Amongst MY people…

ASSEGAAI SINGEL

the road i walk is so less travelled
its tar has long since rotted
no potholes discern themselves from asphalt
no reality discerns itself from illusion

no colonial daschund, labrador, collie
but the sharp-toothed, ridge-backed boerboel
no beamer, no merc, no scenic, no scene
but the rusted three wheeled chevy

and molly who swings in the oak tree floralled
is sannie who smokes in the outhouse lonely
save for the pain of an unearned lashing
saved by the face of unearned nothing

and “beware of the hound” on signwritten glory
is “fokkihont… pasopibaas”
and the dreamy landscaped lawns of green
are brown and rust and corpsed with cars

but i choose this road and its silver wind chimes
and the boat, klippies-baptised, sonja

BACKGROUND: This poem was published in some-or-other International Poetic Journal in 2004… one of those high-brow arty publications distributed to the top language schools, or some or other crap like that. It’s supposed to be a big deal but I don’t even know how they got hold of it.

I definitely don’t think they knew the symbolism behind the words… I think they just liked it ‘cos I mixed some Afrikaans into it and it is, for the purists, a sonnet. Or a South African bastardization of a sonnet, to be precise. very academic. zzzzzz…..

Assegaai Singel is an actual street.

It is in Sabie in the suburb of Mount Anderson. The street is lined with houses that, typically, belonged to the forestry and railway  industries. They are not going to compete for a place in Home & Garden any time soon and their inhabitants also not likely to be found in Sandton City. But they are real.

When I went through the hell I now call “that time”, Sabie was my refuge for the first few months. I had been suspended from my job and had to face numerous disciplinary hearings in that regard so I couldn’t venture too far away from Nelspruit. That suspension was as a result of choices I had made to enter into a world so very different from the previous world I had lived in for 30-odd years.

I grew up in a very sheltered environment… I went from a good school straight into the Airforce, slash marriage (at 21), slash fatherhood (at 24), slash teaching. I had only ever lived in Hostel, an Officer’s Mess, an Army base or on a school property. As hard as it is to believe, at 33 I had never met a drug addict, a prostitute, someone who had been abused or a homosexual. In retrospect… I had probably met them, but only ever saw what I wanted to. My perception of the world was very warped and having to come across as the Ivy-league Officer and Gentleman to the world didn’t help that perception.

The choices I made not only lead to the loss of a marriage, job, family and friends… It lead me to a reality-smack of note! Once I had left Sabie, I moved up to Johannesburg where I was taken in by a commune of gay men, drug abusers and abused women. It was the most enlightening time of my life. It was very strange that I was accepted by a commune of people that had faced the worst possible judgement daily… They didn’t judge, they didn’t give advise and they didn’t go out to try find something wrong with me so that they could heal me. They just loved me.

Unconditionally.

So I can do the suits, tie, shoes-with laces and short-back-and-sides if needed. I can even speak eloquently and remember where the apostrophe goes. But when it comes to living a real life filled with love, care, art and poetry… Then I am amongst MY people.

I am walking my Assegaai Singel.

~ by Norm on July 18, 2010.