Leaving the body and soaringlike a drone,flying just above the bombed buildings and seeingthe child’s hands,the woman’s boot,the smashed cornices,the … Read More
The Triumph of Phoebe
Recently, three children, under the exact instruction of their father, tortured a puppy and then set her alight. Her terrible … Read More
Note Nine to Vladimir Putin: In the Words of Wilfred Owen
In each lifetime there are certain books that should be read more than once for they caution against the catastrophic … Read More
Note Eight to Vladimir Putin: The Old Woman on Day Eighty-Four of the Russia-Ukraine War
That old womanlived through the Holodomor the second of the World Wars Stalin.She ate weeds and chewed leather.Now your cock … Read More
Note Seven to Vladimir Putin: Three Angels on Day Seventy of the Russia-Ukraine War
There are three Angels. Into their bronzelight, steps your mother bearinga loaf of dark breadand red cherry juice in a … Read More
Notes Five and Six to Vladimir Putin During the Russia Ukraine War
Note Five on Day Thirty-four Now look!You’ve burst the buttons of your pompous Emperor jacket—Those little buttons made of children’s … Read More
The Solitary Traveller
It was with great pleasure that I recently represented Poetry in McGregor in launching David Friedland’s new book “The Solitary … Read More
Notes to Vladimir Putin following the invasion of Ukraine
Note One: On the Tenth Day You seem to share, with all tyrants,a fetish for piled corpsesfor eyeballs blown from … Read More
The Archbishop Is Dead! Long Live the Archbishop!
Last Thursday, I was privileged to attend, with my daughter, the honouring and celebration of Archbishop Tutu’s life. The eulogies … Read More
Barbed wire around the human heart
What can be done about those now labelled Migrants and Refugeesthose caught up on the border between Belarus and Polandthose … Read More
Refurbishing the human heart through poetry
Poetry in McGregor recently held two Literary Aperitifs at Woodlands Eatery in Cape Town. These were in anticipation of the … Read More
In the Small Matter of Conscience
Some days have an extraordinary measure to them as did today.I woke long before dawn.The moon, waning, was still quite … Read More
The Tiers of Charity
Wednesday is garbage day in my area and there is always an interesting juxtaposition between what is thrown out by … Read More
The Great Fire of 2021
I was in the Cederberg mountains when the Great Fire of 2021 consumed the library of the University of Cape … Read More
The Arrows of Fate
THE ARROWS OF FATE Every Thursday for the past five weeks, I have travelled the M5 from Cape Town to … Read More
Reflecting on Confinement
I heard tell of a man who was wrongly accused of murder and spent forty-three years in solitary confinement, in … Read More
“Farewell! A long farewell to all your greatness”
Sometimes a person enters your life and you instantly have the sense of ‘Friend’. Many years may go by, in … Read More
Art & poems of release & redemption
I went seeking art while confined during the Corona Lockdown. This was found at various times of each day, looking … Read More
Human Silence During ‘Lockdown’
Now the planet rests. For the first time since industrialisation, we have ceased to overpower the sounds of the natural … Read More
Compassion during a time of pestilence
Yesterday, on Easter Sunday, the Italian tenor, Andrea Bocelli gifted the world with a concert that was streamed live on … Read More
Day one of 21-day coronavirus seclusion
Now we enter a 21-day period of seclusion.It is an essential seclusion, ordained by government in the face of pestilence.Yet … Read More
Found confessions relating to our abuse of the natural world
I have long considered that we are already within an ecological apocalypse— it is not something coming— it’s here. The … Read More
Dismantling war and seeding peace
November holds the anniversary of the 1918 Armistice, signed at Le Francport, “at the eleventh hour of the eleventh day … Read More
Stop all the clocks, cut off the telephone
I spend my professional life as a novelist and as a curator of anthologies. So I work, on the one … Read More
Forgotten Liberators—Vigilance against Nazism and fascism
Denis Goldberg, aged 86, is one of two Rivonia Trialists still alive. The second is Andrew Mlangeni. They were sentenced … Read More