ABIGAIL GEORGE - POEMS

​Pushcart Prize-nominated Abigail George is a South African blogger, essayist, poet and short story writer. She briefly studied film at Newtown Film and Television School in Johannesburg.

​The rules of the Masai woman

​       Who listens to smoke? Breath pumps
through me. You’re a symbol. You’re
good and kind folk. Perhaps you’re a
Lutheran now or Methodist. There’s a
story here. I find the supple-subtle words
drowning in deep despair and loneliness,
pathetic frustration, listless and lethargic
yet alive. Bone envious of flesh. Mother
abandoned me. Father neglected mother
who in turn neglected me. I think back
to those wasted years of my twenties and
early thirties. I think of the rich men. Their
character and personalities. How the rain
always showered promises on top of my
hungry head. I’m an innocent. You’re the
devil. Walking around as if nothing can
touch you. As if you’re some kind of martyr.
You’re still living and breathing just like each of
those rich men while I’m in need of prayer.

​Lucifer the convict on exhibition
(for the Dutch poet Joop Bersee)

​    Lucifer is my brother. The convict.
Sexton was a beautiful woman. I’m
an imposter. No woman am I. Plath
was a brilliant poet. Please, please don’t
ignore me. My tongue carries winter
news with it. Pretty soon I guess it
will evaporate. I’m running out of space.
The words aren’t there. I’m not safe
to be around anymore. The sea just
opened up. The sun has come for me
.
    There’s no us anymore. Why can’t I
just have one friend? Why do I have
to be the one to watch my father die
while my sister teaches English in Prague?
I like this world now that you’re in it.
I’m old. More aware of time slipping
away. I am greedy for the gulls that
fly overhead. The birds here fade into
the sun. They worship there. Your face
is sleeping. There’s prophecy in the veins
 
    of driftwood. Birch, willow, walnut
tree in the backyard. I’m in need of
a cure for this sin I’ve been carrying.
I’m abstract. I’m dressed to kill. There’s
flaws between these sheets that you
need to be made aware of. My mother
is a pretty woman. She was the prize.
I’m the failure. The failure in the family.
Her one failure and she is the vertigo
above and below my mad dash into society.
 
 

​Redilanz 10 and the good feminist.
(for the Dutch poet Joop Bersee)

​Daddy, daddy you’re fading away.
There’s no place here for forgetting.
Space seems to have been taken up
every conceivable realm and to even
survive seems extraordinary. I’m like
a rabbit or a fox down the hole. Smile,
please smile. I wish to drown, fall, escape,
and find the key. Find the exit out.
Isolation. Sleep deprivation. Counting
sheep. I know I have a history of it.
 
 
 

​I fear, I fear, I fear spinsterhood
(for the Dutch poet Joop Bersee)

​I love her but for the life of me I
don’t understand her. Her butchering
of my heart. Her silencing of my voice.
Tell me, what is the cure for the
cutting of these chords. I think of
 
the glare of day in this room. That
I am like a forsaken cripple. The mad
one. The lunatic. The black sheep of
the family. I know her so well. Her
wailing and laughter. Her barefoot and
 
absolutely useless at loving me so
perfectly. There’s a museum in her
brown eyes. She smells like a bunch of
roses. I’ve never drank wine in Paris.
I haven’t had a daughter or a son if
 
you want to know. Never put down
roots, settled down and married someone
suitable. I’ve been falling all over
the place for both men and women.
They say I’m insane and sane. I’m
 
not a kept woman at all. Just lonely.
All day long I glimpse the happiness
of others. Of my sister while I live
in fear, in fear, in fear of spinsterhood.                    
Don’t forget all of me, I whisper afraid.
 
 

​Upstairs
(for the Dutch poet Joop Bersee)

​I’ve been chaste and invalid for over twenty years
now. Caught drowning in this dark. There’s all the
worship of gulls, swimming overhead at the ocean.
I’m learning not to fight this life. Once I was in love
with you, now I’m not so sure why I was so quick
to call it love. Maybe I was more in love with all of
 
your applause. Your manic depression nation. Knowledge
is all that I have. I’m left standing at the pulpit.
I’ve received lectures from psychiatrists in another
life. Minister, here everyone is beautiful, sad and
preoccupied. Here everyone is mad. After all this
is a mental hospital. That nurse, she’s a bully. That
 
patient is an antique. Yes, he’s been here that long.
Life here is elegant. We share a kind of intimacy
with each other. The intimacy of lovers. Madness
is a science. We’re all as grumpy as fish. I think of
my sister’s car. My sister’s house. Her car is like a
newlywed. Brand new off the lot. I have goo-goo
 
eyes because of the medication. I blame the sweet
disorder in my brain. The thyroid medication to be
exact. You were always my muse, you know. I want
to tell her this before she leaves for Prague. Her
leaving I know will be bittersweet. Here’s my mouth,
my grief. God lives upstairs. That I know much of.