opinion
Poem
Poem
February 8, 2020
The once-white lady dipped her hands
into a faceless mass at the border
she said, I’m the one to give you a face
as if she wasn’t the one who stole it
in the first place, someone must humanise
the mass, the migrant caravan, the babies
as if people can ever be less than people,
where did that idea come from I wonder
but never mind that for now, let us return
Poem
January 25, 2020
Ellen van Neerven
Paper ships, many fires
I know what you’re thinking
how can we save the world?
when we have barely
just survived it
when we have been disposed of
raped and murdered
erased and orphaned
and lost 90 per cent or more of our kin
Poem
February 1, 2020
the night before school starts,
our swimmer-tans fading,
we cheat, with gozleme,
from the woolworths fridge:
fry it golden, and crispy
on the heavy skillet
with slices of lemon,
to acid through guilt
Poem
December 21, 2019
Maxine Beneba Clarke
When the decade broke
the stroke of midnight,
december thirty-first, nineteen ninety-nine,
was going to end the world
at the hospital,
they brought generators in
even the food service staff
were kept till late evening
none of us would get to
aaaaah,
at the most expensive fireworks on earth,
lighting up a new century:
Poem
December 14, 2019
Maxine Beneba Clarke
Portfolio
the prime minister has
killed the department of the arts
and is rolling arts in with rail and roads
all of us have encountered
enough art
to know
the devastation,
in this symbolism alone
as if nothing beautiful
ever reached into his chest
and, beyond all logic,
moved him:
an exquisite string of words never
turned his world upside down,
or back upright again
Poem
December 7, 2019
Maxine Beneba Clarke
Indiscretions
my grandma, she loved diana:
the people’s princess, after all
she’d say
that was no accident;
how convenient for the royals
squinting knowingly into the distance
in her eerie seer’s way
the princess more adored than royalty
and her brown sweetheart,
out of the way
history tells us
british royalty are accountable
to none
Poem
November 30, 2019
Maxine Beneba Clarke
The panther
quick-footed
and poor-visioned,
sumatran rhinos
(unless raising young calf)
prefer
to live alone
in solitary ease,
and singing their shadow
Poem
December 21, 2019
Maxine Beneba Clarke
When the decade broke
the stroke of midnight,
december thirty-first, nineteen ninety-nine,
was going to end the world
at the hospital,
they brought generators in
even the food service staff
were kept till late evening
none of us would get to
aaaaah,
at the most expensive fireworks on earth,
lighting up a new century:
Poem
December 14, 2019
Maxine Beneba Clarke
Portfolio
the prime minister has
killed the department of the arts
and is rolling arts in with rail and roads
all of us have encountered
enough art
to know
the devastation,
in this symbolism alone
as if nothing beautiful
ever reached into his chest
and, beyond all logic,
moved him:
an exquisite string of words never
turned his world upside down,
or back upright again
Poem
December 7, 2019
Maxine Beneba Clarke
Indiscretions
my grandma, she loved diana:
the people’s princess, after all
she’d say
that was no accident;
how convenient for the royals
squinting knowingly into the distance
in her eerie seer’s way
the princess more adored than royalty
and her brown sweetheart,
out of the way
history tells us
british royalty are accountable
to none
Poem
November 30, 2019
Maxine Beneba Clarke
The panther
quick-footed
and poor-visioned,
sumatran rhinos
(unless raising young calf)
prefer
to live alone
in solitary ease,
and singing their shadow
Poem
November 23, 2019
temptress
the redhead
on the matchbox
is all charcoal lash
she wears a do it smile,
like eve’s
to adam
Poem
November 16, 2019
Maxine Beneba Clarke
Surveillance
the blood-truth is:
it’s much less about the camera
and much more to do with the body
that it’s worn on
the body with the baton
hanging from its belt, the body
in blue, the body on the cop beat
clenching fists around a point-blank
pepper-spray can, the body
who holds the rein, that rears the riot
horse, the body trained
to wield
the gun
