If the 2020-2022 (so far) pandemic has meant nothing but negative,
it has certainly opened the eyes of the world to a new way of thinking. In fact
the concept, “thinking about thinking” has become a very real part of our
lives. Time has taken on a new dimension. No longer does time fill a 24-hour
span and remind us of appointments, meetings, when to fetch the kids from
school, supper time, breakfast time, dinner time, sleep time, time to relax…
Time is now calculated in terms of time spent in a location. The bedroom,
bathroom, lounge, dining room, kitchen- these are now time encompassing places
under the heading “lockdown” or “staying at home”.
Staying at home is a time! And in “thinking about
thinking” whilst within the staying at home time, the world has become
eminently creative. People have discovered talents, talents that would never
have surfaced had the pandemic not crept across the world as a virus from Wuhan
to wherever.
For me “staying at home” has rekindled a love of
writing and in particular of poetry. Whilst not all of the poems written and
commented on in this collection have been written during “lockdown”, many have
resurfaced from old tomes resting quietly at the bottom of an undisturbed box
of memories. Perhaps for someone, the reading of these may too, kindle a hidden
flame, and get the creative juices flowing. Or allowing some long-forgotten
memory to resurface with a gentle but emotional tear flowing down a cheek.
If either happens, my writings will not have been in
vain.
Written in “free verse” with some elements of rhyme
scheme and generally iambic in nature with stressed/unstressed syllables
enabling a hopefully easy reading of the poems.
All poems are original and arise from the pen of the
author who writes under the pseudonym, Raymond Bruce, or simply RB.
At the Bottom of my Garden
There are no
secrets at the bottom of my garden-
No strange
misshapen thoughts to warp the bark
of some eternal
tree.
Just me!
And I am open.
No Myrtle hedge
surrounds
nor ivy clings-
just a mere trace of thistle;
Food for the bird
that sings
its aimless
melody to some autumn sky.
There are no
secrets, but a mystery.
RB
Commentary: The human psyche is inevitably able to
accept a myriad of thoughts, like the garden I sat in and pondered in one late
Autumn- Nature gives its all to us, yet is a mystery. And we? We may well be
willing to open our minds but yet can remain unfathomable. As I reflected on nature
in all its mysteries, the one thought that became central was that one cannot
wall in nature. One has merely to see
how the town of Pripyat built originally to serve the nuclear power-station,
Chernobyl, and how it has, since being abandoned in 1986 , been retaken by mother
nature.
Growing Old
I wonder where
we’ll be
when all our
tomorrows
have become
yesterdays.
When the petals
of
your rose-
reflected cheeks
are in the
winter of their bloom,
and the silence
that we shared
is real-
Perhaps then
together
we can share
the fruits of our vine,
and in the
headiness
of our matured
casks
with crystals
clinking
our mingled
tastes…
I wonder where
we’ll be
when all our
tomorrows
have become
yesterdays.
RB
Commentary: Growing old gracefully is something we
perhaps all aspire to. To share this with a soulmate as both share their long
walk through the various stages of life is possibly one of the most magical
things one can do.
Dune thoughts
Is it caramel
or is it burnt sienna sand?
I let it
trickle through the fingers of my hand.
A hundred
years, a little heap of land,
A thousand
years in front of where I stand.
RB
Commentary: The arid ecoregion known as the Namib
desert has vast oceans of sand of many shades of gold and brown which shifts
and changes shape daily as it has done for some 55 million years. A mere 4
lines with end rhyming tell the story of a desert dune measured not only in
size but in endless time.
Truspiëel
Die gedreun,
die gedruis
van die wind
en die wiel op
die teer-
‘n
weggaansgevoel-
weg van gister;
en
soos die tyd-verspulde
oomblikke
wat kleinword
in the truspiëel
van die
verlede.
En tog, die aankoms van die hede
verby die oogvenster,
tot hedeverlede as deel uitmaak
van toekoms:-
Wat is môre dan
voor dit vandag gister word?
