Three from Carapace 78
Editorial
Welcome to Issue no 78. A lovely mixture of long and short poems, some international contributions and, as always, the delightful work of Mangaliso W Buzani.
Gus Ferguson
Cover by Ann Walton: ‘Verbus’.Oil on canvas. Enquiries 085 456 7771.
Contributors to Carapace issue 78
Mike Alfred, Mangaliso W Buzani, Michael Cope, Patrick Cullinan, Lise Day, Gail Dendy, CJ Driver, Helen Frankel, Eliza Galgut, Dawn Garisch, Damian Garside, Alex Halligey, Hillary Hamburger, Rosemund Handler, Norbert Hermann, Hugh Hodge, Liesl Jobson, Clive Lawrance, Chris Mann, Medzani Musandiwa, Tolu Ogunlesi, Harry Owen, Beverley Pierce, Elizabeth Trew, Sheila Vanderplank, Crystal Warren, Alessio Zanelli, Lucas Zulu
Three from Carapace issue 78
Ink & Blood
I sink my teeth into cities
to taste the ink concealed
away in bookstores;
chew virgin maps, home
to landscapes untrod by human eyes,
and like a psychic fire detector
gauge the bolts of electric energy
from every traffic light making plans
to cast a stern gaze
upon my tireless feet.
Achebe marks the dog-eared boundaries
of Uppsala; Rushdie and Adichie dissolve
in haste into the multi-cultured ink of Birmingham,
Muldoon has no objections
to having his words vaccinated
before they step into the Rainbow Nation;
Lagos crams feuding writers on a single page
so that ink and blood leak
into all the pages lying beneath.
Ibadan is a sluggish maiden,
courted by out-of-print books
(and the occasional out-of-muse writer).
I sink my feet beneath the skin of far-flung cities
to flow like blood through vessels lit
by the flashlights of tourists unimaginative as cancer
I sink my teeth into cities
to taste the ink concealed
beneath the banality of blood…
– Tolu Ogunlesi
*
Another Banker
The Japanese banker bows, politely:
‘My father was a teacher too,’ he says:
‘Not an economist, nor sociologist;
But a real scholar – a calligrapher.’
– CJ Driver
from Hong Kong Portraits
*
A Poet Encounters Yeats
I went into the bramble grove
Because a ghost was in my blood,
And driven by nostalgic love
I penned a poem that was dud –
The dullest verse that ever strove
To imitate, with rhythmic thud.
The flatness closing in, I fled.
The brambles tore my shins to shreds.
– Michael Cope
*
Carapace in Little White Bakkie
