(after Gert Vlok Nel)
I
At Helderberg College in Summerset West
you were far past beautiful
& we were very in love with each other
where you were almost a teacher
& I was studying business,
the sun gleamed in your eyes, your smile
& your lips were soft & sweet
& I was summoned by Peter van As (a dean)
where they believed that we were wooing each other in public
& photographs he displayed
about standing too near to you
& daily he exercised in the gym,
did grab me by the breast
& pushed me up against the wall of his office
& he was big & I a Special Forces medic,
did tell him that he is going to fall hard & deadly
& he said that this relationship must come to an end
& I that the one between him & his wife
must end just in the same way
& outside the gate in your car we wooed each other
& at that spooky road did embrace & kiss
& they did not want
me to visit you at the home of your parents
& after the army & the bush-war
at twenty-three I had to get permission from my mother
& you from your father & mother in writing
that I may visit you at home
& now you are a business executive
with a son & daughter of your own
& you were unhappy,
wanted to take your own life
& from your husband with the big chin you are divorced
& he is an insurance broker
that plays golf with your son.
II
Chorus:
& I cannot embrace you anymore,
cannot woo you until you ears turn red
& you are not my wife
& blissful was our time
but like all beautiful things it’s in the past.
III
So pretty were your cards
while I did write my first poems to you
& and picked a thousand roses from the gardens of the college
& we phoned each other constantly from the moneybox
& your lips did gleam while you climbed into my heart,
did tell me about our love
& later you were blissful in my arms
while eternity & moments did come together
& the bewitched house in Brackenfell
made you move back to your parents
& that apartment in Boland Park in Durban Road
I cannot forget
& that you had been my wife & loved me
& I remember Gordonsbay & the Strand
where you lost the top of your bikini
& Bloubergstrand where the iciness did minimalise everything
& the huge boat of your dad
& how we tried to ski on the sea.
IV
It’s maybe a story for the tabloids
& Huisgenoot & You & Drum
but suddenly when I touched you
from aversion the hairs raised all over your body
while the man with the mouth & chin tried to seduce you,
told you that I would never be anything in life,
that I cannot drive & you were afraid of this
& before I could find myself
a summons from the Supreme Court arrived at my work
at Tygerberg Hospital
& the man that had been a friend & a colleague
did steal your photo & also did steal you
& bloody my heart was jerked out of me
& above from Boland Park
from fifteen storeys I wanted to jump
but thought about him laughing about it
& at the Strand & at Gordonsbay
people on that December holiday was past happy
& there was no relationship between you & me
& pain hanged like a cloak.
V
The last memories I have of that time,
is how you did throw your hair back,
did look at me as if I was the devil
& slammed the doors
& a court order prohibited me to come near to you
& I took trains to work & back
& how strange the head official at work treated me
& I asked for a transfer to Pretoria,
to H. F. Verwoerd Hospital to get away from you
& on the midnight-flight to Johannesburg I did fall asleep
& a beautiful airhostess did awake me & smiled
& I looked at her & wanted to die just there.
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