I WISH I WERE

(sung to the tune of "Ï wish I were a glass of sherry wine")

Margaret Clough

i wish i were young and sweet again

I wish I were young nd sweet again

When I was young I never knew

I'd get so old and so grumpy too

I wish I were young and sweet again.

I wish I were raven-haired again(x2)

When I was young I didn't know

My hair would become like dirty snow

I wish I were raven-haired again

I wish I were soft and smooth again(x2)

When I was young I had no inkling

My skin would be so prone to wrinkling

I wish i were soft and smooth again

Featured at The Red Wheelbarrow in-person launch of The Only Magic We Know: Selected Modjaji Poems 2004-2020 on 1 March 2022

The Dream Angels

Kerry Hammerton

They wait for a blackened moon

then sidle in –

infecting dreams with love

and lust, and flight.

I say prayers

but they come back

grimfaced, sharpening

halberds and swords

on stolen grindstones.

Their muddy boots mar

the kitchen floor; their bloodgutted kill

stinks in pots on the stove.

To keep me honeyed

they chant mellifluously

as if they were still in heaven.

Featured at The Red Wheelbarrow in-person launch of The Only Magic We Know: Selected Modjaji Poems 2004-2020 on 1 March 2022

To Christina Rossetti

Helen Moffett

Those years, sitting in the binding hush

of the Bodleian Library,

parchment leaves sifting down outside,

I turned the pages of your tiny notebooks

tracing the progress of each poem;

after the initial burst, words cascading down,

the hard work beginning:

stoking the refining fire,

scouring every line.

I had no idea that one day

I would also wrestle, endlessly

pick at a knot of words, strain to make

language go where I wanted.

I scrutinised your laundry lists,

your letters, even the dull ones of thanks;

at Princeton, in a room glossy with wealth,

they let me hold your hair in my hand.

Perhaps some germ jumped; perhaps

I learnt more than I knew;

perhaps you showed me

that poetry is possible; a strange fuse

of voices in the head and hands braced for toil.

Featured at The Red Wheelbarrow in-person launch of The Only Magic We Know: Selected Modjaji Poems 2004-2020 on 1 March 2022