Carry On

Torn between two
worlds she wanted
She grimaced while
smiling.

Midnight hours
and 2 a.m. moments
weren't any good
to assuage the pain
and pleasure of things forgotten
and desired.

Sometimes the reality
of dreaming hurts
more in every passing
second moment hour
and day.

28 October 2012
©Eleanor Clark

letters

writing letters
across this time and space
i read between the lines
and hope to trace
the lines of eyes
and mouth
and lips
that whisper
closely of love
and dreams
of hope
and fear
and who you are
and me
and us.

19 october 2012
©eleanor clark

chemical love

why do i love the things i do?

the people i love?

the ones i trust?

what cocktail of chemicals

fire infatuated synapses

to result in such 

tizzy-dizzy-crushing

twitterpatedness?

who am I -
dopamine addict
mixed up in this norepinephrine
induced high
of attraction?

adrenalin-racing heart
in this serotonin seduction
when you smile.

consciously-
subconscious
falling
for
you.

14 october 2012

©eleanor clark

untitled - 1999

Why must you pretend to be

What you are not

To play a role

To act a part

Or are you content to be a sheep

To follow only where others dare to tread

Must another write the lines you so diligently rehearse

Acting out the script of another's life and birth?

And if this you do

And cannot try another way

To forge your own path

To live your own life

Learn

late 1990's©Eleanor Clark

untitled - 1998/2001

In the safety of my mother's womb

I am secure and at peace.

I wallow in my underwater world,

wading, sucking out the marrow of 

life

through my umbilical  IV line.

I feel the ice-cold chills of fear,

the unknown.

The frigid hand of death stretches

out,

grabbing, grasping, yanking

me away from the world I know. 

It leaves me without a choice.

I cannot ever choose

to love, to laugh, to cry;

to graze my knee or

feel the tender

touch of my mother's hand

or feel my father's arms embrace

my mind.

I have not had the choice

to worry, to have good as well as bad.

Now I will never feel  raindrops,

hear thunder roll,

taste lemondrops and  kisses,

and I will never dance in the moonlight

or choose to live at all.

You have made my choice.

In my silent scream I leave.

Until we meet face to face within

a better place where you may see

what I was and might have been.

1998/2001

©eleanor clark 

Hallway Romance

walking past you

a thousand times,

I've never seen your face.

until

I waken to this consciousness.

you never leave,

you're always there.

I meet you

and the awkwardness

seems mirrored,

in the start and jump,

flustered hand gestures we make.

your eyes meet mine,

holding them infinitely,

shunning them at the same time.

intensity surges and

in silence you go your way,

and I mine.

perhaps you feel this consciousness,

I feel you feel it - 

this I can't explain,

I cannot say why this is so.

you do not speak

except,

when you do, I am there

and not where we were before and

I feel a split-second connection -

something there,

our tentative feelings seem to meet,

entwine in midair -

collapsing as we try to bridge the gap

you and I cannot recognise -

yet,

you stare and I stare back.

and we look away.

2002

©eleanor clark

Bombs & Dreams

I fear the death knell

Of a thousand hopes and dreams

Snuffed out at moment's notice.

Can we thrust the dagger and the spear,

And hope to live an aeon

Without blood and tears?

In bombs and bullets

We seek solutions

That never come.

◆

Love thrust out to darkness,

Weeps for want of light.

A beacon needed,

Rekindling what hope was lost

By greed of men, by

nations enslaving and enslaved.

That quiet words and gentle caresses

Become the enemy, seems

The nature of mankind.

August 2012

©Eleanor Clark

Haiku

Lawn frosted frozen

Scintillating moonlight cold

Thoughts of a heartbeat

©Eleanor Clark

Hope Unfurled

My life appears a jumble

of shattered hopes and dreams,

love unrealized,

passing moments wearied from tears

Yet in the corners lie

where light filtered treads

more winged hopes

and dreams unfilled to

unfurl in moments of doubting despair

Wearied heart and limbs

must yet wake another day

and face more,

unknown despair and doubt

Yet in the corners lie

amidst dappled light,

winged hopes and dreams

newborn in a future

where I must lay my hope and trust

22 April/ 23 May 2010

©Eleanor Clark

Amber Halls of Thought

how softly, how softly

do I tread the amber halls

of thought, where

the butterflies of lost imaginations

flutter, flitting to the 

flowers of my existence,

blossoms of the present,

wanderings of the future,

meanderings of the past.

how softly, how softly

do I hear the echoes sing.

these echoes that bewilder,

that clarify, that ring.

they dance among the shadows,

these ghost thoughts of my mind,

from butterflies, to echoes

to the very inner of my being.

if I watch and listen and

think, without a sound

these echoing wing-beats can

become the greatness of a moment

an inspiration for all time,

leading on the very secret of my existence

a legacy to leave behind.

if I softly, oh so softly tread

the amber halls of thought.

early 2002

©eleanor clark

Scars

The scars we wear on our souls
and wounded hearts
From patchwork memories
and thoughts.
Without them we are not.

©Eleanor Clark

Death Wells

Death wells inside

Bitter black water

Rising through

Mists of grey-tinged

light.

8 April 2012

©Eleanor Clark

Plaaskind

plaaskind – farm child

Bare feet grate across the stones

that scatter the driveway.

The toktokkie scuttles,                                                                                       toktokkie – African beetle

scurrying home;                                                                                         beetle that knocks its abdomen  

tapping appendages                                                                                             on the ground, making a 

tip-toeing on the burning ground.                                                                                   ‘toktokkie’ sound

Legs pump, throwing the body up the hill.

Sweat runs down

between shoulder blade canyons,

making rivulets

in the sweltering oven of baked sand and sun.

