an ocean of emotion - an anthology of 'not poetry' by Veralee

*

I will not drown!

You thrashed you crashed, you
tossed aside and stultified, I am
left in the flotsam and jetsam heaving, my
nullified, hurt, wounded, aching body.
Stupefied I sat in the sobbed sand,
you at my back, behind me

*

my emotion

I wail the whale that I knew.
Fail in the tale that you grew.
The sea of my emotion. As
deep I steep in song to ail
at the end of your great tail.
The vastness of the ocean.

*

The imp within

Alter my rock, hold steadfast within.
Leave an island of innocence be,
as hungry and starving I am now,
scavenging at the depths of the sea.
I, a soul searching, seeking young man.

The urchin lives desperate interred,
where once he feasted so happily;
now binds forevermore the notion
my naivety exposed outside.
Falter and fall in forward motion.

*

Don’t follow me

The foam, that swirling bubbling surf,
between my toes as I make footpools.
Behind me you splash so foolishly,
Willingly you follow in these watery dupes.
Lead astray I should not your delivery
but hasten on my way, lest the devious sea,
swallows both you and me.

*

Wed at sea

Nereid white horse on the ocean
fifty full at my predicament
my mortality incredibly
I before Nereus god lament

who sired with such capacity
Neptune himself in indemnity
against your father’s audacity
to cast all his daughters toward me

this moon knows the invaluable worth
the loss of my rising satellite
carried into your father’s giant girth
wedded you in a mortal man’s plight


*

Surrender I don’t?

Now a cry from way up high above
Now a cry for my once given love
Now a cry echoes across my ledge
But the tide has left behind your pledge

Why do you call so piteously
For love you took so frivolously
abandoned me on that squalid rock
and gave my loyalty for all to mock

Now my heart a seagull soaring high
Against the wind of your faithlessness
Now is the time to bid you adieu
Free in happiness I fly anew!

*


Africa’s tide turning

See my Africa, my birth - my death
I must flee now for my own safety!
Against my country my own undoing!
Accuse my forefather’s anarchy.

Where? America, Australia?
Which I have no birthright to make claim
Yet you are forcing me now to leave
As you abhor the shade of my skin

I who once stood up at your request
To argue against supremacy
Then you used me most adequately
As did whites before me instigate

Those few token blacks of days gone by
Can only appreciate the thought
They were then used and the most abused
When sanctions affected white men’s greed

Struck I am in memory of that
My grandmother’s warning once foretold
‘Take your doctorates and forget it,
Blacks will push us back to the sea’!

So now I depart with my degrees
In medicine, research and finances
Thankful America has power
- I fly away back over the sea



*



Suffer the little children

I heard my teacher saying some words
She was explaining to Malusi,
how from apartheid we have transgressed,
since Neslon Mandela was released.

Baddies killed my Mum for her car.
Uncle Tom was shot for his cell phone.
Mrs. Mda my neighbour now cries,
transition is killing our nation!

So too have they accosted my Dad.
My Nanny is gone because of them.
They tied her up and took our tv
and I miss Sipho her baby son.

Thandi’s Granddad hurt her privately.
Steven murdered in Plettenberg Bay.
There is so much I don’t understand.
I really know little of these things.

My Daddy lights candles in the night
because there’s no electrocution.
Maybe next year I’ll know a lot more
because that’s when I will be seven.


*



A Black Labrador

Wet he shivers waiting impatiently
for me to toss the stick to him once more.
As black as coal is his salty fur coat.
Dripping in anticipation at me.

His bright amber eyes glow forward to sea,
reflecting the love we happily share.
This trust this loyalty he gives to me.
He knows the enormous secret we bear.

Clandestine in the early morning mist,
as I dip and dive and flip to and fro.
Where is his master to bestow his wish?
I will step forward to honour his quest.

Before I know the outcome of my scheme
anemones grab and hold at my flank.
Strange creatures are we as he has four legs
and I have fins and a shiny blue tail.

Now two legs comes walking up the shore.
The one I want to change me from a fish.
Who would guess at my unusual friend?
Me a mermaid; him a black Labrador!


*

Backward thinking…

I left my legs at sea.
There’s no one else to carry me.
All I have I have already given.
It’s up to me to reach for heaven.
Where in the stars I will shine bright
and give off an amazing light.
Perhaps then you will appreciate
the moment I surrendered to my fate.


*

A Knew African Dawn

I am drunk in your heady brew.
All your smell has overcome.
Yielded I have to this precious tone,
yet diamonds of the ocean live on me.

The salty taste. That clammy allure.
The aroma of the ocean forbids further
my exploration of your dark depths.
Your ebony to my ecstasy.

I live and breathe another moment
for your all encompassing embrace.
The darkness that flourishes in me
at my supposed clear thinking vision.

Never to live another day not to feel
your enormous surrounding of me.
Who else would there be to fulfil
my Africa that I desire.

You the sunset, me the sunrise.
At midnight we shall endeavour to meet
and praise the old night and hear the new day.
You in your brown skin; me in my light pink!


*



Blessed are the innocent

A little brown boy fishing off a rock.
I walk past so complacently.
But before I go further I must know
he is silently appealing to me.

So obviously not to intrude on my conscience,
engaging however my obligation.
The situation is not unfamiliar to me
and this is my anxiety.

He in his underwear - my boy a swimsuit.
We have no money to speak of ,
although we have a picnic lunch.
My white skin and I sit quietly considering.

Within an hour my boy runs to me delightedly.
‘Vusi gave me his bait can he come home with me?
I want to show him my Playstation’.
Its quite alright Mum, his Mother is dead..

*


An unusual affair

Glassy, still.Motionless it would seem.
Hazy disturbance enfolding me.
Silent staring at the horizon.
Nervously waiting the sun rising.
Vigilant for you to reappear.

Woke early and you already gone.
Followed your footprints right to the surf.
Why do you leave so early our bed?
Slipping away from our warm embrace
as quietly each day you disappear.

I would swear, if not to the ocean,
you could be dabbling in an affair!
Into the early dawn you abscond,
yet now I see there is no one else,
save a few soaring seagulls and me.

Stillness departs the ocean explodes.
Surprising from beneath the water.
An enormous fish in front of me!
Azure, blue, purple, green shimmering,
splashing twirling suddenly you’re here!

Wishing now I had not followed you,
as who could compete at this beauty?
Astounding vision dazzling creature.
It’s a mermaid you are caressing,
oblivious to my presence here.

My departing footprints in the sand
to you acknowledge your freedom won
to settle beneath the depths of the sea.
And this fairytale will one day be
for the growing baby inside me.


*


Lady Seafarer

For you some inspiration.
Hold me close and placate me
Into your hands take gently
Muse at my encouragement,
stimulating your senses.

Here I am to be explored
Disrobe me pressing for more.
You’re feeling sweetly fondling
every single part of me.
Holding, touching, seducing.

Not one uncovered surface
should you leave for my pleading,
intoxicating velvet.
Encasing your hot desire,
hastening to fulfilment.

Riding the waves of insight
on your journey of knowledge.
To discover the essence
of this lady you have needed
from the first moment espied.

Feel now at your expertise
the tide of my emotion
as I groan in ecstasy
at your excited thrusting
I am exhilarated.

Complete in your mastery.
I am in your ownership.
My complexity secure.
Celebrate across my breast.
Pouring expensive champagne.

Carefully now you guide me
into the harbour to dock.
And that you have most aptly
Named me ‘Lady Seafarer’
Your very own motorboat!

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