DEEP SOUTH BOOKS cont. mangaliso buzani DEEP SOUTH BOOKS Kobus Moolman Robert Berold To my family Light and After All the Days A Book of Rooms [ed.] Poetry 99: Today I will paint my house 20 South African poets in performance Isabella Motadinyane with warm colours Complete Poems I will paint the table mangaliso buzani Vonani Bila Bilakhulu! Seitlhamo Motsapi for six elbows earthstepper/the ocean is very shallow three chairs Ayanda Billie for three bums a naked bone KwaNobuhle Overcast Mxolisi Nyezwa you will get your bowls Malikhanye Nadine Botha your spoons ants moving the house millimetres Khulile Nxumalo I’ll paint my love for you ten flapping elbows, mama your faces before my face Angifi Dladla The girl who then feared to sleep Lesego Rampolokeng smiling because you never smiled for me Lament for Kofifi Macu whiteheart – prologue to hysteria a nakedbone Head on Fire always a sour sugar Alan Finlay Bird-Monk Seding always a sweet salt That kind of door a sadness I cannot tell Mxolisi Dolla Sapeta Denis Hirson [ed.] skeptical erections In the Heat of Shadows: South African poetry 1996–2013 Ari Sitas Slave Trades Mishka Hoosen Rough Music: Selected Poems Mangaliso Buzani grew up in New Brighton, Port Call it a difficult night Elizabeth, and later trained as a jeweller in Tshwane. 1989–2013 Haidee Kotze His first collection Ndisabhala Imibongo (Imbizo Arts, Scrim Kelwyn Sole 2014) written in isiXhosa, won the 2015 SALA award Walking, Falling for poetry. Buzani teaches poetry in English and Anton Krueger Rosamund Stanford isiXhosa in the MA in Creative Writing programme at Sunnyside Sal The Hurricurrent Rhodes University. Bernat Kruger Cai Tianxin Never Song of the Quiet Life Mzwandile Matiwana Paul Wessels I lost a poem My ghost in the bush of lies deep south Joan Metelerkamp Phillip Zhuwao Requiem Sunrise Poison (continued on back cover flap) a naked bone a naked bone mangaliso buzani Contents I The rain 9 My first lesson 10 Death of the leaves 11 2019 © Mangaliso Buzani Inside the river 12 All rights reserved The oven of god 13 Revelation 14 ISBN 978-0-9947104-6-8 Imbawula 15 ebook ISBN 978-0-9947104-7-5 Naked in your fire 16 Deep South Dreams and bread 17 [email protected] Heaven 18 www.deepsouth.co.za Kiss me 19 My daily bread 20 Distributed in South Africa by University of KwaZulu-Natal Press Completely clean 21 www.ukznpress.co.za Themba 22 To my father 23 Distributed worldwide by Prayer of a leaf 24 African Books Collective PO Box 721, Oxford, OX1 9EN, UK Seed of a lily 25 www.africanbookscollective.com/publishers/deep-south II Deep South and the author acknowledge the financial assistance of the National Arts Council for the production of this book Daily verse 29 Ribs of a leaf 30 Leaves 31 Sick words 32 Dear doctor 33 The day he left 34 Earlier versions of some of these poems were published in The moon has lost its light 35 New Coin, Carapace, Aerial, South of Samora, and Illuminations 32 I will be gone 37 (special South African issue) Rain 40 Cover design: Liz Gowans and Robert Berold The drowning heart 41 Text design and layout: Liz Gowans Only then 42 Cover drawing: Amos Letsoalo ‘Fisherman’ (charcoal on paper) Ear 43 To my family 44 The fire 45 III A naked bone 49 IV She will come back 65 Mbizo Square 68 Sign language 70 The garden 72 I The house was swept clean 74 Wrapped with spinach leaves 76 It is Thursday 79 The rain Straight to the garden the rain came wearing clear-beaded shoes it landed on the naked seed which was fast asleep on its bed the first sound I heard with my ears was the creaking of an old bed that needed some missing screws to tighten its legs but the rain kept on falling the bed kept on singing 9 My first lesson Death of the leaves I was dust The sun but after the work of the holy hands wearing a yellow robe I rose up like a wave of the sea and silver shoes to praise the sky touched the trees with fire One by one leaves left their homes on my arrival here falling without a word I looked at my hand light in weight but heavy with pain and I named it a hand They lost their green I kept on naming things their bones until a full body arrived their clothes among the stones so I settled among the flowers quiet as leaves I was welcomed by the snails who taught me how to make a trail of light on a leaf 10 11 Inside the river The oven of god Inside the heart of the river Out of clay I want to be a sea-dog from the oven of god but this nose can’t sniff we came down here the scent of umamlambo losing our feathers one by one inside the head of the river I want to be a writer after each star but this water we left behind can’t keep the paper dry to be human beings we lost more of heaven inside the shoes of the river I want to walk like christ for sex in the garden but the floor of the river