thecages

This is from , I guess, 1997 or 98 when I was living in the Brumeria townhouse with my brother.
Originally in wobbly/wavy print(printed on a dot matrix with plain A4 paper wobbled while printing) with outline sketches in black ink.

It's about a dream I had while living in Brumeria.
What I remember of the dream is an image of a wooden crate, at night, on the wooden floor of the bedroom that I inherited from my brother in the Kleynhans street house.

I'm putting it here with a new title and minor modifications.

Tropical Dream

To my suburban house
Was delivered, at night, a crate
Of 'nanas from Panama, Bolivia,
Columbia - it didn't say.

On the lid, I pried it free
Then stood not crouched still barefoot
In the dark ignoring
The warning in print in ink.

And hands of fruit spilt to the floor
Like yellow lumped spiders by corridor walls
And around my feet as I crouched to look
I picked a bunch dripping, humid and wet.

So unlike what we live with, glass that reflects
Stones that slip, colds, regret.

These fruits, radiation free - possibly poisonously so
Had traveled miraculously,
Improbably at least, to this end
And distant, until of the continent's sun.

Their tase, I knew - even through the skin
Carries the sound, the sun of the South,
The insides with seeds,
At the back of my mouth.

And peeling the skins and eating the fruit,
One by one, you'll sink into wood.
When bedclothes become unbearably hot
And dreams return of what you forgot.
When the crate is eaten and the print is read
The seeds still grow to trees in your head.
And you hope to touch, improbable at best,
Southern warm seas where in time you will rest.