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Surya Govender

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something I left behind

(from the notebooks of aiden lawrence)

In 1961 John Glenn became the first man to orbit the earth
you were one of those things I left behind
nomads both.

Once
I was born of an old man
in a room with four doors
and four directions I could go.
I was a faint and imperfect child.
In dress-up clothes I became the li’l man who waged war
a dark boy in knee socks
delilah of the gypsies.

Night time and time for sleeping
shelters a thousand heroes
and a boy who dances for nickels
and sings a goat song.

(I have amounted to nothing so much as this
to be outside with the chickens and the cats and my new best
                                                    friend Maria’s dog Rocky hunting
wonder in a morning.)

In Chinese the character for the king is a vertical line joining
                                                           three horizontal lines.
If I were king
I would tell the rest of the story as though these crossing
                                                       lines might mean something
but I am tired of travelling underground
I want to learn Spanish
and be still.

Let us start a rumour;
well say it was like one hundred fires at night
our gasoline skin
burning the colour of vanilla.
We’ll say there was nothing for us to do
but wait
and then
when they’ve gone satisfied to bed
we’ll away through the four doors
of that forgotten room.

 

1997

 

Page(s) 77

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