Excludes Everybody

Sunday, sad and dark, religious and awful
ended up in church, sinned more than I would
have staying outside, praying that lightning would
strike the charismatic singer, a self-styled angel
crooning stupid songs, eyes reverently closed

Sound system tuned by a tone-deaf foolish idiot
who does not know that a deep bass always hurt
sensitive ears; when we walked into a restaurant
as noisy as church, we marched right out, here
we stayed in the company of Pharisees

I cried in the shop afterwards, seeing my reflection
in sharp mirrors, looking as ugly as sin, drying tears
surreptitiously as I had no energy left with which to
face your censure; then you started Tiaan’s urgent
school project; I washed the dishes singing

‘We had joy we had fUn, we had seasons in the sUn’
reflecting that I wanted eternity and could not stand
anything temporary, made up Afrikaans words ‘PrEt
kan jy wEd en my buurman is ‘n TjEgg, meisies op
my kErf, versamel in my Erf met geen goue gErf…’

Tiaan told me NEVER to sing these words in public
as people would throw me in prison on hearing this
sacrilege; you took Tiaan through his cell-phone
information project, contracts, pre-paid costs, I
sang satires of well-known songs until

You insisted on silence because you needed to think,
I fell silent; my fantasies of finding acceptance dying
on all fronts and it is GOOD to have it this way, this
world is only temporary, in the never-ending spirals
of infinity I shall meet with mad-caps like me

We shall have my kind of silly fun without there being
anyone else, Lobsang Rampa said we would only meet
with those in the same vibratory range we are our-
selves, that excludes everyone I know…


TRANSLATION:
‘PrEt kan jy wEd en my buurman is ‘n TjEgg, meisies
op my kErf, versamel in my Erf , geen goue gErf…’

“Fun without End, you can bEt, my neighbour is a CzEch
all the girls on my list is assembled in my yArd I have no
golden hArvest… "