Romantic Irony Depend
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Arthur Nortje : Letter from Pretoria Central Prison
The bell wakes me at 6 in the pale spring dawn with the familiar rumble of the guts negotiating murky corridors that smell of bodies. My eyes find salutary the insurgent light of distances.
Waterdrops rain crystal cold, my wet face in ascent from an iron basin greets its rifled shadow in the doorway.
They walk us to the workshop. I am eminent, the blacksmith of the block: these active hours fly like sparks in the furnace, I hammer metals with zest letting the sweating muscles forge a forgetfulness of worlds more magnetic.
The heart, being at rest, life peaceable, your words filter softly through my fibres.
Taken care of, in no way am I unhappy, being changed to neutral. You must decide today, tomorrow, bear responsibility, take gaps in pavement crowds, refine ideas.
Our food we get on time. Most evenings
I read books, Jane Austen for elegance, agreeabless (Persuasion).
Trees are green beyond the wall, leaves through the mesh
Are cool in sunshine among the monastic white flowers of spring that floats
Prematurely across the exercise yard, a square of the cleanest stone I have ever walked on.
Sentinels smoke in their boxes, the wisps curling lovely through the barbed wire.
Also music and cinema, yesterday double feature.
At 4 pm it’s back to the cell, don’t laugh to hear how accustomed one becomes. You spoke
Of hospital treatment – I see the smart nurse
Bringing you grapefruit and tea – good luck to the troublesome kidney.
Sorry there’s no more space. But date your reply. p.134
Moyez J. Vassanji was born in Nairobi, Kenya in 1950 and raised in Tanzania. His parents were a part of a wave of Indians who immigrated to Africa. Vassanji studied at the University of Nairobi and then at MIT on a scholarship. He earned a Ph.D. in Nuclear Physics from the University of Pennsylvania. He worked at the Chalk River atomic power
Poems
Comments
Stats
Arthur Nortje : Letter from Pretoria Central Prison
The bell wakes me at 6 in the pale spring dawn with the familiar rumble of the guts negotiating murky corridors that smell of bodies. My eyes find salutary the insurgent light of distances.
Waterdrops rain crystal cold, my wet face in ascent from an iron basin greets its rifled shadow in the doorway.
They walk us to the workshop. I am eminent, the blacksmith of the block: these active hours fly like sparks in the furnace, I hammer metals with zest letting the sweating muscles forge a forgetfulness of worlds more magnetic.
The heart, being at rest, life peaceable, your words filter softly through my fibres.
Taken care of, in no way am I unhappy, being changed to neutral. You must decide today, tomorrow, bear responsibility, take gaps in pavement crowds, refine ideas.
Our food we get on time. Most evenings
I read books, Jane Austen for elegance, agreeabless (Persuasion).
Trees are green beyond the wall, leaves through the mesh
Are cool in sunshine among the monastic white flowers of spring that floats
Prematurely across the exercise yard, a square of the cleanest stone I have ever walked on.
Sentinels smoke in their boxes, the wisps curling lovely through the barbed wire.
Also music and cinema, yesterday double feature.
At 4 pm it’s back to the cell, don’t laugh to hear how accustomed one becomes. You spoke
Of hospital treatment – I see the smart nurse
Bringing you grapefruit and tea – good luck to the troublesome kidney.
Sorry there’s no more space. But date your reply. p.134
Moyez J. Vassanji was born in Nairobi, Kenya in 1950 and raised in Tanzania. His parents were a part of a wave of Indians who immigrated to Africa. Vassanji studied at the University of Nairobi and then at MIT on a scholarship. He earned a Ph.D. in Nuclear Physics from the University of Pennsylvania. He worked at the Chalk River atomic power