Blood and stone (a poem on Fanon and Ghandi)

what

if fanon versed ghandi

on some wind-blown street

as ghandi

lay in a pool of blood

with fanon’s concerned hand

on that bony shoulder

does fanon whisper

‘any means’ are sometimes

needed

as marchers

in determined mood

bear down on fanon

does ghandi, like tutu,

fall on his knees, dramatically, & plead

to his diverse people

not to trample, &

show love?

flesh turns to blood

blood turns to stone

if they met at a roadside diner

would ghandi have broccoli and beans

and fanon bite into steak?

skillfully toting their persuasiveness

(in

sparring conversation)

would fanon emerge

bare chested, staff in hand

would ghandi rush forth

with gunbelt over dhoti?

Frank Meintjies

(this poem is taken from my first book, My Rainbow [2009])

krotoa

you walk, between

two worlds

we follow those steps

the seashores, robben island, the open plains

the interstices between death & vitality

the narrow path between my song & dance

you, a linguist of note

speak to us!

interpret, read the signs

make a song from the symbols

that dot these walls

for we so often

lost, adrift, bobbing uneasily

between the veils of translation

she works the words

from the stomach

through tongue & breath & spaces of the skull 

word by word

she weighs up

the men who stand before her

    the words work & rework her

she invests them with breath

from worlds within

she rolls them on her tongue

she births them

in cool air

or sunshine

evoker

diplomat, broker, interloper
 

the vine joining ground & air

who will translate for us

the sea's utterances

the wind's murmers

the look of the kori bustard
the small fires that sputter & crackle
from the entrails of wet sticks 

the line of the pass
that bends through my mountain thoughts

& pieces of land

that stand solid

as we migrate from outposts & peripheries

to teaming centres

via farmers’ markets & trading posts

weaver of strands

hold us, your children

in your imagination

send us braided messages

send love & affection & chants

& sighs of longing

those feet walked

the calloused life

doubted here (at the kraal), mistrusted there (at the fort)

inspected, suspected & suspended

in other's dreams

you dreamt of wanderings & walkabouts

as you donned the garb, buttoned up

stood in thin shade

cast by

the houses of colonialism

van riebeeck's orders

van meerhof’s manners

the tight fitting name: 'eva'

the controls & constraints

that flowed

from their pens

as they counted you & logged you

in diaries & registers

in your death

you – & we with you – escape this

we walk among shrubs, grow into trees, embrace wind

we flow with the pain
we walk the shoreline

the single mother

the abandoned partner

the searcher for meaning, in multiples abuses

searching for some truth

of a life in the margins

the lichen that stays

on rock

even as the tide retreats

you stand with us

renditioned, trafficked, exiled

simply ignored

or made to labour for bread & tots

when we are made to trade

cattle for goods

you walk alongside

the uncertain returnee

the desperate ones who come through beit bridge

those stolen from africa

the children plucked & taken thousands of miles

me, extrapolated & replanted in strange settings

in your death

an astuteness, in your silence

a vocality

through your death

mishak can be swathed

in the eye

of the moment

jemma can wander the sky

cole can lope through landscapes 

that existed in the time before time

when we toil away, or measure hours, offer silent service

under the lash of the sun

when we

bear the unbearable

when we are overwhelmed

and fizzle out, succumbing

to nervous conditions

when depression

crawls over skin

like a shadow

may we think of you

may we think of the mopani tree, the boegoe plant

the needles of the rooibos

the aloe & its healing bitterness

the acacia's thorn

used for stitching

& you .... a sturdy bough

Frank Meintjies

New poetry collection explores redemption through 'shared remembering'

My poetry book, Unfettered Days, was released during National Book Week 2015. In this work, I continue to grapple with private and public concerns and to build meaning through exploring the particular, to examine specific moments and "small details" of life. The book, which builds on previous works My Rainbow and Connexions, is obtainable at the Melville branch Bookdealers (www.bookdealers.co.za).

