Blue sky over Barcelona

Ed Burle The first thing you see on ascending the stairs leading out of the metro is the blue sky over Barcelona – sky that is rinsed in the dark blue face of the sea, sky that touches the sleeping branches of trees, the coloured spirals of the Sagrada Familia. Your heart is hungry, in search of a dream, your heart is weary, emptied of dreams. Sun today, that finds your skin, pours its radiance over the city. This voice that is yours, that is someone else’s (someone you’re yet to be, are becoming). Whatever it is you’re looking for isn’t to be found here, but for now you are here, and for now nothing is clear except for the blue sky over Barcelona.

Featured on 4 February 2021

Eating a naartjie

Brian Walter

Forget the apple – the pristine fruit

of paradise was so clearly the citrus

that Botticelli’s Primavera shows.

In nature’s allegory, there, you’ll see

evergreen citrus leaves that signify

triumph over time. Defying seasons,

the trees have chaste white flowers

alongside a crop gilt with orange.

Now I break the soft citrus skin

and naartjie segments fall to hand

with ease, as in the Golden Age,

till you beguile my thoughts:

“Can’t you give me just one housie?”

Your old South End language,

the child-talk of the streets,

wafts me back to the old homes

and the folk: the flotsam of people

drifted in from both sea and land,

naturally blending cultures,

their gods laughing like neighbours

– till leprous apartheid whiteness

tore it all down, house by house.

I look at the naartjie segment,

your sweet housie, hand it to you –

just a moment’s paradise,

a brief taste of timelessness,

a housie of peace

in this hard world of men.

Featured on 4 February 2021

Kirlian pantomime of fishing

Silke Heiss

The thin man steps

onto a black branch jutting in

to the water. Balances,

opens his arms, brings

his wrists slowly together,

twists something in his fingers:

ties the invisible

to the invisible, and casts –

casts the invisible line,

jerks, pulls it back in,

twists and ties again, and casts

his visions again

to the water.

Through a gap in the bushes

is the mongoose, whose tiny tracks see

what I mayn't intrude onto:

a prayer, a preparation –

a ballet, silhouetted in black,

against the horizon

– a Kirlian pantomime

of fishing.

–14th May 2020

Featured on 4 February 2021