HARBOUR
I am at the harbour
looking for
thinking about, well,
harmony
but people believe
I see the world so differently
for me any kind of harmony
is going
to be difficult to achieve
in the quayside cafe I sit
watching the ships arrive
watch
them leave
in my coffee tiny things
appear to be swimming
as small
as ants, or even smaller
like atoms
or electrons
if I stir my tea the wrong way
suddenly it will become
the coffee
I should have
ordered in the first place
the coffee you believe
yoy saw me drinking
but a moment ago
and there we shall be back
in Duncan Dock Cape Town
April 64
and the mail liner passenger ship
that brought me
having just berthed divulging
my parents younger sister
and tiny (but not
molecule-small) two-
year
old brother
me never having been born
or not narrowly having
drowned in
the ship’s first class
pool
me thinking I could swim
me thinking
myself capable of anything
a whole wide workd and
brave
new land
to conquer (young
British boy
do we not
always conquer?)
and so I push off in
the deep end
make a few strokes
and go under
time enough for chat
with God
a terrifying few seconds with him
chance for him to explain
me eternity
and how alternate history
fits into that picture.
Tea coffee. Tea coffee.
Coffee tea. Cannot make my mind up in the queue for
hot beverages
maybe need a dice
or something
and here we are
where we were
sans little boy braggart
British confidence
long sans apartheid
and any kind of attachment
to any former self
perhaps this is
my gift, my redemptive
sole contentment
perhaps
here at the harbour
watching ship after ship
where I am not a passenger
arrive
depart
I can enjoy whatever harmony
this is and
what it might now mean
poems 2 die for 