Charl-Pierre Naudé Haar getye, sonder Bolandse gevier
Somer
’n Tuinmot fladder swart
in die óú gaaslantern;
Poppie het panties wat deurskyn gekoop
vir die somer, in Sandton.
Winter
Onder aan die erf in die rotsdam
spieël die hemel se ysblou vame,
sit sy kop-op-knieë by die houtbeeld
van ’n vis, deur Jackson Hlongwane.
Lente
Lig-lig stap sy oor die dun tapyt
van ’n voetoorgang, ’n gestreepte vel
geskiet vir haar voete, so wyd
span sy hemp se bane en die loopsheid.
Herfs
‘Miss you, wish you weren’t here’, lui die fax.
Hulle ontmoet nog soms vir doppe,
’n groot liefde maar no strings attached
meer behalwe aan die katelknoppe.
© 2000 Charl-Pierre Naudé / De Gekooide Roos
Over Charl-Pierre Naudé
NOTES TOWARDS A BIOGRAPHICAL SKETCH
I was born end 1958 in a small town in the heartland of the Eastern Cape — a half-fish with a
sixties hairstyle, two years too early. I suppose I could not wait to argue with my parents.
I grew up in East London, a wind-swept coastal town built on the bones of the
Xhosa empire and the broken dreams of the Great Depression — and prone to religious revivals,
which didn't seem to help.
I went to Stellenbosch University to study Philosophy and Classics, then spent
the eighties "underground" running away from the South African Defence Force that kept on calling
me up to fight a civil war — not an unusual fate for someone of my generation in South Africa. Die
Nomadiese Oomblik was published by Tafelberg in 1995 — and awarded the Ingrid Jonker Prize in
1997.
I was made a poet by the melancholic ambiguity of Cape Town and the Eastern
Cape. But Is came to Johannesburg at the beginning of the nineties to be swept away by the current
of change and to be poisoned by all the metals in the ground here. As a journalist I made a name
of sorts as film analyst.
Being a poet in a country with nine languages and several immigrant ones while
half of the population cannot read, is like putting holy communion on the tongues of a many-headed
monster, with one small piece of bread. Already I have only one hand left. It is this hand I call
Afrikaans, no matter how much it changes.