falling rain and
cars blindly speed up and down Roodebloem road
hail the sms’d Shakespearian sonnets between us
viva our sweet mango hype
as this world begs for the laser vapor of our minute
gigantic fame – cause all lovers are famous -
we swim in a sea of a www.tellysales
soapopera.for.everness.com
yet, my love, we dance in a very plain joy
we jive in the zen-hype of our spring
licking frangipani blossoms as our tongues
walk over each other
in selfless joy

© 2007, Sjaka S. Septembir

Dripping

Fragile forest of dripping broken time
Letting life fall away in each jeweled drop lit
Spurting out with hosepipe reluctance
As children dance in this warm day
With no aircon relief winking at their young
Limbs, dancing around the folded up body of the bergie
Who the Netcare ambulance guys are trying to bring
Back to life by the corner café as I buy a samoosa
Drip-drip-dripping in and out of being
As I let my silver coins fall into the Indian girls palm
Each drop born with its pure metal sound
Immediately twirl their DNA around dying
The card shark deels his cards as
The cars eating gasoline juice mill up and down Rodebloem road
The kids giggle and laugh and chase each other on the dirty sidewalk
And an old Scottish man calls me to the open window
Of his shiny red car, looking for a hotel that stood in this
Area 30 years ago, his voice dripping away the
Under current of his nearing head on collision with his end
Death the souls C1 vertebra shattered
“Sorry, I don’t know” I say and I walk to my room
As the day breaths in another breath
Sweat clinging to me around my Bruce Lee vest
Walking away from the kids, the ambulance, the unconscious bergie and
The lost Scotsmen…
Never knowing how any of these
Stories play them self out
Never truly knowing any beginning or end
Passing through
As the blue sky drip-drips away
To night

about the poem, "I’ve tasted the reproduction..."

It was published in 'Cybervaseline 5'.

i’ve tasted the reproduction of your smile

i must go out in your far
cause I’ve seen with my mouth
your spicy fruitful seasons of death
i’ve looked between your legs
where 400 year old grapevines
twirl up - all sticky and grey and black and knotted
i’ve seen you build a white and black
tiled floor over all the oceans of this one earth
only allowing tuffs of pubic grass
to break the cold surface
i’ve seen! i’ve SEEN!
You
Shining a brass door knob

i must go out in your far
cause I’ve tasted
your smile.


- © sjaka s. septembir, feb. 2000

bit of background on the ABSA-poem

I wrote the ode to ABSA-poem after their add campaign which was in the same line “my bank is… (add positive here)” accompanied with blissful images of happy people. The advert gave the bank a Godlike status.
I did a performance art piece last year in August which I called ‘Max Lombaard se droom #1’ in which I used this poem. I had beautiful colourful helium balloons and part of the performance had me handing out the balloons to people at the ABSA ATM at the St. George’s Mall. A whole range of different emotions washed up in the different individuals as they received these balloons. One woman gladly received the balloon, but when she read the message she let it go as if it was poisoned. Another woman hurriedly tied the balloon to her baby carriage and happily set off into the crowed. A beautiful picture.

ode to the ABSA add

my bank is corrupt
my bank is greedy, is selfish, and an unforgiving self serving machine
my bank buys poets to cheapen their words for its cause
my bank takes these words of poetry and sells it to mass media corporations
with an aim to brain wash as many viewers as possible to buy into the image
of my bank
my bank sells businesism as a religion, my bank fills peoples hearts
with the empty hopes and dreams of money
my bank stands for nothingness, and its soul is empty
my bank in itself is no threat, but it’s lack of imagination, it’s dullness of spirit
its banality makes me want to vomit
my bank will hate me for these words
my bank will threaten me with lawsuits for speaking my truth, for
not falling in line
and if my bank can’t silince me by legal means they will pursue illegal ones
but my bank doesn’t realize that that they can do nothing to me that can’t be done
they are mere manipulators
my bank evokes a sick society upon a sick society
my bank is my hatred, my sorrow, my ignorance, and the bleakest past
to my bank I’m just a number, a no name, a figure, a graph, a statistic
my bank wriggles it’s wormy body into cyberspace, and manipulates every
dot com for its own gain
my bank is always flawed, cause it doesn’t understand the meaning of love
ABSA, never today, never tomorrow, never together

The theatre of my death – just one of those evenings

‘Welcome, to the theatre of my death!’
you purple laughing hihinas
blowing speech bubbles of hibiscus
in my face as I twinkle and torture over immortal words
then another sip of bloody red whine
as I crumple the page and set it alight
i pour a whisky as crowds in concentration camp styl jeans
loudly applaud… ‘O, come on laugh’, I command
while lighting a cigi between my teeth
with the page burning between my fingers
‘welcome to the theatre of my death!’, I holler again
and I drop the fireball page into the whiskey
after the hissing war of water and fire ceases
i take a sip collecting loads of black ash on my tongue
giggling to myself like a little girl
‘You fuckers, you came for the final show?’, i ask
drunken words squeezed out like drunken fucks
‘Come on, stand your man, raise your fists.’
i shadow box around the empty room
‘Come on motherfuckers!’
i swing at the dark with my fists and imagine
young teen age girls squealing with pleasure
then I feel tired, and sit down at the edge of my bed
i stare at all the emptiness, the loneliness
that this single candle lights up with so much ease.
i sink my warm head deep into my palms
‘The theatre of my own death.’, I giggle
then I roll back and invite another chapter of sleep in
with out taking my shoes off

©2007, Sjaka S. Septembir, unpublished poem

20 March 2007

To me there is an interesting thing in the word 'courteous' where it contains a large part of the word 'courting'. So i don't pronounce the word as [kur-tee-us] in this case, but rather as [kor-tee-us]...to bring the courting back into the being courteous...Well this poem is about being courteous in courting.

I know i said i want to concentrate on archiving older poems. But i've been itching to include something new - well the itch has come more form the Afrikaans blog and now has spread. So on both my poetry blogs I am including new unpublished poems. Well it also gives me an opportunity to include more up to date photo's.

Welcome!

I have two languages living their lives in me. Sometimes fighting, sometimes walking hand in hand. After I started my Afrikaans Blog there were friends who only know the more European planet of English and they felt left out. So this English Blog is specially for you! And for my English poems who’ve been sitting around with long faces since they found out there Afrikaans counterparts were drifting out in a space with a lot more opportunity of chance encounters-with-readers than the floor of my room.
I’m basically doing the same as I’m doing with the Afrikaans Blog. Publishing an Archive of my work which has appeared in many different small publications. And secondly keeping this space here, where I communicate with you, as intimate as possible. Poems to me are all about true intimacy.


courteous

i want to become emotionally dependent
on you
i want to be independent for you
us immaculately interdependent
we nurture
and are nurtured
co-nurturing angels
spinning in a headless chaos
with our own holy invisible order.
you, painting a Jackson Pollock
on a grain of rice
while i create a dot on the sheet
with my wet tongue
toddlers in a new Rich
with adult smiles
while, outside
amongst the birds
love makes love

©1999, Sjaka S. Septembir, first published in Cybervaseline #2