From Yourself
trickling down along your skull
an ear-splitting sound down ear canal on contagion
of tense veins seen clearly holding blood a sudden rush
the head a tenderness to nerve tissue running down
the mind a single thought on all the days spent wondering
which part of the mind perceives the pain
you are coming-to now heart whispering to you now
to hold on to life to love to blessings of eyes opening
letting the sunshine in into blinding by harsh suns
of eyes born again & still calibrating to the all-natural
of all things seen in black shadows
some too terrifying to speak on
while giving thanks to the heavens
though from the back of your mind you realise
you may never be able to
completely,
drown out
the noise
Portrait of Pilate Washing His Hands
an ekphrastic poem
in a 1663 Italian Baroque painting by Mattia Preti
there is the striking presence of a little boy
as Pontius soaks his hands in freshwater
cleansing the man from what was about to happen.
in the striking presence of a little boy
named by virtue of his skin, the look in his eyes
cleansing the boy from what was about to happen
already weighed down by his own burdensome cross.
named by virtue of his skin & now to that look in his eyes
where his name was recorded only as ‘African attendant’
already weighed down by his own burdensome cross
a child of the Mediterranean, relegated to the periphery
where his name was recorded only as ‘African attendant’
the black slave child from Preti’s Malta washed away in Pilate’s bowl
a child of the Mediterranean, relegated to the periphery
into the basin, down the drain, towards the dead of the Sea.
the black slave child from Preti’s Malta washed away in Pilate’s bowl
& smothered under ruthless European erasure
into the basin, down the drain, towards the dead of the sea,
a young messiah forgotten while Pontius soaked his hands.
Thursday
(or Only Because the Sun Took Too Long to Die Today)
the end of the week could not have arrived soon enough.
only because the sun took too long to die today,
four days can seem like forever
when the strength to carry on is hidden
somewhere on the inside of a weekend
the cold motion of time is upon us
beneath the dictatorship of clocks
our suffocation comes at the hands of time
a lingering feeling of pressure
waiting for the sun to come
& will tense shoulders finally have their freedom?
mind rundown worn from existential walks
& like footprints on the sand
a bitter taste is left behind on the tongue
during moments of one final look
towards the sky
amidst a long painful wait for dawn.
The Moment After the Moment You’ve Been Waiting For
like all the other times before this
here is another moment ready to disturb your peace,
this time however, the world will have the audacity
to declare that for this one moment, the earth’s axis will hold
deadly still, & along with the genius of the crowd,
you too will be overcome by a sudden rush of blood
what is it that compels us to count our hands
amongst all those who come together
to hold their collective breath soaring
past Towers of Babel & up towards clouds
full of water falling just short at a gasp
a collective groan, the melodrama, the decent accelerated
by an entire world staring into a box,
if only there was some sort of refund for pain & suffering
in memoriam of all hope that once ascended towards
the heavens, now down into sardonic drums of
the chthonic realm hope burrowing into the ground
where breath is returned like a verse out of Ecclesiastes
& in the disappointment, we vow to never again
fall for the same trick.
Sihle Ntuli is a Poet from Durban, South Africa. He is the author of the chapbook Rumblin (uHlanga 2020) alongside being poetry co-editor at Wild Pine Poetry.