Charl-Pierre Naudé
afrikaans
Athena’s breastplate
My girl is facing her image in the mirrror.
With the faintest trace
of concern the one gazes at the other.
The two of them were born
at the same time
and in the selfsame place.
And since then
these sisters have been reaching out
to the other by hand,
across the unstirable silicon river
which separates them for ever.
They stare one another down.
Each is the other’s play doll
from childhood –
and on the birthday
of every new day
each gets delivered to the other
in an identical carton.
This mirror image of something,
this replica-striving-for-zero-difference,
is what allows for the “natural” to flow
into what is super- or un-
natural, or simply unusual.
Metastasis – otherwise seen
a Siamese twin –
doesn’t differ much
from the second chamber of the House of Representatives;
or the disaffiliated state;
and that burlesque notion
called evil is nothing
but a fairground looking glass
playing grotesque.
Then still you have to arrive
at that point of shrewd doubling-by-default
known as the soul,
comparable to an life-support lung,
or being seated on a tricycle.
Every day my girl gathers these shimmerings
which she sees
as her personal canopy of stars,
in her feminine basket –
her dressing mirror.
Under a summer tree
two boys are collecting berries;
the one arranges his compilation
into a visage, the other’s depiction
resembles the corrals of a sheep farm.
Imagine:
One can pick the selfsame far-off fruit
– tiny oranges by the sea, tiny
oranges in the hinterland –
in the molecule orchards
of either Jesus’s cloak or
the turban of Mohammed.
No joke, one can go out
and do the plucking
for such breathtaking,
widely distinguishable bouquets
recognisable as “words”,
as things
or thought constructs.
Drifting in
on the wind from outside
is a drum solo
that comes to within earshot.
It’s a pointillist draft
on the tympanum,
a delineation that wrings
into something seen, and from there
it becomes a mental conception;
viewed from one angle:
a palace built of knobkerries;
and differently: a heavenly spread
of teeming, hardheaded demigods.
I turn my sights to the nocturnal expanse
and I swing my sickle for a harvest:
stars cascade with a crackle
into my
concave crucible;
like atoms that in their small turn
would whirl together alchemically
in systems.
Then I sweep the blinding specks
into a small heap and whack them
into artifact like an iron monger.
The tinkling sound
of an earthly roof takes shape
from the surrounding chaos
in which time travel and space mechanics
reach equal
to myth and the faiths.
My oneday species and I
remind one another
of the other like swarming mosquitoes.
Abuzz we are beneath
the breastplate of Athena.
She left it here on her rivergrass patch
beneath the trees,
a short while ago
when she went inside for a nap.
And thus we remain
(amid countless tiny bustling facts),
a tribute to a mould
of the breathing deities.
From: unpublished
Audio production: Literaturwerkstatt Berlin, 2015
Athena se harnas
My vrou staan voor haar spieëlbeeld.
Met net ’n sweem besorgdheid
kyk die een na die ander.
Die twee is op een plek
en oomblik gebore,
en sedertdien
strek dié susters vergeefs
hande na mekaar uit
oor die onverstoorbare silikonstroom
wat hul ewig skei.
Hulle staar na mekaar;
elk is die ander se pop
uit kinderjare –
op die verjaardag van elke dag
telkens weer afgelewer
in identiese bokse.
Hierdie iets-se-spieëlbeeld,
die weergawe strewende na geen-verskil,
is wat die “natuurlike” so onopsigtelik
laat vervloei tot wat bo- of onnatuurlik
of buitengewoon is.
Metastase – ánders gesien:
’n Siamese tweeling –
verskil nie veel
van die Volksraad met ’n tweede kamer nie;
of van die afgestigte staat;
en daardie burleske idee
genaamd boosheid,
is maar net
die sirkusspieël-wat-potsierlik-speel.
Dan moet mens nog uitkom
by die vernuftige dubbeldmaak-by-verstek:
die siel –
vergelykbaar met ʼn kunslong,
of ʼn driewiel.
Elke dag versamel my vrou dié skitterings
wat sy herken
as haar uitspanseltjie sterre
in haar meisiemandjie,
in haar eie spieël.
Onder ’n somerboom
maak twee seuns bessies bymekaar;
een rangskik sý versameling
tot ’n gelaat, die ander een s’n lyk
soos die houkrale van ’n plaas.
Dink net:
Jy kan dieselfde verre vrugte
– lemoentjies by die see, lemoentjies
uit die binneland –
loop pluk
in die partikeltjieboorde
van óf Jesus se kleed óf Mohammed se tulband.
Jou werklikwaar, mens kan dit
versamel vir sulke asembenemende,
uiteenlopende rankskikkings
herkenbaar as “woorde”,
as dinge
of dink-samestellings.
Op die wind van buite
dryf ’n tromsolo tot binne hoorafstand …
dis ’n stippeltekening
op die oor,
en dié voorstelling spring
tot ooglikheid,
en van daar tot geestesbeeld;
van een kant gesien:
’n paleis gebou van stokke,
en ánders: ’n hemeltrans
van vervloeiende, hardkoppige gode.
Ek rig my blik op die nagtelike uitspansel
en lig my sekel gereed vir die oes:
Sterre stort ritselend
tot langs my in my konkawe smeltkroes
soos atome wat op hul klein beurt
ver uit mekaar en alchemisties
in stelsels dryf.
Dan vee ek die spikkels op ʼn hoop
en smee dit tot artefak soos ʼn ystersmid.
Uit die omringende baaierd waarin
reise in die tyd en die ruimtemeganika
saam met die mites en gelowe reik,
boetseer ek ʼn dak hier ondermaans.
My eendagspesie en ek
zoem hier soos muskiete
wat mekaar aan mekaar herinner,
onder die harnas van Athena
wat sy net ’n rukkie gelede nog neergesit het
op haar kweekgras
en ingegaan het om te gaan rus;
en so bly ons (onwetend
weens al die wemelende wetetjies)
’n huldeblyk aan die gode en godinne.