people are strange when youre a stranger

South Africa Memoirs

Parts 1 through 14

Black Cup

And the white boy sits

By the empty black cup

Struck by the futility of it all.

Jeffrey Spahr-Summers

1991

Queen Nomzamo Madikezela

As a child

I dreamed of a finer Africa

Than the one I know today.

I dreamed of my people proud

Coming home to their rightful place.

I dreamed of beautiful gardens,

Jarcaranda trees and Aloes along my stoep,

Food-a-plenty and a happiness

Of the sort that is born from freedom.

I imagined friendship with all races

And an attentive, gentle husband

Who would be a powerful man and our king.

I dreamed of love.

But I never dreamed of Mandela

And the heavy legacy of his name,

Barren cells, cold cement floors

And no shoes, or whistling bullets

Biting children before my eyes.

I never dreamed my people would murder

One another for favors from the tyrants.

I never dreamed it would come to this.

Jeffrey Spahr-Summers

1991

Coffee Cans and Petrol

Returning home once again

Armpits burning

Thick with ticks from the veld,

I quickly find a coffee can

Fill it with petrol

and pick the swollen things slowly

So their head don’t break off

And stay buried under my skin.

Then I drop them in the petrol

Where they pop like popcorn

And sometimes

Like Tom Thumb crackers.

Jeffrey Spahr-Summers

1991

On Apartheid

Thirteen years of silence

Flaws the eyes of a child

Still raw from the wild debate.

In awe of his fate

He withdraws

And waits.

And when he tries to relate

The violence,

The fear,

The cause,

He will deny

This thin pause

Between love and hate.

Jeffrey Spahr-Summers

1991

Seasonal Showers

in Pretoria

In November

Jacarandas grow

Powerful summer flowers

Showy blue in hue

And throughout December

Violet showers blow

Just so

Like snow

Floating to and fro

Slowly

Down the flowing

Boulevards below

Jeffrey Spahr-Summers

1991

Cry of The Peacock Silenced

I

Stinging through the night

(always at night)

Whining

Like spiders climbing my spine,

The cry bites deep

Into vulnerable sleep

And suddenly dies,

As if wary of mourning

The eerie solitude of no reply.

II

Snagged without warning,

Exhausted

Feathers sagging

You stumbled upon me,

Eyes wide

Flinging your head

From side to side,

Gagging

From a crude wire trap

Slapped tight around you neck.

Out of fear (I think)

You wouldn’t let me near

And disappeared,

Dragging the morning behind you.

Jeffrey Spahr-Summers

1991

Coming of Age

for Mark Mathabane

The beauty of your curious garden

Is forever stained

A deep furious and painful red,

Framed without answers

Like questions left unsaid.

It is said

That some white men

Are led to believe

You are better off dead

And blame

your lot in life,

your children’s innocent strife,

On father Ham, because he made your bed.

But I’m not deceived

By these centuries of useless excuses

And I grieve

For the life you’ve led,

Thread bare

Spread eagle across the bed

Of your homeland,

Snared by the dreadful touch

Of a free man’s careless thrust.

And sometimes I believe

in freedom

and justice,

But sometimes I simply grieve

For the Africa in me.

Jeffrey Spahr-Summers

1991

Grasshoppers

I

Vivid red, yellow and green

Like a perfect plastic toy,

I made it a place in the freezer

(thinking to tease my sisters)

But returned to find it frozen,

Color faded,

Legs brittle and broken.

II

In Zululand

The natives favor them fried

And lightly seasoned for flavor

They are offered to tourists as such.

Jeffrey Spahr-Summers

1991

Rowboats at Arniston

Rowboats swaying with the surf

Jerk and tug at their moorings

(like dogs taunted by the leash)

As if they would be gone

From this pretty little village

Hushed by charming white cottages,

One straight barren road

And an empty white two storey hotel

Dozing on the deserted ripe beach

Between cliffs and brushed desert.

They want to be free

Of this intoxicating and lonely flower.

They want to search for people at sea.

Jeffrey Spahr-Summers

1991

Blackout

We live in Africa now.

The American just arrived,

Bored with our novels and Yahtzee,

Candlelight sprawled on the floor,

We’re lonesome and lazy,

Weary of dark clouds crowding our door.

We wait for the downpour to end

And pretend for a moment it’s fun.

We wait patiently for the adventure

That has already begun.

Jeffrey Spahr-Summers

1991

Beware of The Floors

I marvel still

At how swiftly African spiders

Whip fear into the most fearless

Of daily chores

And how they stick to doorways

As thick as flies biding their time.

And unlike Las Vegas

Where Black Widows were deadly

And hard to see,

These monsters were big

And brown

And hairy,

Admittedly scary

From across the room.

As ugly as sin

But harmless.

