kagablog

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I once fucked a girl in Beaufort Wes
In the morning we rode on to Colesberg
Overtook four trucks
and a Nissan
Bakkie

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I’m drinking Castle
in the Colesberg Lodge
My baby dumped me
Hard

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Boetie rode into town
head full of the desert
heart all smashed-up
from a drive-by dumping

today I learned to parallel park
with my eyes closed

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Out here
beyond linguistics
The only colour
Is blue
The absent other
Is you

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Colesberg Pop Inn – “Hierdie gedig is fokken skeef!”

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Today I drove a rented Opel
Corso from Uniondale to Graaf
Reinet. Did 160 km/h. Felt great.
I wanted to kill a pedestrian.
Anyone.

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Driving along the N9 between Graaf Reinet and oblivion.
Wondering where the poet ends and the poem begins?
Is it the rasp of vowels in my throat
or the dance of grammar on my tongue?
Both demanding to be released into the perfumed ear of my cold,
capricious muse.
Driving past the Goods Motel, sun shirking to the left of the road.
Wondering if you’re wearing anything.
If your nipples are erect.
Wanting to whisper my travel poems into the valley between your aureolae and Graaf Reinet.
It’s dark by the time I reach the N1.
Drinking fresh filter coffee in the Colesberg Wimpy, my mission to truck on through to Bloemfontein, meet Marvin at the Mystic Boer, score twenty grams of Special K, deliver to the Hillbrow Tower before sunrise.
Might go visit my Dad, bitch with him about how nothing’s what it used to be. Nothing except your tiny toes that don’t touch the ground and your neon glowing aureolae.

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“Hy’s a fokking charmer, maar asseblief niks glo wat hy se!”

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My first car accident. I take a corner too fast on the dirt road between Baardskeerdersbos and Bredasdorp. The car starts sliding out of control. I put my foot down on the accelerator instead of the brake. Go straight through a wood and wire fence. Hurtle through the field at 160ks. I’m aware of what’s happening but can’t seem to stop the car. My right foot won’t come up from ecstasy. My left foot pushes the clutch down. Eventually the right finds the brake and the car shudders and stops. I unloosen my seatbelt. Put my blue shirt on (I’ve been topless because of the intense heat). Click the seatbelt in. Button my shirt up to the throat. Put her in first. Roar off the field looking for the freshly made gap in the fence. Turn right onto the still-smoking gravel road. Drive straight through to L’Agulhas.
The southernmost tip of Africa. Everything here is advertised with a board proudly prefixing “the southernmost” to whatever it is. So you get “the southernmost B&B” in Africa. The southernmost café. The southernmost post office. I wonder if there’s a southernmost whorehouse? Doubt it. Pity. I could do with a shunt right now. They could advertise “the southernmost doos in Africa”.
Vir al die mense.

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George. Upstairs at Harry’s. Just had another prang! Dented the front left rim. Again. The fourth one. And now the steering wheel’s reacting strangely. ie. Not at all. Fuck it! I’m going to have to become more careful if I’m ever going to get a driver’s license. I ask the waitress if there’s anything to do tonight.
She looks at me, amazed, “Not in George!”
Coffee to go. Ask your waiteress (sic) for a take away coffee!

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Peddie. Pig’s trotters in the Satisfaction. Pool with “William”, the town champ – not his real name but he knows I couldn’t pronounce that anyway. I chat to Laduma about the real “new” South Africa. He’s very smart. “The only solution for the AIDS problem is not to have sex.” Just when I think we’re having a serious chat he asks me to lend him ten rand!

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I pass the city on the M1 underpass going North. My enthusiasm for urban decay is tempered by the shocking architectural disaster of Gold Reef City. I rush to buy my weekly Lotto ticket before 8pm.

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