Why write? I'm selling yeast, not bread

My aim is to agitate and disturb people. I'm not selling bread, I'm selling yeast.

- Miguel de Unamuno

Miguel de Unamuno y Jugo was a Spanish essayist, novelist, poet, playwright, philosopher, and Greek professor and later (twice) rector at the University of Salamanca. Most of all he  was an intellectual activist.

Why write? So you don't die of shame

Renowned South African poet, Antjie Krog, most famous in my eyes for her book The Country of My Skull about this country's Truth and Reconciliation Commission, that was held not too long after the end of apartheid, stressed - according to translator André Naffis-Sahely - that a writer should not concern themselves as to whether they are read or not, since “one writes so that you don’t die of shame, that you didn't say something when a girl is cut up somewhere in a parking lot and raped … You know that a poem will achieve nothing, but at least you will get through the night.”

Don't touch me there

Okay, so I'm drunk now in a Charles Bukowski-kinda way; got home and on an empty stomach opened a chilled bottle of Cape champagne (you're not allowed to call it that anymore, the Frogs got sticky and possessive) and three medium tumblers later here you have me: I've been called a cheap date before, as a 'compliment', by someone wanting to get into my pants. "All it takes is two drinks," he said, before pouring a third. "Cheers," said I.

Jumping off the bus I was surpised to find Lower Main road so quiet and deserted, except when I passed the Old Biscuit Mill: a man reminding me of one of Shaka Zulu's impis ran past in only shorts and a backpack strapped on to him like a suicide vest, but to his back, barefoot on the tar and motoring it. It's Woodstock after all.

Without a stitch of clothing on I'm sprawled on a comfy wicker chair a friend of mine loaned me indefenitely, as part of pair, on Monday. I've got them as close up against the view of The Mountain, and amongst my plants, as I can get them. I'm as relieved to have ditched my clothes as I am to see on Google that tomorrow is going to be much cooler and overcast. 

That's a profile, one of many, but so disapointing in comparison to 'reality', of Devil's Peak, leftwards from my window where, thankfully, a  coolish breeze is caressing my skin and cock. 

I'm thankful to be home and alone. Enormously thankful.

Fire in my spirit

It's deep summer now and the heat has ramped up; today's the hottest day of the season so far, and at 36 degrees centigrade I'm expecting it to get even hotter through the next two months. 

As I type these words at in the cool and shade at the back of Motherland coffee shop in the tree-lined St. George's Mall, someone skirts my table in a short dress and reeking wonderfully of summer; it's probably the sunblock she's covered herself in. As for me, I'm dreading venturing back out into the afternoon.

It's my first and most chilled day back at work; it's also the first day I've worn long pants and more than slip-slops in five weeks. It's also my first day in weeks that I've not woken myself and immediately burrowed into a book. While most of the city appears to be back at work, Cape Town is still crawling with holidaymakers and tourists.

Friday afternoon I - in turn covered in factor 50 sunblock - spent at the Sandy Bay nudist beach (photo above) at Llandudno (view from the Hout Bay road below). I'd not been there since 1999; I'd forgotten how beautiful and remote it is, also how liberating it was to lie naked on a kaftan in the sand metres away away from the ice-line of the Atlantic Ocean; but there was no way I was swimming.

After my burnout in the last six months of 2014 I've promised myself I won't be taking on more than I can very comfortably handle: this is to be a year of much more writing, devouring novels and enjoying more poetry. It's also to be a year of much more Charles' time, alone.

I'm seeking adventure and to have fire again infuse my Spirit.

House and garden of stars

It was a pastel end to a pastel day, and close to the very end of a pastel year; my heart was pastel too.

That's how I ended my Christmas day: calmly staring across to Cape Town from Bloubergstrand as the light faded from fire-to-black while longing for the champagne left in the bulbous bottom of the third bottle of champagne (Sterhuis 2010), appropriately named Starhouse.

Their wines come from the vineyards hugging the lofty slopes of Stellenbosch's Bottelary Hills, vineyards caressed by crisp ocean breezes from both the Atlantic and Indian oceans. Vineyards seeped in moonlight.

In the murky darkness I made my way back to a friend's home to finish the bottle, while sitting quietly in her garden breathing in the night smells and listening to the frogs in the distant vlei, also to my soft-beating heart.

Alone and content. And contemplative of the abyss.