In the beginning,

Our American logic

Convinced us

That to kill them was the trick,

So we picked them off

one by one

by one

And were stunned

That it made no difference.

So we learned

to accept their presence,

to arrange our fear

wary eyed

like pictures

around them on the walls.

We learned

to walk gingerly

across late floors,

to step in to bed prepared

aware

that they were bound to fall.

Jeffrey Spahr-Summers
1991

10 Seconds to Live

Black lightning strikes

swifter than light

in theses corn fields

and you never know when

the pitch-black Mamba eyes

(black screaming endless black)

attack for no reason.

You are about to die.

Jeffrey Spahr-Summers

1991

Prime Time 1971

Not to worry now,

About the secrets

The silence

About the drugs and the alcohol

Or the sex flexing

Its muscles out in the yard,

The loneliness

The rage

Or laying blame.

Not to worry now,

About the hours lost

Tossed away like pages read,

Rustling through the house

Bled of interest.

It’s time to let down the guard

And conjure up games

Like Yahtzee, Pinochle or cards

Maybe even a play,

We’re good at charades.

Jeffrey Spahr-Summers

1991

Avocado Lovers

Blacker than the heated night,
They meet in secret
And fight each other
For the ripest of the virgin fruit.
Shameless, they strip down
To piano teeth and pindot eyes
That flash like beacons
And leer at the avocado trees.

There is something like lust here.

And they dig, and dig in a frenzy.
They dig and lay their seeds
Deep under the trees.
They love the avocados.
They love to feel them slowly
And eat them without haste,
Without waste,
Without guilt.
They love to peel them gently
And indulge in the pasty taste
Until their bellies bulge and shine
Like their pregnant woman.

Jeffrey Spahr-Summers
1991

Snakes Never Stray Far From Their Mates

for Daddy George

A fact of nature, you said

Poised and ready to strike again

As we watched the Night Adder die,

Writhing its blood back and forth

Across the floor in front of my dresser.

There’s always a mate nearby, you said

And I hated you

For making me clean my room anyway.

The came the psychotic game I played.

Where would the second be found?

At my feet?

Wrapped around the toilet seat?

Or maybe

Lured to my bed by body hear

Like the stories I’d heard.

I should have known,

Two weeks to the day

On the very same spot,

Once again

A taste of blood

Pasted hot on the floor.

I waited by the door

Until I knew by your breathing

Another was dead,

Relieved there were no more.

Unless there are eggs, you said.

Jeffrey Spahr-Summers

1991

Soweto in My Pocket

Itching behind my father’s advice

don’t say anything son

it’s not like Nairobi

don’t speak out

not even on the phone

it might be tapped

I fingered Soweto in my pocket,

A prickly fossil to be savored

Like the Southern Lights.

No cotton mouth African thirst

Ever made me question Hiskia or Anna

(little white boy on their heels)

But I let them tell me

Whatever they would...

boy when my people rise boy

they might want to kill you boy

i will not stop them

i cannot stop them

you are white boy

they are my people

Jeffrey Spahr-Summers

1991

Frank Talk

in memory of Stephen Biko
(murdered while in police custody in a South African prison in 1977)

Does it matter
that I was excited by the country,
that I was enticed
by the beauty, the danger,
the mountains, the valleys,
vineyards, beaches,
the vast array of insects, aloes,
leechies and peaches,
the leopards, the lions,
crocodiles, spiders and snakes,
the cries that hyenas make?

Does it matter
that I was astonished
by the way elephants' ears flap
when they're mad
and how they chase cars away,
how they flatten trees
just to scratch their backs,
the way anything will grow
if you just stick it in the ground,
the sound of a peacock's anger,
the lemonade?

Does it matter
that I was a foreigner,
that I was eleven years old,
foretold and blindfolded
but not bold enough to understand why
I was suddenly ashamed to be white?

Does it matter
that I learned to listen
and to watch,
to stop and consider the cost
of respect lost along the way,
to silently go away
sometimes afraid,
sometimes prepared to forget?

Does it matter
that I was taught to play rugby,
cricket, soccer, the guitar,
gymnastics and the fool,
that I was schooled hard
in fantastic stories
and useless attitudes
of what is right for a white boy?

Does it matter
that I was a prefect by nature
not a cadet,
that I let human nature
lure me in and out of love
and hate,
that I learned to see the line
between the two?

Does it matter
that I believe in freedom
and happiness,
that I was sixteen years old
when told we must go,
that I grieved
and that by then
I didn't want to leave?

Does it matter
that I found poetry
in the oceans surrounding me,
that I needed the pounding surf
to convince me of safety
in African nights,
to silence the unfairness of life?

Is it important
that somehow I always knew
all along
the lies weren't true,
that something was wrong,
that all was not well
in the land of sunshine and milk?

Jeffrey Spahr-Summers
1991