(Ben Krengel, Lewis Levitz, Tamar)
The interned Intern in SA (or, Why are there so many SA doctors in Australia?)
Its 4 am in the morning
the sun peeps up behind the towers,
Soweto slowly stirs,
The police dogs circle in their hokkies
anticipating the day ahead.
The lights go on in Hospital kitchens,
the night matron ticks off the dead.
The van draws up inside the morgue,
unloads the bodies wrapped in linen,
Attendants place them on the slabs;
the beaten women and burned children.
The intern falls asleep at last,
(on the desk he lays his head;
puts his pager on the table)
falls asleep to meet his dead.
Pizza boxes in the doctor’s room
No-one left inside to mourn,
She takes another cigarette out,
and walks outside to greet the dawn.
The waiting room is empty now,
except for fear still sitting there,
it sticks like blood to the door handles
encompassing each plastic chair.
In Alex clinic, the ‘squeezer’ cleans out the
sluice room.
The unborn babies are in their bags,
the lab staff will soon collect them,
no names appear on their name tags.
Someone unlocks the doors to theatre,
puts new scrub suits on the floor,
‘finds’ a phone to fill his pocket,
he couldn’t really ask for more.
Doctor forgets to use the local,
the patient screams aloud in pain,
It doesn’t really seem to matter,
another chest, another drain
In triumph, I ‘tubed’ the ambulance patient,
I thought I’d bring him back from dead,
I bagged, then lifted up his torso,
to find him missing half his head.
On the 6th floor up in Hillbrow,
her baby’s fast asleep at last.
She had hoped this one would be different,
could maybe take her from her past.
The paper rustles in the window,
doesn’t keep away the cold
the nurse will visit in the morning
“Feed him better” she’ll be told.
A wrapped-up ice-cream from a brother,
the prostates cells have spread to bone,
the ward-round skips his bed this morning;
no-one’s left to write to, no-one’s left to phone.
The shots rang out outside the Res,
when they shot him, and drove away,
We rushed him back to meet his friends,
please let him live; let his soul stay.
But God was out, and though we tried,
it was no use: The doctor died.
Another doctor killed that year
No place was safe, no place to hide.
She’s young and sits still on my bench,
Occasionally she sobs and cries
He raped her, then cut out her eyes.
For twenty years these thoughts have festered,
like a cancer in my mind.
In freezing London and windy Melbourne
I cannot leave my past behind.
Lewis Levitz
Illumination
A Viennese picture
In a Tel Aviv museum.
A sunset scene
Of human beings
Who once lived there
Its golden paint
Drizzles light.
Men in raincoats
Cross the street
Where tarmac yellows
Reflect the glow
Of lamps above
An electric tram
Turns and stops
At lit up shops
The painting’s glow
Haunts the images
At the museum show
The Reich’s collection
Of confiscated art
Portraying the taste
And times of Rathenau
Where was its home?
Who was the owner?
What was his name?
No data remains.
Yet its lightening
Flashes in the rain.
The downpour
Men scurrying
Into night.
A dazzling city
Dotted with light.
Ben Krengel
Crossing Louis Botha Avenue
I walk among the blacks
across Louis Botha Avenue.
Once I saw a vagabond
lying, stoned.
I passed a hungry beggar
with apathetic eyes,
Troupes of home-bound teenagers
singing lustily.
I’ve done all this a dozen times
and haven’t once
been followed, mugged, murdered, shot at,
groped, beaten, knifed, coshed, raped.
In fact, the worst I’ve had
are horrified looks
from Jews driving past
in their safely locked cars.
Tamar
