Poetry

Sylv photo

By

Abigail George

Quiet as moss

Voices carry from the street but

I don’t care because they mean

nothing to me and I don’t mean

anything to them. The world is so

cold because she does not love

The stars are so far away because

she does not love me. I am the

person I am because she does not

love me. Bright, bright, bright day

is all I long for. I had a forest once.

It was a pretty forest. Sometimes

I’d switch on the television. If it

was a documentary I’d watch it.

I’d read the paper and make notes

on the controversial happenings of

the day. The dust of stars watches

over me. The leaders of the grace-

full sun. The scolded and damaged

voice of this generation must be

renewed from the inside-out. This

longing for near-life. I am faith

lifted from the courage of the roaring

sea. The worship of the day. The

supernatural tension in the nature

of day pointing far-off to baptism.

Hours of summer go by. Loneliness

too. The smells of daylight. The progress

of madness a powerful memory.

I am missing this boy transformed

into a man. A girl transformed into

a woman. I trust things. This new

life. Shades of innocent discipleship.

The rain is tender. Even this well-

adjusted typhoon inside my brain.

The bed is empty. This room silent.

So, I put the radio on. I listen to the

radio waiting for something else

to happen to me. Missing you. Missing you.

Missing you. The stars are dead but

I still find my refuge there. Sanctuary

even though there’s no spiritual growth

there, only dust. Only day and night.

I think of Johannesburg. The holy sun.

The spiritual moon. The masculine that

hovers. Something about the feminine

is erased. This is a poem. The words are

denser. More complete. Light comes with the tapestry of peace.

I feed the cat. You don’t hear me.

You don’t see me. No, you don’t feel me anymore. And

this rush of wind has a story. Even this computer.

India

Broken footsteps in falling snow.

Head drowsy I wept for the fears

in my heart on this silent journey of grief.

Rapture in my soul. Lungs of steel

tired yet proud in the dark-cold. As

alien as iron. Just a reflex-action. Worrying seed. Every seed-breath

a transformation. Lifts the veil in exile.

The tongue in the river. The sparse

adversity in country and the heart that

belongs in that country. Sermon and

lecture in that silent passage. Evening’s

tongue. The homeward tough fight and

perfect half-kiss of daylight. Voice overflowing

with politics and earth moving like a

burned woman. Sea licked with loss,

pain and salt. The music has no ending.

It has the same vast empty sky, leaf-

edged shadow, patient school. Understanding

heart. It went on and on I sipped

my tea barefoot as I dreamt of prayer and copying

Beethoven. As I dreamt of the late-coming

half-familiar horizon. Outdoors

I’ve put up good fences. Inside my

heart I’ve put up walls made of sea.

(People don’t like walls). Everything

here is burning. There’s a deep gash.

I thought it was a myth. There’s a

strange wound that’s alive. Hooks

that seem to be caught upward. There’re

axes that seem to be swinging through

the air. Love never gives up but people

never tell you about things like that.

Abigail George

Pushcart Prize nominee Abigail George is a South African-based blogger, essayist, poet and short story writer. She briefly studied film at the Newtown Film and Television School followed by a stint at a production company in Johannesburg. She has received two writing grants from the National Arts Council in Johannesburg, one from the Centre for the Book in Cape Town, and another from ECPACC in East London. Her work has appeared or is forthcoming in Aerodrome, Africanwriter.com, Bluepepper, Dying Dahlia Review, ELJ, Entropy, Fourth and Sycamore, Gnarled Oak, Hackwriters.com, Itch, LitNet, Mortar Magazine, Off the Coast, Ovi Magazine: Finland’s English Online Magazine, Peeking Cat Poetry Magazine, Piker Press, Praxis Magazine Online, Sentinel Literary Quarterly, Spontaneity, The New York Review, and Vigil Pub Mag. She has been published in various anthologies, numerous times in print in South Africa, and online in zines based in Australia, Canada, Finland, India, Ireland, the UK, the United States, across Africa from Ghana, Kenya, Nigeria, Turkey and Zimbabwe.