October 26th, 2012
— Jacques Coetzee
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CAN A MAN’S SKULL ROLL?
What was their story
Those twelve dead men
How could they speak
With not one tongue between them
Twelve dead men
Stripped to the bone
Can a man’s skull roll in the wind?
Twelve headless men
Half buried in sand
Stinging wind
And the wild sea crashing
Carrion for the jackal
Perch for the gull
Can a man’s skull roll in the wind?
What is a man that he dares to dream?
What is a man that he turns his back on the wind?
What is the call that it carries no prophesy?
Can a man’s skull roll in the wind?
These twelve dead men
They were found by others
Twelve skeletons
Stripped to the bone
Found by others
And the cold sea crashing
Can a man’s skull roll in the wind?
What is a man that he dares to dream?
What is a man that he turns his back on the wind?
And what is the call that it carries no prophesy?
Can a man’s skull roll in the wind?
Roll, roll in the wind
Roll, roll in the wind
CAN A MAN’S SKULL ROLL?
In 1942 the Dunedin Star, carrying 21 passengers and a crew of 85, ran aground some forty kilometres south of the Kunene mouth. The passengers, some of them women, and 42 crew members managed to reach the shore through the pounding surf before the lifeboat broke up. The rescue operation reads like a chapter of disasters and lasted for days. The people on the shore had no food or water. In the course of digging for water they unearthed twelve headless skeletons.
When I read this I couldn’t leave it alone. What on earth could have brought these twelve men to this isolated stretch of nowhere? And how did they get there? And when? And who or what on earth on this desolate strip of coast would have removed twelve skulls?
I imagined them gradually drying and becoming hollow: ideal for rolling in the wind.
October 19th, 2012
— Jacques Coetzee
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THE OTHER SIDE OF THE WIND
I can almost see their faces
Floating beyond my mind
Somewhere beyond the sea mist
Just the other side of the wind
Somewhere beyond the sea mist
Just the other side of the wind
Here the painted eland dreams
Footprints across the sky
And the salt-leached light
Teases the mind’s eye
The salt-leached light
Oh it teases the mind’s eye
Here’s the sound of salt and silence
Of things growing slow
And the rhythm of a rubbing stone
Against the sea’s ebb and flow
The rhythm of a rubbing stone
Against the sea’s ebb and flow
Here’s a white bone taps a taut string
A note that haunts the mind
If you listen you will hear it
Just the other side of the wind
If you listen you will hear it
Just the other side of the wind
If you listen you will hear it
Just the other side of the wind
THE OTHER SIDE OF THE WIND
I wrote this after a visit to Elandsbaai. There is a large cave facing out to sea with a rock painting of an eland in it. In addition there are dozens of hand prints from floor to roof, all of a red-earth colour. I stood there and fancied I could feel the presence and hear the voices of those long ago people – voices floating on the wind: could hear the sound of their activity; the making of ostrich eggshell beads and the slow rhythmic sound of a rubbing stone grinding pigments for painting. In my mind I could hear their voices chanting to the soft twang of a mono-stringed instrument as the eland stepped down from his cave wall to walk across the sky.
September 28th, 2012
— Jacques Coetzee
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RAIN ON A TIN ROOF
Rain on a tin roof
Like pebbles in a pan
Sounds like a pair of sticks
On a Campbell’s soup tin can
Rain on a tin roof
Just listen to the rain
Sounds like the long slow rattle
Of the anchor chain
Storm wind blowing
And it’s filling up with rain
Sounds like that mean old rhythm man
At his work again
And the wind is screaming
Thin and high
Feels like I’m hitting my head
Against the sky
And the wild sea rages
Waves crashing down
Storm rain sounds like a drum roll
All around
And the wind is screaming …
And the small hut rattles
In the teeth of the gale
And the stutter of rain on the roof
Has turned to hail
And the wind is screaming …
And it’s raining fishes
And dark black eels
And the seal-black sky is spinning
Catherine-wheels
And the wind is screaming …
And the rain is streaming
From a lightning sky
And that mean old rhythm man’s playing
Fit to die – fit to die
And the wind is screaming …
RAIN ON A TIN ROOF
The West Coast is renowned for its violent storms, its hidden reefs, on which many a ship has met its end, the swift Benguela current, deep and cold and its fierce wind. Paternoster, one of the oldest fishing villages along the West Coast, is named after the prayers – Pater Noster, Our Father, spoken by Portuguese survivors of their ship wrecked on those formidable reefs during a storm. Our song imagines what it must be like to be in one of those small, tin-roofed cottages during one of these fierce storms; wondering if the roof would hold.
