Creative Writing Archives - Page 3 of 4 - Johan Janse van Rensburg
Posted on May 3, 2017 by Johan Afrikaans Creative Writing
Ek slaat my moë oë op na die vertes
en na die grys en blou gebergtes:
O van watter groen tit of bruin tuit
sal my noodhulp vandaan spruit?
Almal het hul sewe sakke sout om te sleep,
en die wêreld se kloue wat aan hul hakke vreet,
maar waarom sal ons onverstandig fluit,
en boonop als, nóg vlees-messe slyp?
Hoekom knor en bor ons soos dagblinde vyande,
en wurm ons ons hondsdolle stomp tande
in mekaar se snerpende seer snyplekke –
wat ons net verder onvergewend laat verskewe?
Wanneer spuug ons hemels-helende vuur,
gegenereer uit ons gees se natuur?
In plaas dat ons kwyl, met bruisende borrels,
wat lyk en ruik na jaaroue vleeskleurige kerriekots.
O my hulp spruit vanuit die liefdeshart van die Here,
die skepper van die nabye hemel en die verregaande aarde,
ja mag Hy die splinters en die balke in die niet in laat verdwyne.
Posted on January 1, 2017 by Johan Creative Writing
Is dit verregaande, of vreemd, dat mens,
deur agteruit te kyk,
nuwe visie, en dalk hoop,
vir die pad vorentoe kan kry,
wanneer jy jou jakkalsdraaie styf vas knoop?
Of is dit beter om nét vorentoe te kyk,
in die wit mis van die toekoms
en voor te probeer berei
vir ‘n afdraand, of opdraand,
wat dalk net… ‘n dowwe draai pad bly?
Is wat die wysheid leer,
met enige balanseertoertjie,
op die lewenslange tou,
dat daar een luukse truuk is,
van Waarop mens sy blik kan hou –
ja almal se paaie meander…
en alles bly konstant verander…
so wat mens deurlopend staande
kan laat bly… is om mens se sig
te hou op waar Die voete trap
– vandag, nou?
Posted on August 30, 2016 by Johan Afrikaans Creative Writing
Die pennesteek van koue kennis,
prikkel die ballonne van hoop,
geloof en liefde. Dit beroof dit,
wat die harte aan mekaar wil knoop.
Vader skil daardie harde groen
doppe, sodat die kners van harde streep
koppe, sal vervang word met die deel
van soetsmaaklike vleespienk harte.
En die katjieklein pitte,
in sagte grond sal val,
om die Boom van die Lewe,
met sy genesende blare,
aan te vrug te stel.
Posted on June 29, 2016 by Johan Afrikaans Creative Writing
Met ‘n amper onhoorbare
gekners van flukse vlamme
sny die Skepper se latente lig
die stowwe diep binne drie berge.
Fluitend week en wasem,
die kole in die binnegrond balsem,
soos dit die rook uitdruklik uitasem,
en Sy karakter intiem inasem.
Dit is agter die woes en waansin,
waar Sy hande beitelend begin,
om Sy goue woorde in hul te ontgin –
elk ‘n ander gedig om te begryp en besin!
Maar Sý gedig is byna onpenbaar – valk-vlink!
Dit spring reg verby die bietjie dof en baie blink,
vinnger as wat enige oë se waterige idee-ink
die volle aktua’ daarvan identiek kan laat insink.
Gelukkig in vandag se tik en tyd,
sal die berge se (an)atomiese klokke ontploffend ontsluit,
en deur die warboel waarskynlikheid
dele van Hom onthul – en Sy gedigte bruid!
Daar is nou vier wat in die bergvuur-waarheid wandel,
geeneen kreun, of dra ‘n langgerekte letsel,
en die voorkoms van die vierde skyn warempel
‘n godeglans van die bonatuurlike Skepsel.
Die Skepsel skryf met Sy vlam-vinger op die harte se sand,
“Julle is duidelike briewe van Christus in die land,
geskrywe nie met ink nie, maar deur my ‘hand’;
die Gees van die lewendige God wat in jul brand.”
