Mother city

(ode to cape town)

Place of slaves, storms, minstrels, frenzied wind

winter is a leprous sky, breaking up and breaking up

into craters swept by rain and slush

White-maned waves of luxury apartments

give way to grains of shacks

the mountain tumbles from its cloudy pelmet

sends wet and cold to villages & towns that fuel the city

Those from umlazi eldos soshanguve wentworth phoenix newbrighton

those who pilgrim seasonally

swear by sacred braai spots

but, these tough days, seasons and people are driven further apart

Off the fish hoek boats, red or blue-veined

the piles of fish arrive

to be slain and trimmed

a wind lurches and guts the tourist dream

In the morning, she lugs the roomservice of empties

the sheets are crumpled, branded

amid smudges and tracks of fitful lusts

A political activist, fresh from exile

clambers up the mountain, a flushed pilgrimage

and from a mountain telescope

he discerns a waterfront, its newness

cleared of local dialects, bergies & salomies

And: the jobless on the sidewalk, multiplying

with the bmws and glitzy stores

will there be enough cars to park storefronts to sleep in

enough small change

for chunks of bread and toasts of cheap wine?

Frank Meintjies

Tending to shoes

The old man wears a leather brown apron.

His eyebrows are long and whitened. The wooden bench

is frayed, its surface nibbled away

by mallet blows. He rolls the bent and

ailing shoes on the counter, cradles them away

to a place among the sagging, laden shelves. The

hordes of obsolete footwear, a familiar

wallpaper. He chalks large numbers

on the soles or inside. His customers

have come to learn patience

as he struggles to locate their goods.

Eventually, he does. To tell the truth,

his work is less and less precise

these days. As you examine your shoe

the nails seem big, the soles too thick.

But, as he points out (using a thick hairy finger),

only brute force will separate the new sole

from the upper. The paint-on-wood sign

(Boot and Shoe Repairs) withers and curls like old bark.

He doesn’t talk much, and soon

he is back leaning over the last,

bearing the side of his face to you.