in the night when everything was blackburnt to a cross of ashon the blind glassand the dog’s bark a dark kiteblowing away in darkness      to where the moontears like the keel of a sinking boatI dreamt my languagethe title page smeared blackwith signs now undecipherable raw        and inside the bookI saw my reflectionstanding there three timesfirst among dead friendswith mottled grieving faceslike dogs staring directly into the blind windowwhile their thoughts like empty glassesturning in the hands          and I was therethin neck and moustacheour poems are slaves each with a full wavefeathers proudly on the headthen in a tableau at departurein the garden of the nightwith cape of white hairmy mother an aged virgin in my embrace            and further backin the folds of memoryall other trusteds as torches of forgettingwere I now the prophetsent to spy if there is life           in this worldor the senseless exile returning to sayour language was a footnoteunder the illegible page history?a last time on a bench in the empty gardenof a madhouse of toothless agedsas skeletons with little bitter fleshswaddled in the blanketand wild tuft and eyes blind marblesbow and mutter bow and muttermany words oh many wordsbut only the whispering of dead slavesbut not enough to groove or make boatand outside of the book beyond all listeningthe bark and the wind and the ashof the moon in dark waterENJOY MORE The Ceylon Press publishes a range of podcasts including The History Of Sri Lanka; the off-grid Jungle Diaries podcast; Island Stories, the podcast that explores what makes Sri Lanka, Sri Lankan; the Wild Isle Podcast: Stories from Sri Lanka’s Nature; a range of complete Audio Books about Sri Lanka; as well as Poetry from The Jungle.  All these, along with eBooks, dictionaries, guides and companions can be found at www.theceylonpress.com, based at The Flame Tree Estate & Hotel in the jungle northwest of Kandy: www.flametreeestate.com.   The copyright of this podcast recording is David Swarbrick @The Ceylon Press 2025.  POETRY FROM THE JUNGLE GRATEFULLY ACKNOWLEDGES THE COPYRIGHT CREDIT:  Copyright © 2009 Breyten Breytenbach

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