one foot on a thorn can’t keep up the weight of my feet brother we must organise and I sink some shoes to read poems to frogs 12 13 Revelation Imbawula From my palm I want to build my house inside your heart, to give I blow away a pile of dust you pure purple love from the fires of my soul. I want that flies away with my flesh to turn my bones to coal, wood and paraffin. I want to burn the imbawula for you, to make you roasted for the first time on earth bread. I want to feed your tongue with words so that my bones see my nose when you open your mouth you will spread the music and start to run away of poems. I say to my aunts the choir of god was here wearing clothes of dust they look at each other and laugh 14 15 Naked in your fire Dreams and bread With your look stones are piling inside my head full of methylated spirits reminding me every day about my failures you blaze my fire burning from feet to head last night they stabbed me many times I throw my clothes on the ground today I wake up bleeding from my ears made drunk by your beauty my stomach singing its chorus song I begin to promise my lips now you will get a kiss your dreams are not going to put bread on your table 16 17 Heaven Kiss me I’m told there are shelves in heaven kiss me taller than the space between the ground and the sky touch my neck filled with papers from scrolls to books go down to my sacred stick all singing glory to god which once moses used to hit the rock there are no tables there pick the salt off my body with your tongue for drunkards to drink a beer our fire will cook love and both of us will enjoy Since there will be no time to dance in heaven god’s special recipe let us make a table for the last supper listen to jazz music and find the time to finish a bottle of wine 18 19 My daily bread Completely clean Far from the love of god Between the rails children armed with stones that seem to touch each other in the distance surround me the man walks toward his dreams they are sweating for hell too tired to open his eyes ready to lay down my bones he approaches his death they dance about through the wheels of the train patiently to take the daily bread at an instant away from my weary hands his body in two halves his soul wearing new shoes With knives jumps over his bones longer than my arms to reach for god they are waiting for me around a dark corner I will meet my death next to a spaza shop where those who long for a piece of meat will come out with onions chicken soup huge pots to cook me alive 20 21 Themba To my father Themba my brother I have made the remains of you my home sing your songs among the falling bits of your dead body the same christmas songs your tendons have become my chewing gum we sang with combs both before Your body a sea a mirror has become a graveyard that drips the fluid of the dead Themba that wakes me up wiping my face Themba to drink such water sing in me salty from your pores use my tongue I hide under your ribs I’ll talk about it’s raining under the ground the strength of the worm that ate your brain You feed me with rotten intestines and left you dangling on a rope your half-rotten heart lacks the flow of blood sing in me which makes it as dust I’ll say whatever softer than a brick in my last poem that your body was full of earth I have to follow your light obey the commandments of the ancestors live among your bones because you are more powerful than ever much holier than yesterday 22 23 Prayer of a leaf Seed of a lily what if god has gone deaf I bow to you seed of a lily not to hear the simple prayer of a leaf staring at your thighs under the water O dear god turn my green tomatoes red take me to your world where you feel no cold I want to bath with you listen to your quiet heart 24 25 II Daily verse On a dusty gravel road a half naked child walks towards a tree which calls him by his name Carrying an empty basket listening from his singing stomach he meets his sorrows wrapped with thorns On the shell of a passing snail he reads his daily verse Another 20 years to come with nothing on the table 29 Ribs of a leaf Leaves Perhaps I’m the only one Here in the windy town who breaks the frail ribs of a dry leaf I go up the stairs accompanied by dry leaves with a size seven shoe I look at them as they crawl on the ground the loud voice of my tiny toes wearing assorted camouflages that disturb a tired ant They are soldiers here on a night shift but nobody besides me a bird who is trying to finish its duty seems to get their attention of counting leaves as they carpet the steps my restless breath I run to the library that makes a spider and begin to read point a finger at me A Rage in Harlem I wonder with this filthy heart will I ever enter eden again or must I promise god with a lot of long prayers that repeat