Poetry and poësie

Graphic by De Waal Venter

Assault on a sheet of blank paper

Take this …
and this.

Are you wounded yet?
Are you feeling
the pain of meaning?

Perhaps not …
I will attack again:

the mother holds the child’s fist
like a joint
in a larger body

she shapes her words
to support
the small psyche’s armpits
like gaily painted crutches.

She wets a finger
from her tongue
and removes a full stop
from the child’s chin.

I have whet my pen
to cut the agony of living
onto your spotless face.