This 'Afterword' was written by cultural practitioner and outstanding poet Lisa Combrinck:.

Frank Meintjies’s latest poetry collection comes at a time when South Africa is no longer immersed in the euphoria of the immediate post democracy peri''od. The seams of the nation state are fraying at the edges. The narrative of truth and reconciliation no longer carries the weight it did in previous years. The imagined community of a united people no longer holds sway. Instead, even official sources now speak of a “nation in the making.” ....  There is an acknowledgement that much needs to be done to address the current dominant consciousness of South African people and the economic realities facing the poor and downtrodden.

Under current circumstances, the poet ought to pose questions; and the beauty of living in an ostensibly and demonstrably political democracy is that it enables “unfettered” thought, and ‘free’ time to contemplate individual and collective direction.

In “Unfettered Days” Meintjies’s approach is modest, seemingly tentative – as if engaged in free thought - yet skillful and highly successful in interrogating the times, the truths of his own life and others who people the shared landscape as well as intimating to bigger realities. His poetry creates a space in which readers can breathe and be themselves.

Meintjies writes poetry that probes and poses questions. He describes both urban and rural landscapes and their people, zooming in on little details with the eye of a camera. He outlines what appear to be seemingly insignificant observations but these provide the reader with an intimacy that leaves an unease yet also, strange as it may seem, a feeling of deep fulfillment. In foregrounding these close-ups, the poems reveal new meanings beneath the surface. These small revelations are what give the poetry great inner strength and resonance.

In the poem “salt in crevices”, (the first of a series of poems about the landscapes of childhood and youth) the poem ends with a description of “a dried blood drop” which spreads out, forms a thin membrane / that I hold / as I doze off, sitting up”. What resembles throwaway lines ends a poem where the memory of the past lingers on and still haunts the present. One wonders if this is what history has bequeathed new generations as it writes itself in blood. Or is history a dried blood drop in the cultural imaginary of the persona and by implication the people as a whole? The endings of poems often have that sense of mystery that remains, which is at the heart of his poetic craft. One is left with the view that it is not the Devil that is in the detail, but goodness, godliness, sacredness, what Paulo Freire would call a humanizing evocation.

A sense of small, revealing truths is embraced in the titles of poems such as “a small detail” and “rough draft”.  Taking a close-up look in one poem, he conveys the humdrum of township life where “we know every pavement slab / as it knows us”; and in another poem about his mother he concludes that there are “so many places to visit / in the heart of the woman / who visited so few places.” In this way he conveys the experiences of those who have been dispossessed through apartheid, and yet he also transmits the richness of life and a defiant possession of a different kind.

Yet the poet also acknowledges that memory itself is partial. In a poem titled “memory” he writes: “i grasp my forgetting” and “i remember what i choose to / or what is chosen / by my misfiring mind…”. In a different poem, he writes about “half-told stories played & splayed / rumours, memories, paranoia, writhing / the shapelessness of old truths & new amnesias”. In these poems a very personal moment of looking at the past also becomes a national preponderance, conversation and quest to understand a reality that is fraught and fractured, hoping that by relooking at the past one can begin to “create anew”.

He also confronts realities head-on when he critiques how the black consciousness of the past and its ideology of liberation have become appropriated; and he parodies the symbols of the new blackness. In a poem titled “night of the xenophobes” he exposes those behind the violence against foreign nationals who “punch, knock, slap” and who “burn all rules” and stamp out the truth.

The persona of the poem punctuates his experiences as the subject of these stories with a small letter “i’ as indeed the entire collection is devoid of capital letters. The use of lowercase suggests that the individual is only a small part of the collective and can get lost in the big scheme of things. This is further strengthened by the tendency to describe solitary figures in the landscape; in the poems one comes across a “thin dog”, “a small child”, “a man in his wheelchair / by a small fire, alone / in the stirring sturdy city” and “an old man trundles along / tugging a laden trolley…”. All these solitary figures add up to uncover a reality that has been painted over and is a painful indictment of the years of freedom. Yet these figures together are also a sign of life, endurance and resilience. Female figures are often strong as in the poem “unfettered woman” and in the poems “resolve” and “redihense” that offer the possibility of togetherness so that “together we are genuine, we laugh, we stalk small truths, stoke small fires”.

