After evening lock-up at the Fort
the bandiete would shout:: "Wagon-wheels, Mr Weinberg!"
and Eli, communist and kantor, would pause
between the Internationale and Nkosi
to sing, schul-like,
for the motley murderers, rokers and rogues
and his awaiting-trial comrades,
sing
Wagon-wheels, wagon-wheels
Wagon-wheels carry me home
Wagon-wheels, carry me home.

And if you stopped a moment
on your way up Hospital Hill
into the rising hum of Hillbrow
you'd have heard it
only an echo perhaps
behind the walls and the double doors
hiding the nation's under-belly

“Wagon-wheels, Mr Weinberg!”

You won't hear it now.
Thirty years on the Fort still squats on Hospital Hill
where I'm propelled past by the evening traffic
past the door which spewed me into unimprisonment

and I can't help thinking of symbols
and the perpetuation of walls which stand still
ringing
with lost songs.

Pylon

It’s too late now
to stop, so go in
bowed, silent
beneath the wires and arching beams
where the throbbing is all around
in the ground,
in the sky.

Go in with your packages,
mean gifts for a king.

Hurry now – and careful.
Bind them tight. Right – tight
and for God’s sake don’t plug in till the circuit’s fixed
right – and check your packet – right, right.
Now the timer
ticking, ticking
loud, even with the hum.

Big bastard, isn’t he?

And now set? Set.
If there’s anything wrong here
this’ll blast us with it. Set
and now, carefully, plug
in.

OK.

Above the throbbing and the hum
you can feel the quiet ticking
and the grass seeds begin to itch.

Let’s go.

Tomorrow morning, big boy, you’ll blow.

Website developed by Lynn Danzig