Blog closed and moved to Tumblr

Hello! Thank you for visiting this page, please note that this blog has now closed and has been moved to www.tonistuart.tumblr.com  Please visit my new blog for news on performances, workshops and creative poetry projects. 

Best wishes,
Toni

the dance

it is a battle for ground

between you and I

a dance in 2/4 time
on a chequered board:

heel toe,

arm hand,

hand shoulder

toe toe

pirouette out

i dared

to speak the

truth

: not bury it in

tango with

you, our hips square

never               touching, your

hand on small of my

back, a r c h e d

my head turned           away from

you

so close…

it is a battle for ground

between you and I

a dance in ¾ time

a waltz with shoulders square

frame never broken

eyes     askance always

we dare not

look

i dared

to meet your

stare

as we spun

            across

a sprung

                 wood

            floor

:a lingering look

questioned the pain

you couldn’t

            touch

till shivering hands

let go of your

body, for fear they would love

your pain too

much

it is a battle for ground

between you and i

a dance in 4/4 time

breath

brushes bare

shoulder, your palm in small of back

you guide a

spin

and with eyes

closed, i find my way

back

still, i dared

to pull our unspoken
words into

the burning
light of a myriad mirror ball

r e f l e c t i o n s

                        falling

on

     your

                        face,

      hands and

   neck. and everywhere

your

feet rose and

fell, they were

met by the fear you

could not name

in

daylight

it is only

a battle for ground

between

you

and

i

but one of us

always dies

©Toni Stuart, Cape Town 2009 -2011

Upcoming performances

I have two performances lined up in the next two weeks and would love to see as many of you there as possible:

• Wednesday October 27 - Urban Voices International Poetry Festival, at the Baxter Theatre Centre in Rondebosch. Tickets are R150, book through computicket. Visit http://www.urbanvoices.co.za/ for more information.
• Monday November 1 - Off the Wall Poetry at a Touch of Madness in Nuttal Road, Observatory. The evening starts at 8pm, and there will be an open mic session after the break. Entry is free.

I'm working on a performance to take place in December, but more details to follow about that later. Hope to see you all from behind the mic :)

xx Toni

Whose voice?

Whose voice moves through you? Whose voice sings from your belly, resonates in your throat, and whose voice sings you to sleep at night? Is it your own? Could you recognise your own voice, if it happened upon you as a whisper in your ear? Have you listened? Can you listen? Do you know what it sounds like?

Whose voice lulls you into lies in the daylight bright and glaring, who’s voice calls you away from the truth of dreaming and buries your heart in the fear of believing, the fear of deceiving, the fear of revealing who you really are? Is this your song that plays out in the light of your days or do you save it for the molasses of night, that navy blanket peppered with holes of celestial light that covers you as your tears and sobbing rock you to sleep? Tears the world will never hear as you stifle them, stifle them from the ears that would listen and in their listening coax you out, call your heart to stand in day and lick the light.

Whose song? Tell me who’s song, I want to know, I want to know so I may shatter it against the wall of your insecurity and with one swoop send your blinding wall crumbling to the ground and shatter all that you fake yourself to be, all that you lie to yourself you are, all that you pretend to be so others will not feel small around you. And then as you lie broken and drowning in the ashes of your lies, I will watch, I will witness as that single tear falls, falls, falls, falls, from your heart, and watch it draw a circle in your bed of ashes, to carve light into your molasses night, so your dreams can come pouring in, so you can remember.

And you will sob, you will sob, your body wracked with the pain of exhaling your lies, your masks, your paralysing fear, your indecision, your self-doubt. And then, in your weakest moment, when your body is spent and your bones ache with the brittleness of all that letting go, and you cannot raise your head or a lift a finger, you will breathe again for the first time…

©Toni Stuart – Cape Town, June 17

the lovers - den anker

us writers are people watchers, we see things in the seemingly ordinary moments...

the lovers – den anker

have you seen time stop?

two lovers slowed the clocks in their world

with one touch one look

they sit, heads turned to the still moving water

through the restaurant’s glass

wall, watch the setting sun

turn a sky lonely in shades of pink.

she tucks his mousy brown hair

behind his ears

then one stroke two strokes

with the back of her fingers

against his left cheek.

in that single gesture,

he knows

his head is turned to the mountain; eyes lost as

he smiles

and in that slow instant

as his cheeks

rise to meet his eyes,

she knows too

©Toni Stuart, December 2008

i slept

this is another old poem which i wrote about five years ago and recently found in and among a stack of others. i'm working on a manuscript at the moment and so keep coming across old poems, some of which i will include in the manuscript. this one's a personal favourite

i slept

last night i slept

wrapped in blanket of your voice

lulled to sleep

by smell of your music

harmed

by thoughts of you

i dreamt last night

dreamt

in vivid colours of you

sombre colours of me

and in the breath between the two

we kissed

Toni Stuart, Cape Town, 2004

we build walls

this is an old poem which i wrote years ago but found again recently and thought i'd post it...

we build walls

there are things i will not say like,

‘i still love you’

we build walls

with pens on paper

with tongues in mouths

with hearts

            slow and silent to move behind cages

we build walls

to keep people out

i build a wall

to keep you in.

i wish time would erase you from me

like the Cape Doctor

dispels smog from our skies

but you linger…

the distant memory of you

still warms all of me.

i think i have forgotten

how your tongue makes

sound against teeth to

form words

how your eyes grow when you laugh

i think i have forgotten how fast you eat

how you cut meat and veg into pieces

and heap them onto your fork

how you chew wildly

i think i have forgotten how you sound

i think i have forgotten how warm your hands are

but i have not forgotten

why i love(d) you

and this keeps my heart still

it does not walk

it sits

   lies

   sleeps here

in a bed of you memories

we build walls

when we pull ears from hearts

when we pull eyes from souls

we build walls

to keep people out

to cripple ourselves in

but it is comforting

…it is what we know

Toni Stuart - 2007