The poem titled “birds of africa” is a fitting tribute to the diversity of birds on the African continent but is also a commentary on the kinds of personalities that dominate the African political and cultural landscape. One identifies readily with the narcissistic, self-absorbed and seemingly subservient ostrich as one does with the other birds in this poem. The poet sheds tears but as in other poems, this moment of weeping is released and redeemed through a smile.

His lyrical images are often startling and beautiful as he describes the music of the late Zim Ngqawana as producing “a sea, a flow, a warm wind / over the savannah / in your eyes”; in a poem titled “refiloe” he describes the expression on a woman’s face in a photographic exhibition as one of “finding & naming / your continent of dreams & rainstorms & harmattans” and elsewhere the sunrise “sprays its lines, pulses / forging circles that float like bubbles…”.

The landscape is often one which is inscribed with human presence with “small human drawings surfacing on a land mass” and “sweetmeats” that “print sharp colours” while the blossoming of flowers produce “blotches, backdrops, broad strokes, lines on verges”.  He writes the land as the land writes him. In a poignant tribute to the passing of Nelson Mandela, nature itself is an artist bringing rain to the plains and healing to the heart where “little ribbons of grace sprout / the fingers or rain / write / deep tracks in my sand”.

The poet also becomes a historian immersing himself in the history, that others choose to sideline from the mainstream and naming those whose history has not been named. He asserts: “i am khoi”, “i think of stuurman / i meditate on the lion of gamtoos” and “i am a survivor”. Out of “the shapes, drawings, symbols, silences”, jetty he seeks the stories and the dances that make sense of human lives. Welts The poet becomes witness, provides testimony for or new generations and the poem becomes a thanksgiving. 

Each revelation offers the possibility of redemption as individual and shared remembering brings something vital back, provides for a reclamation of that which has been lost or trampled on, and enables a restoration of direction.

In the words of Ben Okri from a lecture he delivered in April 2015 at UNISA in Pretoria, “There can be no true renaissance till a people have faced the absolute truth of their condition. Till there has been an unflinching stocktaking, a self-truth-telling, a genuine estimation of failures and weakness, of strengths and possibilities too. It is a natural trait for human beings to lie to themselves about their inadequacies, to lie to themselves about their achievements. But we cannot rebuild on a false foundation. This is why we need our awkward truth-tellers…. And our truth should include not only our external conditions, the evidence of our societies, but our inner conditions too, our will, our psychic and cultural strengths.”

Meintjies’s poetry without fanfare and bells and whistles quietly defies the South African temptation to tell lies about themselves, about ourselves. Instead, his mission is that of the excavator, an awkward truth-teller, a path-finder, the poet at work whose grappling with words reveals real truths and the will to move forward based on that which has been brought to light.

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.

statuesque

y do sum ppl

luv these statues

so much?

wat have statues evr done 4 mankind?

y do dudes like hofmeyr

chain themselves 2 an apart-hate relic

or, better still …

y wud an old white-superiority dude

if he were alive

want 2 be chained

2 a relic

like hofmeyr

shud we send chester missing

2 scare them both?

if ppl did not

take chances in

post-nazi germany,

y do they take chances

in post-horror south africa?

