1. aside: the artist's rights are not important anymore. shut up about the artist. this is a national project now.

2. you don't understand how government works.

3. you are right. i don't understand how it does not work. 

4. either.

5. for art? are you mad. note: no question mark.

6. i will be arrested. how many disadvantaged rural woman will benefit? from art? what is this art? they will be put me and the DG in jail.

7. brown is the colour of poverty.

8. but no one will see it if it is brown. it's supposed to be bright blue. like the sea. just like poverty, it will be invisible if it is brown.

9. don't interrupt me young lady. brown is the colour of poverty.

10. and my hair.

11. and your beautiful assistant's skin.

12. i don't know why you are at this meeting. who asked you?

13. i think we should get together in the premier business lounge so i can explain to you how government works.

14. no. she can't come in here. she is not a member.

15. whispers aside. ok. give her one biscuit.

16. you must fly here right now so we can shout at you.

1. you will be pleased to know

2. the bedtime story has been given a gift that will soon make it wireless 

3. on the corner of bezuidenhout & viljoen in troyeville, a webcam

4. will broadcast you hanging out in the park 

5. by invisible threads to my fingers, from which to the wuwuwu ha

5. if you go there, take a picnic if it is warm or a blanket if it is winter

6. we, the whole parliament*, interrupt this list to bring you a seasonal advertisement

7. for old brown sherry with chilli in it

8. raw, fresh chilli, cut, carefully, with a sharp knife

9. strained out the next day, or to taste

10. in a small thin crystal glass 

11. for winter is upon us

12. music

13. fades

13. and in the latest news

14. despite having recently failed her annual inspection

15. dismally

16. i might add

17. #lesmiserables remains banished

*phrase coined by Phillippa Yaa de Villiers, credited also here with apologies to Nadine Hutton for stealing Free Sushi For All in the interests of sloganeering around town though there is really no excuse. Recipe by Jacqueline Perkules unless she got it from someone else I do not have a clue.

I find Syria in a banquet-ing hall in Vereeniging

on the corner of an avenue and Joubert

Syria is on the big screen, inside the loud video, the technical problem,

the pathetic procession in a silver suit that takes to the stage

with a hop, in a bow and a scrape, and,

inside the stand for the man who speaks statistic

and on all the logos, on the VIP name tags

pinned on us

We are on list s. We have put ourselves on lists.

We have no war here. We are impended.

 Syria is my mirror on the wine bucket, not a mirage

but a desert, also in silver, shining, empty to match the glasses

We call for water and the waiters’ sweat glistens in the spot

While we wait for the fruits of the vine (and aircon) but find none

Though I think I see Syria, again, there, in satin  

on the sash of Miss Vereeniging herself, emblazoned

 at the replete round table, next to ours

She is not Fadwa Soliman no and I

am not either

And this is not Syria. This is Vereeniging.

Images: Vereeniging Banqueting Hall from the parking lot; footprints cut into the doorway of the Ain Dara Temple, Syria. Sourced with thanks from the Commons Wiki. The Ain Dara temple might be King Solomon's Temple and it might not. It probably is not but what do I know? What? They have found similarities - you can gistologise this yourself on the pedia. Syria will never be Vereeniging though I found it there.

i have solved everything. ha!

it is a pronunciation issue.

that is all.

it is said that those who do not like this idea have tendencies that manifest in guns and money.

so duck.

be kind.

and mischievious.

for containers

replete scream

shock’s distance

voice lost

your silence

numbers repeated

in no order

echo

absolution offered

corner beggar

stretching midget

giant hands

almost kissed

neighbour’s lips

word utter

word unknown

word gone

slow breath

empty promise

echo

longing vein

language free

general love

no schedule

no particularity

doubt rite

steel blade

sharpened for

lonely girl

locked inside

father’s faith

room of names

trapdoor found

shut down

shame of men

echo

no testament

not old

not new

nor third

knows meaning

but looks

for it

under rocks

child died

unscheduled grief

no container

for tongues

do not speak  

only when spoken to

echo

1. Schultz The Cat, today.

2. The sound of Schultz, also today.

3. The fifteen years since Schultz adopted us one night in the rain.

4. The names we used to call Schultz before he told our friend Willem his name was Schultz, long ago. These were  Catastrophe, Catatonic and other rude words starting with C-a-t.

5. The night that Schultz spoke English out loud to our friend Willem, at the fireside, long ago.

6. The phone call we got from Willem's wife Tonia (the next day) to say Willem was freaked out because the cat spoke to him in English. Out loud. She said he said the cat said "Tell these people my name is Schultz."

