WHAT THE MEDICINE MAN SAID
The advert blasting from the megaphone
on the dusty, white van bordered on vitriol.
The advert was for herbal medicine & the speaker
had a voice that was a notch too harsh for the
subtlety of marketing. He tore into orthodox
healing, classed them lower than the old ways.
He said long before cancer & colonialism,
our forefathers took long strides into forests,
snapping twigs & leaves from trees; boiling
the juice out of them. They were so in tune
with nature that the roughest barks surrendered
secrets to them, cures to ailments, as soon
as they caressed them. As to the potency
of his drug which cures everything from
indigestion to impotence: he assured us that
he learned the science at his father’s feet,
who learned the art at his father’s feet,
who absorbed the insight at his father’s feet –
a feat too big a foot for modern doctors to fit
Few people approached the van, fewer bought
the herbs after scrutiny. I wondered if most
of the folks were put off by his searing sermon
or if they, like me, were skeptical of his integrity
because he had a customised email address –
too slick for a true trado thumper
SOCCER VIEWING CENTRE
At halftime, the benches empty
&, for once, we regard the fan overhead
marshalling breeze around the hall
The analysts on the television
talk soccer technicalities,
& compare player heatmaps
They focus on a particular player –
who ran hell on the pitch,
his heatmap like a poppy in midfield
Outside, many viewers gather
They bet and banter potential outcomes,
beckon on popcorn hawkers
The viewing centre swells again
at the restart – the walls of the hall,
elastic, swallow hundreds
Smells medley –
the stickiness of canned soda &
the authority of sweaty tension
The poetry of Peter Drury’s commentary
vanishes in the racket and jest,
in the oohs and aahs of near-misses
At the shout of goal,
the roof, softened by ceaseless effervescence
of passion, erupts –
the volcanic stream of the roar
electrifying the drab town.
The men in the hall hug each other
like family; but they return to their houses
after the match without as much
as learning the other’s name