Hy het die sterk Suid-ooster en die ou bakoond beveel,
om die as van vervalle kliptafels vaarwel te vee,
en die vlammende vleestafels ‘n galery gee,
sodat Sy briewe kan betoon word aan elke sout see.
Ja die see kyk dalk ‘n berg se rollende kaalvoet klip,
sy balanserende bome en sy lopende lip
heeltemal mis, maar kan nie die kabbelende kus,
en wat in die sand se hart geskryf is met enige marge mis.
The Chamber – Part 2
Posted on June 7, 2016 by Johan Creative Writing
The soft sound of my breathing floated and settled like cold dew on the floor around me. The only other discernible sound was a faint wheeze as the wind tried to crawl through the room’s cracks… oh the sorely familiar whine of death’s breathing.
But… it felt different.
I felt (and could almost taste) the honey of life’s florescent buzz as it caressed my skin. But as gentle as it seemed, the flood of perfect white raged outside my eyelids; it was like a strong gust that forced my windowpane-like eyes shut every time I tried to open them. I obediently kept my eyes shut as I waited.
I waited… but… for what?
Out of the blue a rabid thought, with its blood hungry intent and foaming mouth snapped me from out of nowhere – this must be another ungodly dream! I demanded that the embrace die off quickly. This broken dream has fooled me for too long already! But, against my moral thought, the bleaching luminance continued its warm embrace… It settled over my body like graceful feathers poured from a sun-baked pillow.
The closed ecosystem of species spread over my limbs suffered in dismay from the drenching limelight. I felt scattered tingles as small things drilled as far back into my body as they possibly can. It was somewhere between the multitude of sharp and painful needle pricks that I distinctly heard a rusty screw, or some tainted marble, start to roll across the rutted planks of the forgotten floor. Its wailing started from where the door was at earlier. It continued with a smooth and lonely sob around the room for a while, then it seemed to bump into other things, which also started a few other tickers and moans. The miserable slow clap the screw started soon turned to an agitated avalanche.
The turmoil of what sounded like objects flying around me soon stirred up a slight breeze. I felt thin layers of dust being sliced off of me.
I still couldn’t see anything! Why was the anger pulsing through my veins not enough to wake me!?
It was no longer simply dust being scraped off of my rock-like body. Small pieces of flying objects started ticking me. The ticks grew into larger, louder tocks. I could feel small cracks form on my hard skin.
“What the h-” I started to scream, but the surrounding noise overwhelmed my excuse for a voice.
Small pieces broke off of me and crumbled off to feed the gnashing teeth of hungry floor.
I was getting nailed in my coffin by everything that made it mine. It was awfully, fiercely painful.
“Please… just take me…” I sobbed, inaudibly – then everything stopped – the inferno around me hushed into the softest floats of ash.
I could… move? I had forgotten how to! Phantom chains held my limbs in place. I could only sit stiffly on the heap of rubble that had always been a part of me; the remnants of the tomb that endured me all these eons.
I could finally open my eyes, which immediately welled up with tears.
In the blur in front of me, I recognized the outlines of the love from my youth.
<Continued in Part 3>
Tussen Grom en Blom
Posted on January 19, 2016 by Johan Afrikaans Creative Writing
Hardhandig klap die golwe skuit,
fluitend skeur die orkaan seil,
huilend kners balke laste,
vastend ly honger muise,
en hul tuiste byna skipbreuk.
Uitputtend bly rotte jag,
nag en dag tussen grom en blom,
kom en gaan van stink reus asem,
bestem om kos te vind.
Aarselend poog ploeg baie husse,
tussen allerhande skyn knopieslandjies,
bandjies wat tussen reuse vingers pleit.
Uiteenlopend sal ons bly gryp…
buiten binne die stoorkamer van eenvoudigheid:
die regte Fokus.
Posted on November 24, 2015 by Johan Afrikaans Creative Writing
Die moegheid klem soos ‘n droë lap my sinne vas,
my gedagtes stoei teen die rek wat elke nou en dan my oë toe trek.
Dis moeilik om by U uit te kom Vader,
waarom steun U vreugde my nie?
Ek soek soos ‘n bruinbevlekte en droëlip skaap na U waters, daar waar ek U stem hoor.