crazy. insane. lol. (4 u over 4ties,

dat duz not mean lots of luv)

i'm sure zuma’s stasi

is watching dis chain gang

so let’s 4get about them

…. BTW

d eyeballs of the state

may be on us 2o

– if they r not infighting, dat is

we r celebrating

we r like swag, sick, chilled

all rolled into 1

we r so amped

so chuffed

dat rhodes bit d dust,

so 2 speak

------------------

if he was sent 2 germany

he cud be a rock star or a BFF

for fervent far-right youth

– i mean hofmeyr, not kruger

kruger was just

sitting on church square

it’s u, d older gnr8n, dat caused d problem

dat left him alone

wen we shud have put him

& his boer-republic story

in d museum

what u, d older gnr8n, gave d youth

as a gift 4 our future

is a combination of

onion, lemon & rotten apple, with worms,
thx 4 nothing

one day, ppl of mzansi, we won’t have 2

fling poo, pee, student hurl

or even, my fave, luminous green paint

like, nevr, nevr & nevr again

but 4 now, 1ce d after-party is ovr

we have sum statues 2 paint

Short story: Spanners and mealies

Spanners and Mealies in Bloekom Road

Oom Sakkie worked on his Isuzu van. His legs stuck out from underneath to reveal crumpled pants and battered shoes that were on the edges of useful existence. “This bladdy bolt! Pass me that brake fluid. It’s in the boot or cubby”.

He was talking to Doeff, a huge baobab of a man who wore a natty bib type overall and a red T-shirt inside it. “Jislaik. You are really sukkeling with that damn thing. How long your car’s been on the blocks?” he shook his head and shuffled towards the boot.

A women’s voice shouted from a window – it was Aunt Joyce, who was married to Oom Sakkie, calling from the house: “Hey, come watch the TV. It’s about Mandela; he’s coming out of jail. It’s like the bladdy opening of parliament.” The voice went softer, as the face turned inward to get the action. “I’d never thought I’d fokken see the day. Die boere gaan kak.” The voice trailed off.

“Ja, I know,” Doef was answering anyway. “Yarrr, that ou is like a king, the leader of chiefs!” Bending under the car, he passed the brake fluid to Oom Sakkie. The old man didn’t respond. Sounds of exertion mixed with the clang of metal-on-metal came from under the car. “This thing can never beat me, stubborn as it is. It hasn’t got a mind or a heart like me.” Spoken through gritted teeth, the words sounded as if they had been bent and skewed in a vice.

“You can hear on the news”, said Doeff, “they are even starting to call him mister and doctor.” Another voice broke in. “They will never release him. I don’t trust the Boers.” It was Pops, a first year student and Oom Sakkie’s nephew who had just strolled up. He was the first person ever in the street, or the district for that matter, to make it to first-year university. Doeff’s voice was chastising but also triumphant: “Have you been sleeping, studying or what? Yesterday already they announced the man would be out of the mungs today!” Directing his voice under the car, Doeff added: “These lighties want to talk politics but know bugger-all about what’s going on.”

“Boycotts, boycotts.  That’s all these students know,” Uncle Sakkie said, wrenching away as he spoke. “Can they help you fix a car?  Never.  Can they do some work cleaning up the yard?  No. All they want is money from you.” Rhythmic squeaking now suggested the bolt was finally loosening its teeth from the bakkie’s frame.

Pops felt like defending himself against the accusations but thought better of it. He put his hands on his hips and, for a second, twisted the corner of his mouth. He was more concerned with catching up on developments. “What time? Where is Mandela being released, Doeff?”

“Get inside there, boytjie.” The big man enjoyed his moment of superiority.  His thumb pointed sideways to the house where a muffly electronic voice leaked through the off-white lace curtains.  “It’s on TV now.”

The boy dashed off. Doeff told himself to remember to watch television the main news bulletin later. He would be a mamparra if he missed it. He had a reputation at his worksite for being in the know, the guy with the last word on what really happened after everyone else dabbled in hearsay and buzz.

“So what do you think of all these things Uncle Sakkie,” Doeff asked, as under the car knees bent and the body scraped further underneath, probably to tackle another intransigent bolt..

“If you ask me,” said Oom Sakkie, “I’ve known those boer-ous for a long time. They will never change. Them give up the colour bar?  Never.” He took a pause from his work, and said. “I’ve worked with whites for years and years. They will never throw away their privileges. But things are better now. Verwoerd, Vorster, first class bastards. Things are better now.”