7. The milk for Schultz.

8. The particularly territorial nature Schultz lent to the atmosphere here in highveld indigenous.

9. The ways we had to learn to live with each other.

10. In the Psalm of My Hand, a poem that was right here, briefly, before this post took its place, also today.

11. Shortlived.

12. The long life

Who knows where they went and what is to become of them?

He used to get comfortable with you, on your lap, for long by the fire. When you were completely at peace he'd put the claw in fierce. We became estranged. When the plague of rats ran through the wider reserve we went to find a new, young cat. On the way there we decided to look for two so they would be a bit of a team staking their claim to Schultz's turf. Schultz would have you killed by the dogs. He had done it before I felt it in the atmosphere between us, me and the dogs and the cat.

We came home with three kittens

Schultz found himself older, repositioned. I gave him milk and confessed to him. None of the others get milk. I am happy he died quietly at home, and sad. The silence of a few cars going past. Wondering, who was Schultz.

The puppy wakes up ecstatic, tap dancing on the wooden floors like there's no tomorrow. She has nil memory of having been attacked and nearly dying from Ginger's sharp teeth puncture wounds, 100% finished with trauma. Forever.  I was convinced, and so completely sadly, that her enthusiastic illusion of a life to look forward to, had been cruely stolen from her in that one shocking moment, so fragile and young - but I was stupid, stupid me, forgetting what young is in my own now boring dispute with it.  She is beside herself with abandoned love (for us!) and the frisky breeze that goes up her behind like bright mischief.

Flower is drinking my tea, dipping her whole cat face inside the mug, lapping away loudly with a long tongue, and her sister, the most indolent of beauties, the one you like, Piaf, chases last night's red fizzpop wrapper around on the carpet, a bright crinkly insect, a silliness for her unguarded smouldering pose. Their big brother, my big Romeo, is lolling like a lazy fire on the deck in this shining sun, utterly disinterested, licking himself clean and staring me out with fierce eyes. What does he care for #slutwalks and the corridors of power? Good.

Last night I found this 'learn Yiddish free online course' and thought I could do it with a view to becoming the heroine at the simcha table for Rosh Hashana in September. So I download it. Turns out to be a few family-style videos by this hell of a character old lady called Millie who is having big nachas being filmed and telling stories. In one of them, she tells a legendary joke which I bet my whole family over 70 knows already:

There's these two women and the one asks the other if she remembers some guy and the other says no, remind me. So she says you know that guy with the weird arm and she says nah I don’t remember. So the first one says you know he had a crippled arm and a squiff leg? But the second one still says nah she does not recall. Finally the women telling the story says you know him man: he had that funny arm and a messed up leg and his nose was always running.

Oh! of course exclaims the second. I remember him very well - he was so good looking.

I’m liable to learn more Yiddish from my  mom. We started off this mission of one word a day a while back and a few have made their way onto #lesfolies place of outburst. Ferblunjit means all mixed up. The picture btw is an x-ray of my boy Chili's four giant wisdom teeth. Impacted. I like the picture. It's a smiling ferblunjit.

When someone is raped you should treat them like they have just been nearly murdered. They have. They need you to bring them love and flowers and make a fuss and talk for hours about what happened. While they tremble it out and you all cry and find reasons to be grateful for being alive.

When someone is raped they need their granny. Granny needs to be strong. Granny knows life is not a bed of fucking roses. She can handle it. She's seen stuff I promise. And your dad will get over his castration fixation. If you talk it through, the bunch of you might even come to terms with why people hurt each other. That would be useful. More useful than death penalties and lynch mobs which, radical as they are, treat only the symptom.

There is not enough loving going on.

Try to imagine that the person who has just been raped and survived has actually just survived being run over by a bus. Treat her like that and you are closer.

Well I could have done with a dose like that. Instead of The Family Secret. The Society's Shame. Which is most unhelpful. 26 (very) odd years since I was raped and here we are, still pandering to those who want to talk about rape as if it should be a comfortable conversation, or easy chat, something you can keep from every one else by glossing over it before you read the next day's news, something that will go away by itself, or a single tranquilizer pushed across a polished dark wood desk by a doctor who means well.

The strange forms of silencing. I didn't get the: "you asked for it because of what you were wearing" because I was wearing a black tracksuit when he woke me up. Instead, I got the: "you need to think hard about why you brought this onto yourself" by (arguably also well-meaning) folk who were big on karma in those days and who also thought I would buy their pretty quartz crystals to ward off my jinx. At my ongoing cost.

All that stuff about shame and "she does not want to talk about it" is used to protect the family - the larger family - from the difficulty of it not having been a bus. It is also used to make sure that rapists and the societies that make them do not actually have to be confronted with the truth. Which is that they - we - are really not very well.

