THE POEM BOOK

BESSIE HEAD: Unpublished Early Poems

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Note on the poems: The poems have been arranged in chronological order by date of composition - as far as has been possible to determine. They were all reproduced unchanged except for minor typographical and spelling errors, and their original layout has been reproduced as accurately as possible.

Source: English in Africa, Vol. 23, No. 1 (May, 1996), pp. 40-46  / Published by: Rhodes University Stable

Self Portrait

Idealist
And, low down,
Apathetic, Indifferent earth worm;
Plunging, leaping,
Flickering, wavering,
Stammering, hesitating,
Bold, reckless, impatient;
Static, placid,
Of no certain direction,
Of certain direction;
Isolated, like driftwood
On the tossing, heaving ocean -
Flung to the top of a high-sounding,
Dazzling wave,
Engulfed in the anonymous depths;
Oh contradiction!
THAT is I.

__________

TPB's notes:  [Handwritten; dated July 2nd '61; signed B. Head; B. Emery has been erased.] Published in English in Africa 23 No. 1 (May 1996) 

Mr. Nobody

All those unheard agonies slide into the ocean;
Only at some dark hour, the tide confesses;
The conflicts are exposed; flung out upon the beach
Like bleak, bloodless arms; Scattered bits of debris . . .
Can I not give protection to the dream?
Can I not feel the tenderness and the pain?
Why is the sound so harsh?
It is my laughter.
Forgive! Forgive! I am cruel.

Let me pick up these scattered skeletons of emptiness;
Let me clothe them in flesh and blood and life;
Let me bend and touch their cold bareness
With caressing fingers;
Let me pay for the debts; for the accounts
That were never settled;
The hours spent in working for to-morrow's meat
And to-morrow's respectability;
Let me close the tired eyes;
Let me look lingeringly at the worn-out shoes,
The straight, uninteresting mouth that smiled,
Only sometimes with foolish fancies in moments of feeling
That were like the deep flow of a flooded river . . .
Who was around to care?
You clutched at the kiss and did not care.
The hour was a silken dream.
The insurance man; the milk bill;
The grocery man; the politician -
All were forgotten.
The pompous speeches of pompous fools
Strutting the platform, flinging platitudes to the left
And platitudes to the right -
"You qualify for humanity - if you're a lover of humanity!"
"The masses must be organised to lead us - the intellectuals!"
"You good men and women before me -
Make provision for the future generation!"
Live this way. Think that way. And so on. And so on.
And, in the quiet hour of the night, you dared to dream;
You were moved by a vague anguish of spirit -
'Is this what I live for?' you asked dumbly . . .
You sighed. You smiled.
And, your head dropped in a silken moment to my breast;
And you did not care.
And I thought: 'To-morrow will see you
With the face of Mr Nobody.
To-morrow will see you sit through the day
Counting the useless pay sheets;
To-morrow your lips will pay lip service to the crowd;
To-morrow will claim you, and - To-morrow will not care!'
In shattering, cruel contempt - I laughed -
And then, there was only your face, blotted out
Against the black night,
And, the half-murmured protest
Of a stifled, silken dream . . .

Forgive me; forgive me;
And yet, are tears enough?
The bleak skeletons of the sea; the cold scattered pieces
Are warmed by my tears;
A piece here; another there;
I hold you in my hands.
The stretch of the beach is long.
I cannot collect all that is you.
The tide sweeps in. A foot. An arm. The lost keys.
An old brown button. A pocket book of phone numbers.
All this is you.
How shall I piece it together?
Your face. I cannot find your face.
I am weary with bending to find the pieces.
My feet are cold. My hands are stiff.
My body is drenched wet with sea water.
My eyes are blinded with salt tears.
Forgive, forgive . . .

Too late.
The tide moves out.
The tide grasps you to the ocean.
The sun rises. The morning is bleak and cold.
Too late.
The sea now holds your destiny.
The waves pattern your blind groping in the dark.
The lapping ebb-tide waves whisper tormentingly:
What did he live for?
What were his hopes?
What did he live for - Mr Nobody?

__________

TPB's notes: [Typescript; dated July 19th/20th '61; signed Bessie Emery (typed); "Emery" erased and "Head" handwritten in.] Published in English in Africa 23 No. 1 (May 1996)

Geranium Summer

The winter is gone.
I'm living a dream of hot green summer.
The days are blue bubbles,
Pink bubbles, yellow bubbles
Of exploding laughter.
The nights are yellow moons
And warm sombre moods . . . and . . .
A dark sea-bed of mysterious stars . . .
You don't know how alive I feel
In this geranium summer!

__________

TPB's notes: [Handwritten; undated; signed B. Head.] Published in English in Africa 23 No. 1 (May 1996)

Where the Wind Don't Blow

My home is someplace
Where the wind don't blow;
My heart rests someplace
Where the wind don't blow;
Strange place this,
Funny place this,
All black and dark and quiet -
And the wind don't blow.