“But what about this Mandela, Oom Sakkie? They skrik for him, what do you think of him?” asked Doeff.

“Mandelas, Tutus, haikhona. Look, these lighties – Pop’s mates – tell me that it’s our own people. But, no thanks. Things will be worse. There’s no unity, man. Too many bulls in the same kraal. Look at Pietermaritzburg, what’s happening there! It’s like Shaka, Dingaan and Mpande all over again,”

Doeff laughed his deep-chested laugh, so loud it carried down the street. He thought: “Old people can be so out of touch, so backward sometimes.” But he could never say so to an older person. Still, it was funny and he laughed heartily. He had known Oom Sakkie for many years, before the edges of his hair had begun to turn grey-white. The old man had grown up in the Transkei and spoke fluent Xhosa alongside English and Afrikaans. Doeff had never seen Oom Sakkie treat any person disrespectfully, unless they had wronged him. His fair-mindedness applied to even to complete strangers. Doeff remembered the zapping he got from the old man after he swore at workers who, having never worked with cement before, were slow and messy in helping him spade concrete for a driveway he was building. Calling him aside, Uncle Sakkie had told him: “Stop your nonsense. These guys are getting really angry at your swearing. You don’t like your foreman calling you a hotnot or an idiot, do you?”

-----

The light wasn’t fading yet in Bloekom road, but the horizontal rays clearly signalled that daylight was on the wane.  Oom Sakkie, his hair, overall and parts of his shoes dyed with red-brown sand, emerged only once from under the bakkie, to plod off in search of the loo.  Doeff felt it his duty to stay with his uncle – even if he did not actually stain his hands with grease from the old Isuzu. He regaled Oom Sakkie with his wealth of knowledge and advice: how to get a house built cheaply – his plans to subcontract – what make of cars are best – how to deal with a son who was in and out of jail. Once or twice Doeff shuffled his feet and wiggled his shoulders to the beat of the township pop music that blared from a nearby house.

Every now and again Oom Sakkie would say: “Hell, thanks, Doeff, you’re really helping me out. None of my damn four sons are to be found when I need a hand. Football is their god.”  Doeff winced slightly at the appreciation – because he knew that passing spanners, screwdrivers and brake fluid and keeping conversation did not really count as help, especially not for a hefty man with ample knowledge of cars and mechanical things. He said: “It’s nothing Oom. I would actually fix this thing for you. But I’m waiting for another ou. Wants me to check his stove – only one plate’s working. Why don’t you leave it now? Stop working and I’ll do it for you next week. “

“No, don’t worry, “ Oom Sakkie said. Nice as Doeff was, his frequent postponements were well known in family circles. “Must have this thing on the road by Wednesday.  That’s when Vic – you know, the bloke who gives me a lift to work – goes on leave.”

From time to time people passed, some greeting the two, but because it was a cul de sac, the street was quiet. A railway line ran behind the houses and then, about 500 metres along, bent to run at right angles to Bloekom Road. Further up the street a few youths toyed with a plastic ball – a body leaned backward as a foot extended to knock the ball; a head stretched forward as the ball thudded against a forehead. Some played cautiously, clearly wanting to keep their clothes clean, keeping to the outer edges of the circle. They were there for the company or to kill time, but they had other things on their mind.

------

The sun glistened sharply just above the roofs of houses on one side of Bloekom Road and the street itself was almost covered in shade. Oom Sakkie and Doeff were still in leisurely conversation about one of the old man’s daughters and the trouble she was having with her man when suddenly they heard a commotion down the street.