RB
Commentary: The poet looks into
the rearview mirror as he leaves a town he lived in for almost a decade and “sees”
his yesterdays in the mirror. The poem is written in Afrikaans, which is one of
the 11 languages recognized as official and spoken in South Africa. He refers to the gedreun and gedruis as the
sound of the wind as the car accelerates (a roaring and whistling sound) and the sound of the car tyres on the
tar. A feeling of leaving, away from yesterday and how moments in time have
been literally spilt and become smaller and smaller in the rearview mirror of
the past. He then reflects on the present and future as it rushes into his view
and then past him through the window of his eyes. These become the present and
the past together and make up the future. He closes with the question: What is
tomorrow then before today becomes yesterday?
Walvis Bay- I
Let me think only of you;
Dune wrapped and cold sea lapped
as you nestle silent
At the edge of time.
What passing moment careless
by some god-child left you
stranded here,
whilst greener things
to distant places flew?
Ah sad; you answer not,
but ageless to some soft dumb
footprint point and wistful smile…
And I, lost, bewildered, only stare-
Until a single echoed thought
reminds me brief-
The owner of that footprint brought
me to you,
a thousand years once long ago-
yesterday!
RB
Commentary: The port town
of Walvis Bay in the southwest of Namibia was the original stopping place for
the early Portuguese explorers and holds a rich history of its indigenous
peoples, the Nama (Topnaars) with their very special culture. Walvis Bay is
also the second biggest city in Namibia (according to population size) and the
largest port. Whilst it has, over the years, been greatly developed, it once
was a town of salt roads and some 16 fishing factories, many of which no longer
operate.
Shortly after arriving in Walvis, I sat pondering the
bleakness, the fact that very little green existed, but all was shaded in
treacle colours, browns and shades thereof.
Yet amidst it all there existed something quite magical. The dunes, the
sand, the cold sea had been there for thousands of years and who was I to
question its very existence but rather to sit and celebrate.
Pa se Kind
En hier sit ek eensaam tussen die herinneringe
van gisteraand en gister;
Waar is die heilige gesiggie wat sag en glimlaggend
daar in die oggend son oor die ‘brekfis’ tafel
vir my soos ‘n winkende sterretjie gekyk het?
Dink sy aan my soos ek aan haar, of het die glimlag
saam met die koms van die aand sku met die son ook
verdwyn.
Maar dit kan nie wees nie-want hier in my hartsak
het ek ‘n gedeelte van die ewigheid-
en die ewigheid glimlag nog vir my.
Hou my, my kleinlief vir daardie intieme moment tussen
slaap en wakkerheid,
Vir daardie oomblik wat nog nie gister, môre en vandag
is nie-en verewig my in jou drome.
Want ek wil ‘n deel van jou wees, onskeibaar en
heilig.
Soos dons wil ek jou omhels en teen die koudheid van
die lewe
wil ek jou beskerm.
Gee my die sleutel tot die kamer van jou klein hartjie
dat ek mag intrek
En saam sal ons die môre toekoms waag.
RB
Commentary: Life has
passed by and his little girl, his firstborn has moved on in life and no longer
shares his world but her own with her own family. The poet reflects on the
intimacy of raising a child, especially in his mind that of a girl-child. How
he wishes he could still protect her from the roughness of life and in a sense “carry
her” into whatever future there may be.
The translation into English is below:
Daddy’s Child
And here I sit alone
(lonely) between the memories
Of last night and yesterday,
Where is the holy (chaste/perfect) little face that
soft and smiling
In the morning sun across the breakfast table
Looks at me as if a sparkling star?
Does she think of me as I think of her, or has the
smile
Together with the arrival of the night (becoming
older-an adult) shyly with the sun also disappeared.
But that can’t be- because here inside my heart
I have a piece of eternity-
And the eternity still smiles for me.
Hold me, my small love for those intimate moments
between
Sleep and being awake.
For that moment which is not yesterday, tomorrow or
today- and make me eternal in your dreams.
Because I want to be part of you, indivisible and
holy.