Come, come see my home!
It's anyplace where nobody gives orders;
It's any moment of surprise:
Two dark eyes smile wide open: astonished,
And something gentle, you don't know what,
Caresses your cheek;
It's a park in winter
And a thin old man
Cramped on a park bench;
It's a cold blue sky
And dry autumn leaves
Falling, falling;
It's lonely my home
And the wind don't blow.

My home is someplace
Far in the distance
A point on the bleak horizon;
My home is a swagger and a shrug -
You know:
When you get a smack in the face
And the pain don't hurt: You are the master.

My home is a glass of wine;
The slow curling smoke of a cigarette;
All the new to-morrows;
The deep groan of laughter
When you defy fools and fate
And go your own way: Ride high
On the tide of your own thoughts, desires:
And, looking back you grin at those behind;
You're far ahead, flying, flying
In someplace
Where the wind don't blow.

Don't enter
If you don't like my home!
Please don't look!
It's a cage, timid as the eyes
Of a trapped beast;
Quivering, defenseless -
How can my home be this way?
Most priceless, defenseless;
Most valuable, valueless;
Most welcome, forbidding;
Tread softly -
The walls breathe peace;
Deep dark black peace -
And the wind don't blow.

__________

TPB's notes: [Handwritten; undated; signed Bessie Head.] Published in English in Africa 23 No. 1 (May 1996)

Untitled Now

The cold winter evening sky sparkles with glass-green stars. The sky is a clear wide curving expanse - only its edges are blurred in the glow of the setting sun.
A cold hazy mist rises from the earth. The earth is a vast space
of brown grass - grass and more grass, sweeping out towards the horizon.
The expanse of cold blue sky and the expanse of hard brown earth are brooding in the cold evening gaze.
The intensity of the stillness; the depth, the limitless space and
silence, draws the mind with an irresistable spell. You feel it
growing inside you. Your mind arranges itself in smooth curves and circles; centres and concentrates itself in a dark stillness; and, in this
stillness, absorbs itself into a deep peace disappear, shadows and images and impressions are slowly swallowed up in this movementless, shadowless ocean; this eternity. The moment itself is like an eternity. You feel warm tears on your hands but they are only the expression of an immense love and tenderness that rise UP from inside you; a flood of all embracing warmth. You feel that this love, this tenderness is so great that it could clothe the loneliness and bleakness of the earth. You feel it is
so powerful that you could compare it to the force that thrusts out the delicate green shoots from their hard casing of dry bark at springtime. You feel it is everything life is, yet, you cannot know if this tenderness reaches OUT beyond you. It is so self-contained. The love is so self-contained. How can you give expression to it?
You look for some ways to express it. You are standing in a bus queue. A woman walks up and stands next to you. An ordinary woman with her mind distracted by cooking and children and debts.
She smiles at you in a distracted way too. You smile back. Her
eyebrows are beautiful. They are like two black wings. She starts to
speak and her voice is like a dream. Her ordinary words move you to an extreme tenderness
"Cold day to-day," she says, "aren't we strange? When we are
young, we want to be old; when it is cold we want it to be hot; when we are unmarried we want to be married but then, as soon as we are
married we want to be single. What will ever satisfy us? Human nature is remarkable."
She smiles to herself for a moment, then the bus arrives and her mind is immediately distracted and splintered. She fusses with the parcels, the groceries. She searches hastily and anxiously for the bus fare. You watch her every movement with wonder - the work-rough hands; the quick frowns; the eyebrows that are like the wings of a bird. This woman becomes a part of the love reaching OUT from you.
The love absorbs you. It follows you wherever you may go. It
becomes a part of the patterns, the silhouettes, the shadows, the
smiles, the agonies of life. It flows with the humming rhythm of
machines at work and hands and eyes and feet. It flies up against the
high rain-washed wind-swept mountains and rests like a bird in the dark crevices and mountain waterfalls. It wanders all round into
mysterious and beautiful places, secret and dark corners and accommodates itself. The whole world is its home. The love is free
and limitless. Independent. It walks with a firm step. It shrugs its shoulders at the moon and tries to grasp the stars. It flies in a straight arrow before you. It cries out like the wild lonely seagulls. It has the sharp eye of the hawk whose wings spread out and blot out the sun. Oh, this love is many things! It is like small barefoot dreams tip-toeing into the mind of a sleeping child; wistful and beautiful. It is like to-morrow and to-morrow and to-morrow. Each day you wake the love is new and new and new. Each day the love is a surprise.
It seems you think of nothing but this love. It seems you are just like a tramp walking on some road to nowhere and you just don't care about anything. You have a small bundle. You light a fire. You sleep under the stars and you are a no-good, lowdown tramp with the whole world as your home. And, come to-morrow and you'll be on the road again - the no-good brother of life - the companion of the stars and the moon and the wind and the sun and the sky and the earth and the distant horizon.

__________

TPB's notes: [Typescript; undated; original title - "When I Am Thinking of You" - erased and "Untitled Now," handwritten in; signed "Bess. E."; the "E" has been erased and "Head" written in.] Published in English in Africa 23 No. 1 (May 1996)

Bessie Head: Unpublished Early Poems
Source: English in Africa, Vol. 23, No. 1 (May, 1996), pp. 40-46
Published by: Rhodes University Stable