They could make out taunting, jeering voices, contending with a half-angry, half-pleading voice. Doeff and Oom Sakkie could make out the mealie-vendor in the middle of the road. Doc was a wiry man in his mid-forties who was well known in the street. “Bring those damn mealies back. I not in the mood for monkey games,” he was saying. A youth held out the mealies, grinning at Doc. As the frustrated old man lunged, the youth jerked the mealies back. Doc’s arms and bodies crashed into the youth, but the mealies were already passed backwards into another boy’s hands. Oom Harry and Doeff spotted Gunner, a youth who was first making a reputation as much as a goal scorer as in fist- and knife-battles. Gunner was shoving Doc who had collapsed into him and saying: “Keep away from me, you stupid old man. I’ve got nothing of yours”. Doc chased after one youth and then another. But the two mealies were passed along like rugby balls. Doc turned to see another youth reaching into his two wheel push-cart; with a swift action he swung around and lunged, catching the jacket of the boy. His right hand came up fast and hard, hitting the boy’s cheek.

“Now you asked for it, you crazy bugger,” said Gunner as he looked at the trickle of blood on his younger brother’s cheek. He was self-assured in situation like this – an attitude backed up by a well-honed torso and tight biceps. As he moved to the mealie-seller, three of his mates also closed in. Doc braced himself, fists up, but his confidence was beginning to crumble. He was kicked from behind, then hit with a stick from the side. He tried to break through a gap in the four – to try and make a run for it. But a well-timed trip sent him flying heavily into the stony road surface.

The four moved in like crocodiles on a calf. Doc winced as a shoe dug into his back, another clicking hard against his jaw. As the blows multiplied, Doc saw himself at the top of Bloekom Road a short while ago, wondering whether to skip this short dead-end street. He had many other customers in other streets and it was getting late. Then he saw himself leaving home that morning. His last born, Nelson, twelve years old, was at the gate; they talked about attending a soccer match together the next day. These recollections retarded the pain of the kicks for no more than a flash of time.

It was all happening very fast. “Shit,” Oom Sakkie said, and moved towards the feud, Doeff close at his heels. The blows, hard and stinging, caught the youths by surprise. Most of them backed off, with the exception of Gunner who picked up a stick and, closing in on Doeff, took a swing. It was a hopeless attempt. Doeff blocked, grabbed Gunner’s shirt front, and simultaneously kicked his feet so he scudded into the dust. Doeff grabbed the stick, and was pointed it menacingly in the fallen lad’s face. Gunner propelled himself backward and made a scramble to his feet.

“Fuck you Doeff. We’ll get you.” Gunner’s mouth was spurting expletives. “You think you’re the damn mayor. Don’t forget you killed a man.” It was true that Doeff had killed someone five years before; but he had pleaded self-defence and walked free. Since then, and more so since his marriage, the big many has opted for a quieter life, attending the odd football match, drinking a beer at home, and using his wit to play the know-it-all in the workplace. But Doeff still hurt inside at the mention of the terrible incident.

“Voetsek!” Doeff called out, feigning to sprint after the boys and Gunner. The boys, breathing rapidly and dusting themselves, pulled back even further, disempowered despite their insults. Up the road, Mrs Gama leaned from her window and shouted at the troublemakers: “Shut up and go home, we’ve had enough of your nonsense.” The swearing died down abruptly and the boys stalked off, talking among themselves.

Oom Sakkie said: “Rubbishes. Bloody disgrace to Bloekom Road”. Doc had gotten off the ground, flustered, bruised, a cut on his hand and sore in various body parts, but he wasn’t badly injured. Doc said: “Here Mr Sakkie,” and pulled 6 mealies from his cart. Oom Sakkie shook his head. “Don’t worry man. I don’t want to do you down. In any case, I bought some mealies in town yesterday.” Doeff looked up from dusting his shoes with his hanky. “Hey Doc, I’ll have some. Just two, for me and the wife.”

Doc turned down Oom Sakkie’s invitation for a bit of first aid treatment – an offer of plaster, a pain tablet, some ointment – from inside the house. He had to go immediately, Doc said, and asked to park his two-wheel cart in the yard, on the side of Oom Sakkie’s house. After leading the vehicle into the yard, Doc transferred the mealies into a sack which he then slung across his back. It was darkening in Bloekom Road as Doc headed up the road in search of a taxi and Oom Sakkie began to pack his tools away.

 
Frank Meintjies (circa 1993).