Like cottonwool (duck feathers) I want to hug or hold
you against the coldness of life
Give me the key to the inner room of your small heart
that I may move in
And together we can face the future of tomorrow.
RB
On a Christmas
Desert - Namib
Sing me the purple quiet of the desert eve
When the mist cloaks softly and the dunes drink deep-
Give me a hand as we footstep the deepening hue
And chill through the tumbling mists so timeless.
On thorny path and rock- strewn land,
Did Christ Himself not echo nail torn feet
on some once familiar strand…
Is this strange desert view but brother to His one too?
Ah He with majesty stood unwilling King presiding;
And who’s to judge the rough -hewn path
We tear from broken land, from broken feet and broken
hand?
Eden’s toil beyond the realms of death is grand
And this our land un-Christlike will not forget…
Will grow burnished red as in the sunset with
Another’s blood
And anguish sounds will Nightingale sweet soft fill
The tear- stained misty air…
But let us rather love-filled nurture that one green
leaf
Of joy left so long ago by a baby Boy
And grow hands clasped to the beckoning thirsty future
Of our tomorrows.
RB
Commentary: There is
something truly magical that grips the soul as one considers the beauty created
by God in His nature. And in this case as he walks quietly on Christmas eve
with the desert scene and coastal waters before him, the poet is drawn to muse
that Christ Himself once was placed in a desert to be tempted and later how he
was torn and crucified, and the land blood-stained red. There are images of the
anguish of His death and beginnings of our own part in His pain since Eden… But
it being Christmas eve the poet ends with a positive note as he remembers the
Christchild who enables us to “thirst” no more even in a thirsty land.
Marsala
I seek the substance of my soul
Within the patchwork quilt of memories-
The thread therein
rolls sea-fog like towards the dim brilliance
of morning shore thought-
An empennage
holding the sunlit mind on course.
And yet the very freedom
Is a Martingale restraining thoughts
Which o’erleap themselves
To reach beyond the sun-fingered fog
of the Letheian mind.
And I, in jocular defiance turn
to offer a libation to my prudish gods.
With sweet Marsala and savoire-faire
do beguile the wards of sanity
and rest from my abortive quest
RB
Commentary: An almost tongue
in cheek reflection on life made by the poet as he enjoys a glass of red wine
(Marsala). I seek the substance of his soul (who am I and why am I here) amidst
a myriad of memories, but they are as dim as a sea fog as one attempts to think
in the early morning as one who has yet to awaken properly. He uses almost inappropriate
words to describe how he struggles to keep his mind focused (empennage- used in
aeronautics meaning the surfaces on a tailplane enabling an aeroplane to fly
straight) Random thoughts (Martingale series), and Lethean (forgetting the
past). He raises his glass in defiance as he acts socially correctly (savoire
faire) and allows the wine to dull his thoughts and rest him from what was a
quest/goal he would never reach.
Memory
A moment
A thought
Timeless
In a breathless
breath filled silence
An empty room
No.
The darkness paints
And light diffuses
We stand and
sit and lie
In one-
At once
Together
Alone
Again.
RB
Commentary: A somewhat sad memory (longing) of
being with someone you love and who is no longer with you.
Happiness
Consider
He said
The implications
And smiled
She smiled and
close- held
The laughter
In her breast
his chest
And nothing
Mattered.
RB
Commentary: A moment in time shared between two
people who have a special bond
Midnight Thoughts
A silence as the music faded
And just the imagined sound of
thoughts
left behind whispered softly.
A hug that removes all sadness?
Aah indeed
And where is the therapy
but within the words and smiles
of that friend...
A soul beyond the sublime
To wrest an anguish and carry it
Petal soft on the waves of a sunlit
stream.
To laugh and be loved
To be the Teddy who listens
ear attentive
always.
To give love and expect none
and in so doing there be no space
or time
for fear, regret or hate.
Be set free to fly in the wondrous
sense
of just knowing
that your story may bless the hearer
that they may understand-
that age will always be
but beauty disguised
in the little moments and things of
the tomorrows
we share.
