Episode Poem by Charl JF Cilliers

Episode



(I) - THE SUDDEN FOUNTAIN

At last light
one evening
on an empty
quiet shore
walking alone
amongst the blown leaves
remember?
we saw shell-pink flamingos,
foaming and fountaining up,
dazzle our eyes with snow.


(II) - IDIOT CHILD

(1)


The anaesthetic slips from my body
like discarded clothes.
I lie in trembling nakedness a while.
A doctor’s white shape looms nearby:
my question trembles
like a bird’s wings in the sun.
I need not ask. His melancholy smile
tells me I am the mother of this child.

(2)

Later I heal and leave
the institution: patched up,
I walk out into dissolution.

(3)

Each day I prop
his flopping arms and head into a chair
and share with him this idiot sincerity:
wipe his snot, clean up the slop
(for I am the one who still has some control) ,
shore up his smiles, as meaningless as mine,
and know each day, empty even of disgust,
we have a chance to start again:

(4)

clean up the muck, wipe his snot,
again watch him timidly smile
at me over sour edges of my despair.
Desire in me rings like aftertones
of a plucked string. Child of my echoes,
how I wish I did not
so hopelessly want you near.



(III) - WHO CAN GUESS?

In quiet black skies
a supernova bursts
upon our shadowed eyes.
Who, watching our bright
bursting love, can guess
what’s left is only light?

Thursday, October 15, 2015
Topic(s) of this poem: metaphysical
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Charl JF Cilliers

Charl JF Cilliers

Cape Town, South Africa
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