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Category: Poetry

Wonde wonderwerk

Published by Ilva Pieterse on 5 July, 2011

Ek het ons storie geskryf
Met ‘n lem op my lyf
Die son was te helder daai dag
Vir my hartklop om langer vir joune te wag.

Ek het die mes soos ‘n kwas vas gehou
En diep snye geskilder – ‘n van Gogh vir jou.

Ons verhaal het verskyn
Op my vel – lyn by lyn
En dit was helder – so rooi, so vol lewe daai pyn
Ek was seker dat die seer in my siel sal verdwyn.

Die letters van jou naam
Het bebloede kuns geword
Op al my breekbare vlaktes.

Soos ‘n straatbrak het ek jou vertrou
Waar is jy nou?
Hoe waar is jy nou?

Daai dag het die son so helder geskyn
En daar was net te veel kleur in ons samesyn
Ek het jou les diep in my spiere gekerf
En my lyf met jou lou-warm liefde geverf.

Cocoon

Published by Ilva Pieterse on 6 June, 2011

She spun a cocoon
The colour of a silent moon
Around what remained
Of her lost and un-gained.

She bound bone to bone
Stitched smile to song
And calmly coloured her cries
In the shades of reason gone wrong.

But when she saw
That her loss was a learning curve
And her being
Not a noun, but a verb —

She shed her silken armour
Turned her body to the sun
And remembered the shape of a hug in her arms
In time to embrace her battle undone.

Captivated

Published by Ilva Pieterse on 1 June, 2011

Hold me like a promise;

Break me like a vow.

For today I am as fragile as the secrets of a child,

And as desperate as a dream dressed in dust.

Another woman

Published by Ilva Pieterse on 15 March, 2011

There is another woman living
In the friction
Between your hips and my thighs

Do you think I haven’t seen
The memory of her
Swimming in the moisture of your eyes?

Do you think I haven’t noticed
The sadness
In the lines around your smile?

Do you think I haven’t realised
You’re somewhere else all the while?

Do you think I haven’t measured
The distance between
What you say and what you mean?

You’re not the first to show up here
With a broken dream
Slung over your shoulder
Heavy with things you never told her

How you’re wishing you could hold her
As we’re lying on my bed
I can hear her broken promises
Resounding in your head

I’m tired of being a consolation prize
I’m tired of soothing away silent cries
I’m tired of picking up the pieces
And wasting all my kisses
Wondering why no one misses
….me.

Should I just accept the fact
That she’ll probably want you back
Once she remembers all the things
That are making me fall in love with you?

Bourbon Street

Published by Ilva Pieterse on 30 January, 2011

You and me
We should be poetry
We should be prose
The way our breathing slows
And our hearts beat
Like wings on Bourbon Street.

You and I
We should be together
Birds of a feather
Flying like time.
We always had rhythm, you know
We just never had rhyme.
We committed a crime together
And should’ve served time
Been brought to justice…
But it was just us
Perfect in our alibi.

We may not’ve had rhyme
But at least we had reason
We committed treason together
And should’ve been tried
We should’ve been been true
Me and you
On the corner of Bourbon Street
And Fifth Avenue.

Read them their writes

Published by Ilva Pieterse on 17 January, 2011

My words
Are serving a sentence
For mixing their tenses.

While my pen
Pleads repentance
For its pompous pretenses.

Silly little Bic
Went a tad overboard
When declaring itself
A match for the sword.

My words got the slammer
When, as partners in crime
Ignored rules of grammar
And reasons for rhyme.

But what now of me?
A writer no less!
Vocabulary-free
Without means to express?

I beg them, “Come back!”
I pray them, “Release me!”
But the pen’s bruised blue-black
And words don’t come easy.

Fine-tuned

Published by Ilva Pieterse on 26 November, 2010

You were beautiful in Borneo
Like a song I’d been expecting
To start playing on the stereo

I was fragile when you found me
A lifetime’s worth of sorrow
And disappointment built around me

But you gave me a standing ovation
A merry-go-round of applause
And cut through my curt conversation
With your musical mixed metaphors

You asked me why I was waiting
For something already long gone
And suddenly all of that aching
Disappeared in the song of a swan

La Danse

Published by Ilva Pieterse on 13 August, 2010

You said that I could find you
In the space that lies between
The reality that binds you
And the traces of your dream.

You asked me, “Can you dance
To a poem by Baudelaire?”
“La danse,” said I. “C’est la poésie
Avec des bras et des jambes.”

Your hands made a ballroom of my body
Your fingers tap-danced on my skin
Oh, and how I moved under your melody
Like a waltzing gypsy violin.

You, me, and the sea

Published by Ilva Pieterse on 9 July, 2010

I pull the land on which you live
Closer to where I stand

In one smooth motion
I narrow the ocean
Uniting our shores
Until yours is mine
And mine is yours

No more miles
Between our smiles
Just a sliver of the sea
Like a scar in the sands
Keeps you and me
From holding hands.

Glimlag

Published by Ilva Pieterse on 16 May, 2010

Jou lag
Weef ‘n lied
Deur jou liggam.

Jou glimlag
Skryf ‘n gedig
Op jou gesig.

Jou trane
Teken ‘n toekoms
Op jou wange.

Jou hart
Klop ‘n ritme
Van verlange.