Shadow Play

The challenge is bigger than I thought – playing
charades to make the world go round, playing
games to keep illusions alive, living within your
convictions, following your rules and regulations

Describing the world as you insist it should be
though the five senses reveal something which
is entirely different, not giving away I am aware
this is a play to reconcile conflicting situations

Wait - this is a comedy, once we know that deep
inside everybody chooses his life’s game to learn
spiritual greatness, staying calm, tackling the self-
created problem with resignation and fortitude

We shall all be winners together in this shadow
play, everybody does it, becomes reconciled to
their own choices, however imbecile – if they
can, so can I…

Refusing to move means being paralysed, refusing
to exercise means muscles atrophied, being left to
immobile fixation means frozen attitudes, people
who refuse to follow physiotherapists end up in
wheel-chairs

You take an interest and threaten with aggression
that someone given freedom to remain motionless
for three months must get up again – guess what,
she cannot; threats cannot replace intelligence
and common sense

I am completely at ease, following your decrees
and requirements, life is a game for learning so
here we go, let the games begin…

Seek, Find And Annihilate

In self-defense I countered Toy Lady ideas of eight-year-
olds caught in the clutches of people threatening to kill
her whole family unless she goes off with them to be
their living Doll, apparently powerless

By reading Equal Rites where I am safe in the comfort
and independent ideas of Granny Weatherwax borrowing
animal bodies, allowing a young girl to do the same until
the silver threads of her mind

Were intertwined with the deep purple of an eagle’s, the
young girl learnt form is like a jelly mould changing its
contents, when she took over the eagle she lost her own
memory bank, forgot her name

Granny Weatherwax unraveled the silver strands from the
eagle’s sharp purple and the girl got herself back, Granny
would have helped this Toy Lady to separate from her
persecutors and all who used her

She would have taken her power back as soon as she lost
it instead of getting caught in a web of drugs, invaded by
the hive-mind of human traffickers swarming all over her -
unless she had chosen her fate

Even before she was born as confirmed by spiritualists,
the young girl Granny helped was destined to be inde-
pendent and had a magic wizard’s staff to bring her
back – what did the Toy Lady have?

Confused, I must turn my back on the riddle she presents
and serve the righteous One-Eyed Troll Interpol to seek,
find and annihilate the criminal hive-mind of human
traffickers swarming all over the land…


[Based on "Equal Rites" by Terry Pratchett and the
confessions of a modern human slave who escaped
and diagnosed with cancer, is writing a play on
her slave-serving days…]

Wordmakers

- We cannot say what we think for fear to
offend, we study and make up rules and
regulations, protocol and etiquette, to
determine what to say when -

“Your desire to come up with new words
struck me, according to a book I read,
poet means 'maker'- it was the poets
who originally were the wordmakers”

You understand perfectly why I am a
total disaster as a translator and a poetaster
writing prosody as a poem-maker, I want to
make up new words and then get bad marks
for my written work because I did not look
up the right word in the right dictionary that
is more pedantically correct and authorative
than the source I came across - I cannot care
less, as long as the client gets an understanding
of the content, I have done my best and want to
get on with the rest of my life - which is singing
a song and dancing along...

*************************************

We are all liquid love and feelings on legs
that make us vibrate, creating a telepathic
connection that we pour into words, when
we speak we wear a mask composed of
inner messages as we try to divine and
define the needs and wants of the other

We cannot say what we think for fear to
offend, we study and make up rules and
regulations, protocol and etiquette to
determine what to say when

Never to unsettle or scare anyone, we are
playing charades, when we finally want to
express our true nature and thoughts on
paper, we find that we don't know our-
selves and the feeling we thought we had
is all gone, only the mask is left...

*****************************

You bring strange elements into the dance so that
the universe becomes subject to thoughts and I
awake from the trance to contemplate meaning
of things like being beyond reality

The dance stops and reflection becomes
paramount - please tell me where
your deep thought
is taking you...

Dancing with imaginary Partners

Sacrificing something special for a higher ideal, showing
compassion where it has not been earned, saving a life
from a burning inn at the cost of one’s own right to live

Since I prefer crying long before something bad happens
I choose to give up what I covet immediately, crying in the
pain of heart-wrenching sacrifice, knowing that later

The joy of the objective for which I have suffered will take
away my tears and heartache, even while giving up and
watching myself having the experience, I already feel

The promise of future joy deep in my being, the comfort of
knowing that I will not reproach myself for throwing away
long-term advantage for the brief spark of short-term fun

That will leave a bad taste in the mouth and memories that
sting and burn, though I very often fall victim to self-pity, the
reassuring knowledge of long-term objectives keeps me safe

From total despair, sparkling humour revealing pretensions
always comes to my aid, and after laughing and singing a
favourite song and dancing with my imaginary partners

I feel warm and vibrant inside, ready to create a new dream
so as to help reality expand through the constructive use
of fantasy, contributing colourful visions….


