Memory Poem by Frank Meintjies

from the bottom draw
i withdraw my things
wrapped in a piece of musty cloth

i flip through pictures
here's my friend, saracen
who bullied me
here's the priest, father dutch-reform
who stole my innocence

eyes burrow into folders
here's a letter, stamped, the official orders
that border-lined my soul
there the certificates of labelling
from the department of impure affairs
- originalo declared mixed-breed
there, misfiled, in a yellowed newspaper, stories of sipho, ahmed, dikobe, faizel
caught in steel nets

my inverted periscope peers beneath
the placid surface
of this desk
this room, these holding files

we remember to forget
we remember our way into the future
remembering is about forgetting, said jacques
the teasing uneasing sagacious owl

we peel open to heal

i grasp my forgetting, i want that future
with its melange of messages
i have a right to my peeling, the sprinkling of rawness, i want to grow
towards some light

i walk outside
the children play
i kick the ball, i leap
catch a frisbee
our dog, an SPCA 'special', joins in
galloping this way and that
the early sun is out
the day crisp
next week is my birthday
the carefree days
glinting in tree-branches
i remember what i choose to
or what is imposed
by my misfiring mind
remembering is selective
flashes of a time, fragments, fissures
of a life

i want to create anew
my memory is my friend, following me
memory is a time traveller
wandering
for generations

memory & i
looking for that elusive home

i laugh, i go on
occasionally i drink to forget
sex is a balm - I cuddle
the imaginary woman in my poem
i say: come, sexscape with me
& with late-night friends
i say: to hell with truth, what about justice
the next morning, i recant, take back the more outrageous things I've said