RB
Commentary: A follow on from the previous poem in
which the poet allows his thoughts to roam freely as a reflection of the sound
and thoughts one shares when the music (real or imagined), ends.
Gister
Daar’s ǹ poem sȇ hy
Iewers in my mind
Maar,
En hy peins so bietjie…
Ek moet dit net find
Hy frons en sy oë verdwyn
Agter ǹ masker van gesigsplooiende denke…
Ek het jou lief!
Ag nie wѐѐr, hy sy lag
Wat weerklink asof dit van tevore gebeur het…
Dis ǹ ‘ou’ soen maar teer; iets soos,
Ja gister, toe sy/hy nog jonk was?
En voetjies onner die tafel, langs mekaar
Innie kerk;
Ag dominee
Sulke dinge…
Daar’s ǹ poem sȇ hy… en sy glimlag met
Moeëplooitjies
RB
Commentary: Two elderly
people, after a lifetime of being together, share an intimate moment as they remember
the past and their love for each other.
Translation:
There’s a poem he says
Somewhere in my mind
But,
And he thinks a while
I must just find it
He frowns and his eyes disappear
Behind a mask of face wrinkling thoughts…
I love you!
Oh not again, he/she laugh
Which echoes as if it has occurred once before
Its an ‘old’ kiss but meaningful, something like..
Yes yesterday, when he/she were both young?
And their feet would touch under the table, next to
each other
In the church;
Sorry Pastor
These things…
There’s a poem he says…and he smiles with
Tired wrinkles
Mathematical Thoughts
Don’t be confused by hypotenuse
It’s in your quadrant, root and all.
So look at the square
No not at Pi
It’s staring you straight
Right deep in your eye.
A line is a line
Thicker or thin
It has no width
And is certainly long
And algebra’s no, not the name of a song.
Now calculate clear
Use diameter dear.
Ah the sum of the squares
No don’t move the chairs.
It says parallel there
You don’t really care?
But it all adds up
Minus one or two
To the whole of the sum
And the sum of the whole
Then 7 x 9 will do just fine
Now I’ll leave you to it
And take down the sine.
RB
Commentary: The poet’s
daughter struggled with Mathematics and this “tongue in cheek” piece of writing
was intended to encourage her.
Life
Sausages lay on the brown floor,
scattered.
The pan dripped hot fat.
The element glowed red.
It was 5pm.
She cursed-
the dog ate.
RB
Commentary : The normality of
daily life.
Hope
Perhaps though the world is cruel-
Kindness by One…
May so stir stilled feelings,
May recall memories,
Telling of good times,
That sadness and wickedness
Will rot in the files of darkness
To be covered by layers of time
Like dust on a holiday window -sill
RB
Commentary: Somehow the
closing two lines of this poem represent the theme and that is almost a fervent
prayer that what is wrong in the world may indeed be covered “like dust on a
holiday window sill”. The holiday window sill representing the joy and
happiness of a holiday but being obliterated by the negative yet able to be
removed.
On the Death of a Lonely Goat
The stream trickles with the sound of dust,
cracked , brown sand, cringes;
The air, liquid lava, pulsates above the arid ground.
A dying Willow weeps in the silence,
While the blinding heat drags slowly across the sullen
sky.
A lonely boned goat stares sightless at the river bed,
And dehydrated crumples to sigh in the molten earth.
And the day yawns on through the screaming solitude
Echoing death in the stillness.
The bloody orb settles on the horizon,
Heat steams from the corpse earth, stifling the slow
inking sky
Darkness, the Hyena slinks and the dog howls his
lament
Across a naked heaven.
A Zepherous wind scuffs softly, sifting the strangely
sanguine sand.
And slowly, squeezing out the red hued sunset, Night
steals in-
Peace.
