Tin roof
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Tin roof
Autumn works away like a carpenter
dismantling the promises of spring –
our shelters brought so slowly down
it’s hard to recollect when each wall
fell, foretell when each corrupt plank
will crumble. Too lush a green
is the colour that warps away
from the grass to leave a yellow
dull as urine from a spiteful god,
but a reference we are used to.
To go on living, here, requires a house,
a cat, and an expectation at least
about a future where the eggs
can poach, the cat heave its body
with a thump through the small door
that human hands have sawn for it;
requires a house, preferably of stone,
squatting its grey toad weight on the land
and refusing to budge for anyone.
Such houses are no longer built.
All that remains is a sky
migrating birds fly up towards
like wrenched out nails, a moon
that bristles with convulsions of cloud
too scrawny to bring more rain
– the dry centre of our hearts laid bare –
and stars dipping nearer to a horizon
over which they will soon loiter.
Cold batters on each face exposed
with all of its bleak hammers:
there’s just no way to smile left
but to keep squinting upwards like a fool
even as our doors unhinge, eyes
turn to mirrors of broken glass.
The only way to keep warm now
is to build a dwelling out of the air,
draw invisible blankets to your chin,
painstakingly think a home around you.
Mine will have already open doors
too many rooms in case of children
I’ll call high windows into being
to watch the sky plait a million blues
and a family room for everyone
who may choose to be related.
I’ll put a tin roof on my dreams
for any young tom with stentorian boots
that’s silly enough for love. Even though
the cupboards open to echo
people who pass by will stop amazed
that such a house can take its shape
though never, I know, in envy.
So now I’ve no recourse but to live.
This is the house my hunger built:
the pain stays where you want it.
Autumn works away like a carpenter
dismantling the promises of spring –
our shelters brought so slowly down
it’s hard to recollect when each wall
fell, foretell when each corrupt plank
will crumble. Too lush a green
is the colour that warps away
from the grass to leave a yellow
dull as urine from a spiteful god,
but a reference we are used to.
To go on living, here, requires a house,
a cat, and an expectation at least
about a future where the eggs
can poach, the cat heave its body
with a thump through the small door
that human hands have sawn for it;
requires a house, preferably of stone,
squatting its grey toad weight on the land
and refusing to budge for anyone.
Such houses are no longer built.
All that remains is a sky
migrating birds fly up towards
like wrenched out nails, a moon
that bristles with convulsions of cloud
too scrawny to bring more rain
– the dry centre of our hearts laid bare –
and stars dipping nearer to a horizon
over which they will soon loiter.
Cold batters on each face exposed
with all of its bleak hammers:
there’s just no way to smile left
but to keep squinting upwards like a fool
even as our doors unhinge, eyes
turn to mirrors of broken glass.
The only way to keep warm now
is to build a dwelling out of the air,
draw invisible blankets to your chin,
painstakingly think a home around you.
Mine will have already open doors
too many rooms in case of children
I’ll call high windows into being
to watch the sky plait a million blues
and a family room for everyone
who may choose to be related.
I’ll put a tin roof on my dreams
for any young tom with stentorian boots
that’s silly enough for love. Even though
the cupboards open to echo
people who pass by will stop amazed
that such a house can take its shape
though never, I know, in envy.
So now I’ve no recourse but to live.
This is the house my hunger built:
the pain stays where you want it.
Undoubtedly South Africa’s foremost male poet!