Collected Poems

Bernard Levinson

• Publisher: Hands-On Books
• Year: 2020
• ISBN:
  9781928433217
• Topic: Literature
• Subtopic: African Poetry
• Index: Literature

Poems from Bernard Levinson's four published collections as well as a new unpublished collection are gathered together into one volume, Collected Poems. Those previously published collections are From Breakfast to Madness (Ravan Press 1974); Welcome to the Circus (Justified Press 1991); I See You (Southern College Publishers 2001) and I Dreamt I Was Flying (Nimrod Publishers 2007).

BOOK 1

From Breakfast to Madness

(Ravan Press, 1974)

Part 1

Dear Anne

When I go from breakfast to madness

dear Anne

with the clouds clutched tight in my hands

and my frail books

filled with worn-out words—

I tell the nurse

this is a rest home for retired spies

cranky characters

talking back to their chairs.

And we both laugh

to ease my pain

and hide for a moment

the sleep walkers

who pace their mops on the burnished floor.

Charles

I think of Charles

who hanged himself

from the lintel of his door.

On the surface of my mind

a single dry leaf floats.

Now it is a hand calling—

now a rusty raft …

I listen—

there are no demands

no call for help

only the Autumn wind crying.

Elsie

Elsie talked to God from her flat in Hillbrow.

Perched on the edge of her bath

she discussed the price of bread

and the things the butcher said

when she couldn’t decide.

She was always grateful that He found her.

Between the Swop Shop and the coffee bar

one could miss the door—

the metal steps to the fourth floor

and the dark corner

where the refuse drain rumbled and coughed.

The sun falls amongst chimneys

Splinters in a million windows—

Are you there Elsie?

Are you there in the darkness—

in your own secret cave

holding the remains of the day in a shopping bag?

Are you talking to God?

Too Many Words

There are too many words.

Each day I drown in words.

Once I sat with a man

each day for six months

and not a word passed between us.

I’ve never forgotten

how moved I was

by what he said …

What I’m trying to say

is that I have a need

now and then

to shake the words out of my hair.

All the stale and used-up words—

the frantic panic words

that jump about my desk—

and the heavy meaningful words

that hang like curtains in the air.

The people who spin words about me

holding me tightly to them—

and the people who fill every corner

with urgent words—

every inch of my room—

closing the space

through which they may fall to nothing.

One word would be enough!

Just one word

that I might hold it in my palm

weigh it

and know it.

Your Small Fist

There’s no need for words.

Your small fist

cupped in the palm of my hand—

I insinuate a finger

inside the curled barricade—

and read the temperature

the amount of hurt—

the hold-tight pain of your young life.

I remember once before—

my first call to the township

between the steaming huts

on the lip of a makeshift road

where I swung my black bag

brash as a boy

safe in his Medical School.

The dark girl in labour

was younger than I.

A child bearing a child.

I fumbled in my bag

looking for words

among the shoe-horn shapes,

the trumpets and ...