[Written for ROSS CAMPBELL: for his percussion and drums.]
September 21st, 2012
— Jacques Coetzee
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RUBY FROM HONDEKLIPBAAI
Ruby, my Ruby
From Hondeklipbaai
With the sun in your heart
And the wind in your hair
And the early morning sea mist
Full of seagulls and fishing boats
The silver fish dreaming
In the green of your eyes
And the clean smell of tar
And the creaking of oars
And your salty brown skin
And sand on your toes
And your shiny pink toenails
And the sound of your laughter
Memories of your footprints
On those windswept shores
Ruby, my Ruby from Hondeklipbaai
With the salt in your hair and sea in your eyes
Is the lonely open road the lover you longed for?
Are you singing your song beyond the wind?
Ruby, where have you gone
With your faded blue jeans
And your fancy denim waistcoat
From the Pep Stores in Malmesbury
And your song of the road
And your kisses so salty
Like the taste of bokkoms
That haunt my dream
And the creature of your breast
Rising soft as a moon
And your tongue in my mouth
So bold and so warm
And the tides of your body
Slow tides of your loving
Like the salt-warm waters
Of that blue lagoon
Ruby, my Ruby from Hondeklipbaai …
Hondeklipbaai – named for the large stone at the entrance to the village which looks like a dog, is a tiny dot on miles of empty coastline. This is a story I imagined of a young girl - restless to know the world beyond this small village with its fogs and sea mist, its storms and wind - and a hunchback, a mender of nets who loved her, destined to remain behind in his ‘house in the wind’.
Ruby makes me think of a road trip I did with my daughter Jo Ractliffe in 2003. We arrived at Pella, an oasis with date palms not far from the Orange River, in a stifling 40 degree temperature. A young girl noticed Jo taking photographs and asked for her picture to be taken - but that we must wait. She emerged in what looked like the latest PEP stores mail-order fashion; pinks shorts and a tank top, bright pink lipstick and formidable sunglasses, accompanied by a boy of about sixteen with a gun. They posed together against the white backdrop of their cottage wall with the gun pointing to the sky; Bonnie and Clyde, Pella style. It made me think that for them, like Ruby, ‘the world’, all that could be learned of it from magazines and mail order photographs, was definitely ‘out there’.
September 14th, 2012
— Jacques Coetzee
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DONKERGAT
At Donkergat
The whales are still crying
Rattle of harpoon and winch
Sound of whales dying
Sea mist rolling in
South-Easter blowing
Dark sounds on the wind
Forgotten blood still flowing
The West Coast sea remembers
Men’s voices shouting
Dark shapes in a blood sea
Flags in the sea mist floating
At Donkergat
The whales are still crying
Rattle of harpoon and winch
Sound of whales dying
The pier is black with memory
Green water rising and falling
The smell of blood in the mist
Whales still calling
At Donkergat
The whales are still crying
Rattle of harpoon and winch
Sound of whales dying
I remember standing on the blackened timbers of the pier, watching the slow green water rise and fall as if some large creature below and breathing it up and down. I discovered some pieces of abandoned machinery rusting in the salt air. For the rest it was deserted. This was before I knew that there had been a whaling station here.
The old whaling station was officially closed in 1975 and entry is no longer permitted.