Dead And Gone [Rev]

Marie Antoinette walked in while I was covering my parasol
with shiny black fabric, as usual she was contemptuous of
my clownish attempts to thwart the sun warming me to the
nth degree; she is a true bourgeois whose ideas of middle-
class respectability are more important to her than having
fun and enjoying life - with sour mien & disdainful hauteur

she makes it clear she looks down on me as a low-class
clown, but at least it keeps her out of my space & her dour
face does not often grace the office where I reside with my
now burka-black parasol on my hat-stand & Hanlie smiling
at her desk, although a German contract law monstrosity is
waiting to be translated with the aid of the Internet, and this

menace is enough to drive a saint insane, the Department’s
unable to provide modern technology so a campaign started
to hound all employees, checking our coming and going and
decorating the Sechaba building with the ugliest cultural art
objects it can find, a “Joseph’s amazing technicolour dream-
coat tree” made of material and smelling bad represents the

rainbow nation, large drums converted to chairs with garishly
coloured cushions represents - heck knows, rednecks - and
inexorably the happy, dreamy days pass one by one as we
ponder moving to Putin’s Russia to be cool in Siberia while
offering our language services to facilitate nuclear reactor
construction by means of international communication, but

let me return to the practical reality of the here and now and
a new Memorandum of Understanding raising the spectre of
failure once again requiring a slow process of acclimatisation
to my being here to translate against all the odds of suffering
from brain cells lost, dead and gone…

Sing My Way Home [Rev]

I enjoy my caffè crema and walk in the sun with my
parasol; this is a beautiful umbrella festooned with
pictures from Frozen on which I hang scarves and
strings with beads, singing as I go, & accepting all
good things offered by the universe; I stare at the
lemon-&-lime green of the trees as seen through

New golden brown lenses; I enjoy a diamond-bright
silver sunlight shining through the leaves as I float in
our pool, happy & docile like a satisfied Crocodile; I
watch Pointless on BBC with my beloved & marvel
at the fact both my kids chose partners with names
beginning with an E: Estiaan & Eloise - & blessed

With allergies - fitting right in with me; I wonder at my
colleague’s sunny disposition which accords with her
surname Sonnekus: kissed-by-the-sun; I am amused
by our own Marie Antoinette’s declaring my artificial
flowers of deplorable taste; & see, she says, holding
coasters brought from home - good taste looks like

This; I nod hypocritically - real flowers now adorn my
desk - today I’ve two super-boring and POINTLESS
documents to translate, providing raison d’être as I’m
held safe by work, tho not starting asap, & as yet no
fear that I might get it wrong rears it’s ugly head; so I
am sitting here breathing in Velikovsky’s theories the

Universe is determined by electro-magnetic streams
& reading about the Establishment suppressing all the
evidence which supports that in our return to the Black
Middle Ages’ scholasticism; I’m happy & content with
peace in my heart - having survived the attempt on my
life I’m ready to sing my way home - leaving soon

Alive At This Time [REV]

Marching full speed to where I’ll be picked up
after work, caught in a charging-figures melée:
taxis who loiter at green lights then drive off as
soon as the robot turns red - bearing down on
me who’d set off at the right time with nervous
distress growing worse dodging stalls taking up
three-quarters of the pavement & pedestrians
shuffling single-file past shop-entrances with

Bus passengers alighting & blocking the way;
I lose all ease of mind ’til deciding to try walking
down another street & lo, a nice place - shady
trees, wide sidewalks & taxi’s restfully parked
at standstill - I pass without having to charge
past loiterers blocking space; I’m happy now
in the new building as my road home’s good
for my soul; thank heaven, at least I can walk

In peace now thinking thoughts of joy instead
of lamenting at being alive at this time…

[Tuesday 24 October 2017]

Half a Brain [REV]

There was a young man, gifted beyond measure,
learning ability far beyond the norm; his paintings
and creative writings were exceptional but he was
plagued by anxiety of perfectionist tendencies - &
four successful medical practitioner brothers - he
felt dissatisfied with just being whom he was