Hands shade eyes

looking over the koppie                                                                                                koppie – small hill, 

of waving cosmos.                                                                                       literally translated ‘little head’

Nostrils dilate

and the warm, acrid stench of

brown, drying grass in humid air                                                                       cosmos - a plant native to 

gushes into breathless lungs                                                                tropical America with rose, scarlet, 

ready to SHOUT as                                                                          purple and white flowers that grows 

the wind bends and whips the wattles                                                         prolifically in Southern Africa

in a wild and savage dance.

Above,                                                                                            wattle – a tough Australian tree of the 

thunder rolls as                                                                                  genus Acacia that grows throughout 

lightning                                                                                                                            Southern Africa

flickers

flashing

stabbing

the indigo summer sky.

Thunderheads toss and turn,

rolling around, inky, iron grey.

Heavy globs of water

pound the parched earth.

Cupped hands of mud

hold the rain in a tender grasp.

Wellington boots splash,

stirring swirls of drowning grass.

Sunshine blurts out

stark colours of the rainbow

arching across the veld.                                                                                             veld – South African

Drops of crystal glint,                                                                                                  savannah grassland

clinging to the delicate strands of a spider’s web.

Steam rises

in smoky pathways

leaving the ground reaching for mercy

pleading to the unforgiving sun.

Bare feet grate across the stones

and the toktokkie scuttles,

scurrying home.

sometime from late 1990’s to 2003

©Eleanor Clark 

In Death We Are The Same

In death we are the same.

Shrouded in that mystery'untouched

until we reach its shores.

In death we are the same

whether black or white

man or woman

nationality or creed.

The Ferryman may call

whether militant or babe

at dawn or dusk

at sea on land.

In death we are the same

while hated

no one is left

unmourned.

26 March 2012

©Eleanor Clark

Grief

Grieve
For the loss of what can never be again
For my mother -
land of my forefathers
Cradle of humanity
Weep
Silently
Outward
Adapting to the new
Faces of a new land
Which now must be
My motherland
October 2009
©Eleanor Clark

Foundations

I think perhaps that the 

God of Heaven

weeps

at 

rivers

and 

seas

of blood

shed throughout

the history of this world.

Innumerable lives

hewn 

down

left 

to drain

out

their

life's 

blood

in some cause or effort

long forgotten.

Their bodies are the soil

upon which we stand;

their life expended 

part of our mortality.

Yet, we do not know them,

and often do not care.

Why have we forgotten

the foundations upon

which we are built?

Why do we seek 

to let the rivers 
of blood
flow

again

and

again?

7 October 2012

©Eleanor Clark

ek onthou

ek onthou

'n tyd toe die walvisse gesing het,

diep en welluidend,

hoog en fyn,

liere van liefde;

ek onthou

'n tyd waneer die reënvoel geroep het,

nagalmend, spokend,

sangerig, sag

soos 'n slaapdeuntjie;

ek onthou 'n tyd van die wolwe se gehuil

die getjank van ou,

vergete volksoorleweringe;

vir die maan;

ek onthou

'n tyd toe die luiperd gebrul het,

hard en krassend,

waarskwuwend,

vir 'n ongesiene vyand;

en nou

ek hoor net die

v

a

l

l

e

n

d

e

reën,

wat kom

en gaan

en nie weer kom nie.

1997/1998
©eleanor clark

(translation available on request)

Earth and Stone

I am they which made me

with a thousand broken 

promises

of blood and sweat and

travailing tears.

I am they which killed

their brothers and their sons

in countless wars

'neath shadowed night

and scorching sun.

I am they which wept 

for those unreturned

and those remaining

bearing shameful burdens

and guilt and doubt.

I am they which weeps

in shame for deeds

I wish undone yet

for which I cannot atone

even at great cost.

I am they which seeks

to unmake pain and sorrow

'midst exile of my own

on foreign shores and silent

moments of isolated contemplation.

21 December 2011

©Eleanor Clark

Another Man's Son

Another man’s son’s son

came to this land
and took your father’s father’s father
and treated him as less than a man.

And made him toil
and sweat
to let another man
eat the bread that was not his.

And now for the sins
of my father’s father’s father
You son of another man’s son’s son
Have taken me

And cast me out
from my land
where I had hoped
to earn my bread by the sweat of my own brow.

But I understand
and do not begrudge you
Though my heart lives there still
Perhaps someday it can return

And laugh and live and sweat and toil
Where it does not matter
whose son’s son’s son
is whose.
1 August 2011
©Eleanor Clark

Steel and Fire

Women of steel and fire

laid infants 

in swaddling clothes of snow

and freshly frozen earth.

Cradles of cold 

beneath a blanket of

silent, weeping stars.

Women of iron and rusted

wagon ruts

forged pathways

of faith by dusty,

tear-stained cheeks,

and desperate hours of 

prayer and waking nights.

Women of faith conquered fear,

and left me with hope.

18/20 August 2011

©Eleanor Clark

Saviour

Worship at His feet,

Source of all Salvation.

Let Him bind your heart,

broken and ashamed.

Let Him heal your hurt,

pain, sorrow, and decay.

For He is the Master,

and He may.

4 November 2011
©Eleanor Clark

Holy Place

In days never to be forgotten

they went down,

stumbling upon a woodsy place

untouched

and seemingly insignificant, yet

verdant with promise

the tall trees witnesses

of a miracle

Light Divine

distilled as dew

at the waters edge

reflected in eddying

pools of thoughtful praise.

Truth restored.

power from on High to make clean

they stepped forward

immersed in Living Water,

rising forever changed,

the world washed away

restored for a moment to His presence

in gentle, quiet joy.

The trees still cradle truth and testimony,

dews gently distill.

My soul indelibly changed

infused with Living Water

Fed from on High

I go up.

May I never forget, and 

always tread quietly on hallowed ground.

2007

©Eleanor Clark