Allegorical Farm

by Kevin Daniel Scheepers

Stout livestock grazing on scenic verdure,
succulent pig buried with coal fire and broad banana leaves,
ground fennel, red onions and sanguine scotch bonnets—
West African flavours with classical French technique.

Immaculate knife skills from years abroad,
panga machete to the neck of the discourteous commis chef.
Domicide—
like trenchant pin bones caught in the throat.

The feeling of having nowhere to go
stays with you—adrift on land, drowning inside.
Who peers below? Who looks away?
The manacles draw blood, a dark cherry red he thought.

Buried pedagogical practices of his ancestors,
the vanguard’s footprints evanesce, viridescent pastures beckon.
Domicide—
calls home echo, unanswered.

There are no red lights past 8 pm where I live

Night drives with roaring Jaguars and rattling Cressidas, the low trembling
bass of a rarity of burning metal coils

emanates from the distance. Half-functional streetlights loom
and slope, like an angry dog on a frayed leash,

the light-sipper’s paranoia confused signals. Peeling kilometres off
the road like a grey-black scab,

tarred ground disintegrating beneath threadbare tyres like pumice stone
grinding calloused heels, weather-beaten roads leading

to a gauzy brume, where your daimon doesn’t know to look. Stopped
for a quick drink at a deserted watering hole, stalking the bent

grey crescent moon like a wounded Cape buffalo,
rapacious rats scurrying in the periphery, tails lashing across damp

lacrimal glands. Lowering sky above, time to go home,
it looks like rain.

Bent Shapes

In his dreams all circles were ovals,
inner critic was inaudible—
false calibrations could be adjusted.

In his dreams he carried an invisible camera,
and took incredulous polaroids
of those no longer with us.

Disfigured paradise,
diaphanous white-blue like leftover clouds—
thick, brumous smoke, thin walls.

There’s a false widow that lives
in the corner of my room,
perfidious shadows move on their own,
these are not his dreams.

African Ghostwriters

Invisible threads
laced throughout an intractable history,
sharpening the cutting edge
of imperial machinations.

A leaf-like spider on a spider-like leaf,
unnatural selection of crypsis.

Lowering, crepuscular ceiling in Alkebulan,
predator lying in wait with bated, brumous breath,
withered olive branches of perfidy,
ashamed to realise violence was the answer.

BIO

Kevin Daniel Scheepers is an emerging Black Coloured poet from Pretoria, South Africa. He completed an MSc in Biotechnology in 2023 but always maintained a personal interest in the written arts, particularly poetry. His work is Pushcart Prize nominated and has appeared or is forthcoming in Brittle Paper, Emergent Literary, South Africa Poetry Magazine, Morning Star UK, Spillwords Press, Militant Thistles, The Recusant, Harrow House Journal, Aorta Literary Magazine and elsewhere.