Instead of realising an inner artist he also wanted
to make academic study his field - but the stress
proved too much for his aesthetic soul and he fell
ill; diagnosis schizophrenia, so he could only hold
down non-stressful administrative jobs which then
frustrated his creative mind - and much worse:

Since he heard voices he was given the dreaded
deadly psychiatric drugs that quieted the voices
by silencing parts of his brain until he was locked
up in an institution to wither away quietly; not a
burden to anybody, guinea pig of pseudoscientific
practitioners of dangerous psychiatry until he died

A vegetable in the end - dear reader, take heed,
don’t live with too much stress - relax - enjoy life -
don’t strive for perfection as it will drive you mad,
put an early end to your life - just be content with
who you are - don’t measure or compare yourself
with others of your kind: you are unique

Trying to be somebody else will surely stop you
from being you without ever changing you into a
successful person of another kind, you will end
up with half a brain and organ failure thanks to
the wonders of murderous Western medicine….

Long-Lost Reality [Revised]

High in a tower, elevated in the hot African sun, two
little translators have had enough as the scourge of
self-assessment lurks right after th’ Government had
curbed requisite service to keep State Departments
globally communicative - reviewing dribs and drabs
of the little documents they had th’ exquisite privilege
to translate while lost in an ocean of towering, blind

Buildings in Pretoria - an anachronism in a blinding
African sun; reality’s shaking & the earth heaving as
political masters fell remaining vestiges of efficiency
and appoint the unworthy to force nuclear disaster on
South Africa; the market is disgorging pension funds -
plummeting to new depths and blindly, against all the
odds, two little translators struggle valiantly against

Life itself to get their job done, and to keep the Foreign
Languages Section afloat as African masters conclude
the world is irrelevant - only depleting life force of the
society in which ANC is wielding its destructive political
clout is worth considering, the rest is dross and South
Africa will be destroyed - oh, how can this be? Ah, but
we used to pray to a God within religious structures

Whose strictures proved to be false as it was founded
on slavery and eternal exploitation of our people, based
on prejudice and race - so there you have it, nothing’s
changed, valiantly we struggle to achieve nothing within
the tattered fabric of an ill-defined, long-lost reality…
[Wednesday 18 October 2017 - This forms part of a diary
which chronicles the story of my life.]

A Blackguard At Heart [Rev]

Finally found where I am at home: - among the
recreational drug users who use any and every
drug they discover to get high - knowing they’re
growing immune to dose and that prescription
for continuous use is the greatest fraud there is

Laughing at medical establishment Pharisees -
tough people who don’t give a damn for anyone’s
opinion and never try to impress, who don’t play
the game of snobbery & never wear a mask; with
these self-assured people I am myself and admit

I like red-necks, the salt of the earth, feeling bored
and out of place amongst the refined who quietly
sob while refusing to vent their anger on criminal
doctors who destroy the health of people who ask
for their help – give me an honest person who has

NO reverence for pretenders trying to be better than
we are; I’m a blackguard at heart & feel safe amongst
cynics who don’t trust anyone: everything on earth is
done for selfish reasons where religion is the highest
player in the stakes of robbing the disadvantaged in

order to enrich the already wealthy. Self-confidence
surges within me as I contemplate hypocrisy of the
self-congratulating society where ‘unselfish’ means
the selfish overpowering the innocent...

Love You Dad

Anxiety, a mental state without explanation, poisons

the beauty of life and leads to a never-ending quest

for relief: at night I recount my blessings, the safety

and well-being which led human beings to colonise

the earth, yet every day a dark shadow fills my eye;

why was I born with this feeling of foreboding – why

Does feeling well require so much work? I dare not

relax and let my mind go - the infestation of weeds

and pests happens naturally and I have to fight it all

the time, it requires focus and vigilance to keep from

despair about just being alive - which is the biggest

privilege that was poisoned by I don’t know what –

Though I know my father had to go - he was old and

had no energy left - when I hear his music, the songs

he loved, a feeling of such abandonment overcomes

me and I wish he were still here, still breathing with

the charm his personality held for me - the hour of

his death was so exquisitely timed to save me

My dad gave his life at just the right time to save mine,

let me rejoice as he gave me the gift of life twice: thank

you dad, your being carried me to safety - thank you so

much and I love you dad…