Alice Kriel

The beauty of slow decay
and the fragrance of dust-coated roses
Brittle leaves falling to the ground
leave the slumbering tree starkly bare
...

Breathing fills me
I quiver
Waiting, aching
The fine strands of you
...

Dusk is fastly falling
familiar sweet melancholy
covers and fills me
...

Floating on infinite blue
savouring solitude
reaching invisibly
until you/me touch we
...

Evening’s end is nigh,
seconds and sands of time
run through these hands of mine
and I lift my eyes to the sky:
...

At home –
what I feel when I am with you.
You listen to my heart breaking,
you help me pick up the pieces:
...

Low and grey they lie,
heavy and pregnant,
waiting to give life
to this land so ardent.
...

Rip off the masks
of manners and modesty.
Don’t wait to ask
when you already have the key.
...

Airskating of birds in flight
Nightly dawn of neon light
The undeserved gift of sight
...

When the only sounds are the calling of the amorous cats
and the clicking of time’s tiny heels,
my heartbeat makes me stagger
and my breath makes me weave where I lie.
...

light dances on river,
a moving marvel
sun and water make rainbow,
a beautiful illusion
...

There are too many faceless screams
and many more nameless diseases
in this grey concrete world.
...

At times I wish for isolation;
to run from the empty human race
Their words reach me: a senseless rumble
Their acts teach me: stagger and stumble
...

There you sat
guarding the door
of the space
I think of as my room.
...

Warm inside and then the light
Baby-blue and they tuck you in at night
“Nothing to fear, we’ll always be here”
They hold your hand and they hold you tight.
...

It is the first course:
Caught in cutlery
most seem lost for words
Hope yet has some force –
...

Whatever happened to my dreams?
They've shattered like so many mirrors,
Melted away like fallen icecream
...

You say you love me;
What of the sadness
I hide with my smile
which you never see?
...

Heat rising like a tidal wave
Clouds gather like an avalanche
Draw me to you like water to earth
And let the storm begin
...

I dreamt last night of a mysterious forest,
I dreamt of a most beautiful place.
...