Reflections based on events described in:
1. Reaper Man – Terry Pratchett – Victor Gollancz, 1991
2. Phantom of the Opera – Andrew Lloyd Webber

[Unfortunately this only applies to important decisions
while giving in to all small temptations, when there is a
choice between fasting and eating, I overeat; domestic
chores and swimming, swimming always wins; admini-
stration and translation and reading a book and writing
prosody, I always choose reading and writing; keeping
quiet and making a noise, I sing at the top of my voice,
when hubby says nobody uses cue words I pick up
more cue words than before…]

She Would Relieve Me

Tibetan monks control body temperature
facing freezing weather wearing loincloths
I must learn their technique to preset body
temperature, then I could walk on flaming
coals without burning my feet

The hypnotised do not burn when holding
their hands in a flame, developing a welt
when told a flame was burning them though
there was none, in multiple personality syn-
drome, the body exhibits

Different physical symptoms depending on
the personality inhabiting at any moment in
time, I wonder whether I also have a heat-
resistant personality type and when she
would come to relieve heat-sensitive me

Music In My Mind

Brought work documents home, letters by
disgruntled dissidents, a Wu-chu Kung Fu
expert offering a show for the 2010
World Cup opening ceremony

Translated lines without rhythm or rhyme,
stopped when we went to the shops, side-
tracked into admiring a beautiful flowering
garden at a roadside nursery

Dreaming about Deepak Chopra’s depiction
of the afterlife where we get what we think
about; I visualise perfect love and complete
freedom without unmusical, discordant,

Toneless, grating noise; we sang Frère Jaques*
before we could talk, my father taped us, we
listened to the recording as we grew older,
a three-year old me singing

Hansie-Slim, berg wil klim, in die wye wêreld in*
before I learnt what the words meant; my brain
creates rhythmic patterns in musical delight,
causing me to produce

The most atrocious translations of the harsh words
other authors strung in cold lines without reference
to music and song; the ice-cold world of materialism
is where I belong - but

I am always listening to the music playing in my head
How Great Thou Art, Psallite Deo and Ay Marieke,
Marieke by Jacques Brel...

***************************************************

* Frère Jacques = Vader Jakob, slaap jy nog,
hoor hoe lui die kerkklok, ding-dong-del
[Frère Jacques, dormez-vous, sonnez les
matines, din-din-don]

FAK:
[*Hans ran off, mountaineering, hat and stick,
brave indeed; mother sighs, Hans is gone,
run back home anon ]

*Hansie-Slim, berg wil klim, in die wye wêreld in,
stok en hoed, pas hom goed, hy is vol van moed,
Maar die moerderhart is seer, Hans is in die huis
nie meer, hoor nou net, moeder sug, hardloop
gou-gou terug.

My Passionate Involvement

At least you say ‘shut up’
in the nicest way, explaining
why you cannot cope with my
stentorian voice droning on and on
my interminable descriptions of an
inner life that leaves your neutral
sphinx-like self in confusion

The mercurial fluctuations of my
emotional life, my love of physical
pain, concomitant spiritual ecstasy,
it is too much, you need someone like
yourself to keep the calm, the Eternal
Peace your soul longs for, not my
passionate involvement

With all things in life, not my songs
flowing forth in a suffocating stream,
I understand, you need not explain, I’m
just glad patient paper can receive my
melodramatic effusions of love and pain,
most of all, I love my inner world where
my characters can act out

Greek tragedies and Baroque horrors that
fascinate and delight my inner eye, while
you are the root of life, anchored in reality
cool and smooth, even keel, the wind under
your control; you only shout and jump around
when the forces of nature and destiny escape
your strict control; which is all the time

But your inner fire is controlled, I am much
obliged that my barbaric attitude to life
has not yet driven you away…

The Mind’s A Sacred Place

“Show off your fans! Build an audience
show the world who's listening…”

Oh scary thought…

Good grief, don’t people know
the act of observation changes*
the phenomenon being observed

Just shining a small light upon the
action causes a difference; how can
anybody create truly from the heart

When so many eyes are influencing
them? Probably market forces demand
that things meant to be popular

Should be created in the public eye
but for me, the mind’s a sacred place
full of private thoughts and dreams

Watching strangers watching you in
performing death-defying stints on a
movie screen sounds right

But writing down the contents of your mind
requires something else, celebrities live
life as a public show, enjoying attention

But they can hide inside their minds, while
poets dissect their minds in public; need
to hide their physical being

To counterbalance the effect of letting
thoughts and feelings all hang out; at
least, it works that way for me…

*Quantum physics:
The particles of light striking the minute particles
being observed, changes their nature and movement,
what will the light particles do to the poet when light is
shone upon his mind? It might fry his thoughts, warp
his feelings…

Something To Look Forward To

Quickly to the library, need the exercise,
need a walk in the sun, got Colin Wilson’s
‘Beyond The Occult – Twenty Years’ Research
into the Paranormal’ for a bit of fun with
the myriad possibilities in life

Still reading ‘Only You Can Save Mankind’ –
then forwards and onwards into the future…

I thought I had a friend sharing jokes with me,
as I was still laughing uproariously, he suddenly
became angry under the unexpected attack of the
blues, a dark cloud of nihilism enveloping him

I sighed, went back to Abraham and read that it
is not necessary for somebody else; or anybody
else on earth – to understand and apply these
positive principles for us to live lovely events
by focusing on things to appreciate

I appreciate my friend’s terrible mood as a sign to
turn my eyes to all the blessings of the wonderful
sunshine, the most fantastic books, the divine music
in my ears, I know after his bad mood of nihilistic
depression, he will be ever so happy again

That is something to look forward to…