Waarom is U riviere so vêr so vroeg in die môre?
My hart is om in U getuienis van my te wandel wanneer die son die aarde bak,
Maar hoekom dra ek steeds slaafs aan ‘n juk wanneer ek voor U aangesig kom kniel?
Die vlees is swak, maar die Gees is gewillig.
Wat mis ek Abba? Haas tog en wys my asseblief die geslote sluis in my siel!
Vandag werp U die lig op die verwronge gedagtes,
sodat ek anders kan dink,
en môre kan sien hoe ek anderste is.
The Chamber – Part 1
Posted on January 12, 2015 by Johan Creative Writing
I was caught within a deafening and numbing silence that stretched from the start of infinity. I sat within what I pictured was an old, wooden chamber – dragged across the drops and rises of an infinitely dead and silent ocean. I was constantly woken by the most subtle creaks of the surrounding timber and its continuous groan, which kept on ringing my attention to my everlasting drift. But from somewhere in the darkness a faint knock hooked my dusty ears.
“…Who’s there?” I groggily demanded. The words flowed like sand and scratched my dry throat. It had been eons since I last spoke. There has been no life around me for countless… lonely years, and it was of no use wasting breath into the deaf void.
I tried to swivel my head, hoping that my good ear could track the unbroken knock. The sudden excitement lit a fuse in a mouldy chamber within my dormant heart. A breath or two later I finally felt the blast, which sent waves of pins and needles steering from my torso to the tips of my toes. But then it rippled back and doubled the pressure that surged within my unforgiving skull.
Then the knocking faded…
The only sound that remained was the soft and familiar howl of the wind harassing my chamber of evading slumber. But the wind soon died off, and was replaced by the silence slowly trickling back with its routine and gut-wrenching flood. At least as the level of emptiness rose, it brought soothing from the pins and needles that pricked and irritated the flesh of my feet – and after a while it finally wiped the tear from my engraved cheek.
The knocking had successfully triggered my struggling windmill-brain back in to thought. I haven’t milled a thought in ages! The thought of actually thinking suddenly tapped around like a blind crab on the unfamiliar stone floor. Its pointy toes ticked all the widespread neurons, and its tired claws bumped into lost memories – oh how those were long forgotten! Or at least that’s what I think I had once thought.
I sat confused. It was still very dark.
The knocking entered back into the vessel with a light tap, or was this only my mind’s little and bewildered crab? How could it return so soon? My head lifted and my ever fixed body cracked. I almost forgot that all my limbs were solid rock. And even worse; I was submerged in chains of mildew.
My eyes got curious. I opened my stony eyelids with an uncomfortable scratch. I could only hoist them up a sliver – it has been to this day three hundred and twenty two years. But I peered, as always, into the never-ending abyss.
“I demand to know who’s there!?” I coughed, and launched some more grains of sand into flight.
With all my will I wanted to jump up and run to the origin of those forsaken knocks! But I could only sit… dreadfully frozen as the knocking in the distance developed into a painful drum. I soon became a figuratively shattered heap – unsoothed by the drabs of tears dribbled down by each far-off and stationary thump. Why another infinite reminder of death within my already infinite catastrophe?
I had wanted to die a million times within the infinity before – just to end the forever unfathomable amount of nothingness. I’ve forever been floating in this uninvited and seemingly undeserved sentence of infinite isolation. This surely couldn’t be the final bell of death now.
Back then, when I lived, I didn’t know… how passivity could ever birth such a consequence! My boulder-like shoulders bulged with this sudden flame of anger at my cursed and ignorant flesh. But I can’t blame it now, it died off a long time ago and left me within this rocky mess.
“I give you a choice. Please choose something. Now.” A brilliant voice echoed from where the knocks had stopped.
Well, the first half of this infinity I spent thinking, and I assuredly knew that choosing nothing was the same as choosing not. So I chose the opposite of nothing – and the opposite of not. And with that, a blindingly small light broke through the keyhole of what I knew was a door – the door my submission of will and wandering thought had now unlocked.
“There’s only this single doorway, there’s only one light.” The voice said. And with my acceptance, the door flung open and I was bathed in glorious light.
<Continued in Part 2>