_________________________
( Johannesburg, South Africa )
Jude The Obscure
snowy evenings of oxford streets
challenge us to a duet
we arm ourselves with layers
of t-shirts & skippers & shirts
& jerseys & coats & woolly gloves
& hats that hide our chilled ears
we move … wade through the nights
to the madding crowds of jude the obscure
& we say had the oxford
university press
had a taste for rhymes
& rhythms it would follow our trails
to thomas hardy’s theatre
where jude strides naked across the stage
of lines bringing warmth & sad memories
to the expectant hearts of masses
savouring snowy foams of guinness
with hairs twitching excitedly from the mouths
of their eager noses & tongues
rollicking out sweet words of reverence
for the taste of blackness
& whiteness colouring glasses
that zigzag through this milling
of guinness-infested crowds
i let my eyes wander on to the wall paintings
to see the importance of being earnest
underlying the presence of oxford brookes
students who fled the noisy laughter
of their younger companions
those sweet under-sixteens swaying their hips
at morals & calling it a break
but oh sweet jude …
jude your drums & poetry leave my homesick
memories to drift in
& out of sweeney’s
i dream of bringing the poetry
& drum culture of your walls
to the braamfontein centre
where witsies could gather on wednesday evenings
to drown their sorrows in torrents
of castle lager or stand the test of time
of anxious parents in the sweet waves
charles glass’s swimming pool
come jude …
i embrace your seduction warmly
neither sinful nor quite obscure
it drives students away from the dangerous
& lovely gleam of hillbrow lights
or that corner of morals where a girl
sucks the cork of an amused boy
who in turn digs his tongue into the mouths
of other girls forming a circle of friendship
while his companion stares at him
with widening eyes & salivating mouth
awaiting his share of the under-waist bliss
jude your walls bathe us with wisdom
of elders cherishing rhymes
& rhythms of life lived in our days
& with that wisdom i sing
& beat drums to salute you
my computer leaves strokes of lines
immortalising morals experiences
& wondering if those are freedom
breezes blowing in the land of learning
but i also cry …
i cry jude …
jude i cry for those rhythms of your warmth
that i left behind in the vicinity of snowy nights
& layers of clothing peeling off
to expose your beauty
i cry for you
& for sweeney’s that is no more
Author’s notes:
Jude the Obscure is the name of a pub in Oxford, not far from the Oxford University Press. "Sweeney's," now closed, was a pub situated in the Braamfontein Centre, opposite the University of the Witwatersrand, Johannesburg. “Witsies” are students of the University of the Witwatersrand. Charles Glass founded Castle Lager, a South African lager, in 1895. Morals is the name of a student pub at Oxford Brookes University, Oxford.
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