Category: Creative Writing

Chess with Callum,
Scrabble for me,
A quick laugh and joke in between,
My loving and attentive father.

Flowers and cookies just because,
Lifts to friends and clubs,
Nothing was too much for him when I asked
My selfless and adoring father.

Kites, fishing and endless cards for Callum,
Sitcoms he hated but I loved,
Frequent random questions always diligently answered
He was my compassionate and devoted father.

Spontaneous treats,
Supportive eagerness to help me study,
Dedicated attendance at all school functions
My loyal and dutiful father.

Hugs and kisses when needed
Always he was there:
3.39 on the dot,
My proud and caring father.

Happy memories of days well spent,
Of quiet, secret expressions of his devotions,
A life well spent,
His legacy will live on in the tears of joy he left behind.
My proud and caring father.

© Heather R Ellis
March 2009

Wisps of blond hair,
his entrance a spark of heat-
he twists the tapestry of those in his path.
A Machiavellian nature creates hallucinations,
self-assurance rises-
a myth is born.

Stamps of suppressed fury,
eyes corrupting initially insignificant scenes.
She walks to him,
each step exiles her further-
she kisses his deadly lips,
the poisonous pact is complete.
He is her owner;
the slave master of her emotions.

With a temporary loosened lead she flies,
a glimmer of her previous sparkle is seen.
A past acquaintance smiles-
but jerked into place by the faux altruistic character, she reflects distaste;
the broken mirror in the funhouse.

Negativity is a virus, fed by the suspicious minds.

The sugary pestilence
seeps into her mind, the puppet master-
creator of malicious havoc gleefully gloats.
Sought after for motiveless destruction,
he charms those he needs.

He is Iago.

© Heather R Ellis
March 2010

Slanted light streams through,
shades of lilac dance across the red polished floor.
Out in the moonlight
colour blends into the ground-
blood seeps into our past, our culture, our lives.
The strain of our ancestors pushes us apart,
slowly we adapt. The old country

of new rules-
a place for everyone according to the Boss Man.
What have we become?
Dictators?
No, rulers of the New World-

choosers of the land. White dominates all.

Reclassification they demand, families they destroy.
Babies scream, mother’s weep:
victims of this rainbow nation.
Broken voices whisper, pained silences answer.
“Sisi, can we see momma today?”
My sister’s vacant sobs, reflections of our country’s rotting undercoat.

Years later, a black woman passes,
a flash of recognition;
could it…?
No. This stranger is a serving woman.
Time drifts, heaves and falls-
memories fade, all feeling subsides.
Grass grows; trees stumble as seasons march on.
We forget, gradually.

Patterings of feet remind me of songs I shouldn’t know-
they belong to a childhood that I shouldn’t remember.

A new serving woman is needed,
again I meet the black stranger-
her face creates a tingle of emotions.
Mnemosyne plays tricks upon her children;
surely this stranger is merely a pawn in the Goddesses’ game.

A voice of honesty, a language spoken from my youth;
from the depths of my suppressed emotions the stranger speaks:
Indodakazi yami. My daughter.

© Heather R Ellis
May 2010