Rape survivors do not need reasons to keep quiet. They do not need to find appropriate language to explain themselves to so-called conservatives. There is something perverse about the so-called conservative who says they want to discuss brutality in a nice clean envelope. I am going to call them peversatives from now on. They remind me of something my brother-in-law said (he heard it somewhere else I think as well): "The difference between the fascist and the democrat is that the democrat washes their hands before they cut out your heart."

Going on a walk called a #slutwalk is supposed to be confusing and wild for people who think that words about fucking rape should be dignified-up for a decent conversation to occur. There is enough dressing up. There is enough silence. And mostly, there is enough silencing. While we are distracted into explaining ourselves in language that is considered acceptable, we are distracted from the issue: we want to go for walks dressed however we like - i.e. we want men and women to be safe from each other. And they are not.

Why? Why is it the great-granny who makes sure of the clitorodectomy? What bad habits do we live by?

We want every one to be nice. Ja, that's sweet. I know. Why are we not?

A lot of men are being raped. They must be even worse sluts than me there's so much silence about it.

There should be a lot more unpleasant, open and honest conversation using harsh words and difficult phrases and until there is, there is just going to be a lot more rape, near murder, similar, horror.

This is not a happy conversation.

One of the reasons I am going on #slutwalk is because I am looking forward to wearing something that enables me to feel the sun on my back and my front and my legs - in public and safely. That is not extraordinary. Is it?

Shew. It's been a long time since I was brave enough to be a living creature. Either some maniac is going to hit you on the head and take your power from you because he has none. Or some person playing intellectual headmistress-headmistress is going to tell you to behave yourself. Nah. I got this great pair of gold hot pants with tassels and my son says I'm going to look like I made them out of curtains. Can't wait.

I have reason to be pulling a great train in chaotic atmosphere, of urgency and buildings, levels, crannies, in sepia and steamed colour, the movie Brazil without electronics, to the sound of breathing.

There is a a tangle of pale-blue paper ribbon, gift ribbon for presents at a kitchen-tea, tied badly with many stupid knots, ugly contortions in close-up around my waist in a pathetic harness, and a team who are blurred, but running with me, running, breathing, somewhere there, I am not alone.

As we move, they are helping to tighten the fraying edges, the splitting strips, flying far behind me, streams of sky-coloured childishness attached to the wild dark train, to bolts, to windows, wound around, and to me, where the strain is so short at the edge it is a ludicrous still shot, and it pulls as I pull, and it loosens against the tension and I have to run so that there is enough give for them to take it off as I move, so they can hold and retie it again and again in more stupid gnarls of blue becoming dirty, and as they do, I see the inside of hands, raw and red, mine as well, as we run.

The train hurtling, on and off tracks, a monster caught, taut, with lights flashing and disappearing round sharp corners at breackneck and unpredictable. Is there a driver?

We though, are methodical, we know what we are doing, the team rushing back to rewind and twist the ribbon through the windows of carriages, over and around the engine roof, tighter and tighter, while I, the puller, choose convuluted paths, headlong up stairs, through workshop yards, deep basements and ground floor receptions cluttered and narrow, pulling, running, running for long and in details and for distance. There is a sense that we are young.

The dream speeds up, tightens toward the end, the train is close, reckless rushing to our breathing, we disentangle, we cut me loose I don't know how or when, we run as it blows and shouting and fire takes the city. We turn to watch. Standing and watching our work. We do this, all of this, on purpose.

 Image source: Wikimedia Commons, captioned "Train Wreck" cluster, composite view, Chandra X-ray observatory site, Harvard University.

the backdrop to the day/week/month/year/life. a moving wall of forms. with white noise. hopefully the hereafter is either really nothing or there are no photocopy machines in heaven. registered at birth. receipted daily. my race is fast and i sign myself off as osama at the security desk, nothing particularly original about that but it gives me a lift. you must see the forms when someone dies. no actually you must not. they are not miracles. the boom once came down on the car. there is a place in sandton central where there is no sidewalk and you have to walk in the road with your granny. they let the outdoor advertising company steal a lane of road to put up a billbored. god help you if you want to take a photograph in a public place without getting a permit.

today i had to sign this form quickly. it was printed in the legal minimum limit of 6pt font size. it was, apparently, evidence of me agreeing to the consumer protection act. i asked the guy eric to tell me what it meant. he said he could give me a copy to take home to read. after i signed it. this is just the second page. i said no fuck it i don't want it and then i took a quick picture in case i decided to inflct it on you too. in case you didn't get enough forms to fill in yourself this week.

actually i am in quite a good mood.