RB
Commentary: A few days spent
in Sossusvlei, an area of rocky desert in Namibia and a place where there is very
little rain or moisture of any sort. Yet amidst this the occasional depression
allows a long lost river to emerge for sometimes an extended period of time and
growth of unusual/exceptional kind to take root. Inhospitable except for the
hardiest of creatures. The author took some liberty in expressing the vivid
scene before him using an excess of descriptive language, at times almost
inappropriate yet allowing the reader to lose him/herself in the moment. Some
of the animals let loose in the poem do not exist in Sossusvlei, yet the whitened
bones partially covered by sand seemed to haunt the author and suggest they may
well have at some time.
Walvis Bay- II
It is an old man this town,
With toothless gums-
Content to suck and not to chew
No vibrant virility-
Just varicose veins
Whose calloused skin abhors…
Ideas-
Like cleansing rain they fall
To lie in stagnant pools of thoughtlessness.
Sterile, vapid vacant, a peopleless
Peopled town,
Encorpsed and not inhabited!
Oh town, with varus feet
You make your way in timelessness.
What changes wrought since once
Those ghostly ships did course your mists
And echo chains upon your shores?
When men with bolder stride,
Or was it pride with flag and fanfare did abide.
Or are these changes still to come?
Perhaps your loins are yet to spawn the seeds of life
And wrench the torpid Letheian minds
That lead you from their ‘Winters’ hibernation-
Take heart oh town-
“Tis old men they say, that rule the world today”
RB
Commentary: This poem was published in The Namib Times
in 1984, a newspaper in the town of Walvis Bay Namibia. There had been a
meeting to discuss the way forward in terms of the fishing industry, the military
base and general progress- The result of the meeting was that there would not
be any immediate progress and that the status quo would remain. The background
to this decision was that the people in charge (the Mayor and the Town Council)
were not willing to risk any new development as they were “comfortable” in maintaining
what was there. The writer then took it upon himself to make a statement,
perhaps an attack on them, but write it in such a way that it would seem that
they, and the town were being celebrated.
Just
Let me slip behind your sky eyes
And wander free amidst your dreams-
When in restless night you reach out
Let my fingertips touch thoughts be there
To caress away the pain of absence.
Join me and shake off the earthly chains
To bathe in light
Far beyond the realms of banished night.
There are no secret thoughts I hold but those
Which swim amidst the fields
Of your own petalled strewn dreams.
And they are but soft reflections
Of my own in life’s rippled pool.
RB
Commentary: Romance and a
lost love washes through this piece of writing. The author wishes his love
could return yet knows that he remains just a part of a dream which at times is
also his own.
Eclectic
I held your 5c in my hand all day mommy
And when you weren’t there to fetch me
From school,
I gave it to Paul.
It wasn’t the sound of your voice
That kept me awake last night
But the silence in between
Without you
My supper gets cold
I looked at your photo yesterday
And noticed you weren’t looking at me
Commentary: Sometimes ideas
float around and stick together in the most strangest of places
Artiste
And so we entered together
Each with a plastic smile
To cover our fresh frozen thoughts-
At first it was all right
As convincing as a toothpaste ad
Until the studio lights
And we began to thaw.
Don’t look said the scriptwriter
Running to fetch the makeup artist
Leaving his pen to dance to the tune of my fingertips-
He arrived too late.
RB
Commentary: Plastic people
living in a plastic world. We wander through life as marionettes very often
without focus or genuine thought
To Be Nina (A dog I once knew)
Thoughts at the surface
To look brown-eyed and warm
As only the canine world can.
Shall we care
Or is the tug of a ball frolic too strong
Before we share our softness despite?
Ah yes we have no devious unkempt senses
But that to please and tease some joyful laughter
From a sad-faced master
Or mistress if you want.
To be Nina is simply to be
Commentary: The devotion of
a dog is complete. They will protect and supply their total love. All that is
required in return is to feed and to provide some care. And the occasional time
of play. For their short space of time on this earth they give far more than
they gain in return.
Postscript: It has been a delight putting together these
thoughts amidst the challenges that the pandemic has wrought. I do trust that
all who may get to read these poems will have their own thoughts elevated and
perhaps be stirred to write their own and assist in attaining some of the sustainable
goals of the United Nations… in the above poems I hope to have moved some to
consider goals 3, 4 and 16.
