Rob Bolton (original) (raw)

Robert Edward Bolton's work has appeared in the journals Carapace, Vlerk, Penorent and Sharp! and online at litnet.co.za and hedgewood.blogspot.com, as well as in the collections Honest Betrayals (Fenomeen Publikasies 2000), Small Freedoms (Suider Kollege Uitgewers 2000), By Word of Mouth: Seven Stellenbosch Sonnets (Stellenbosch Museum 2001) and uit die stof die see die skald se handevuurvoet tracks en die verstuite trein van wat verlange (Fenomeen Publikasies 2001). It has also been published in New Contrast, which is the oldest of the existing SA literary journals and some of his texts have been set to music.
He is a partner in an architectural practice.
Interests: literature, poetry, music, science, mathematics, language, bow-hunting

Tuesday night at the Red Café[from "Red Quartet"]Comrade, if my way were left (to beor not) to me, then you and I would fallto local Avignons. The holy, see,have cornered every vacant throne, and allthe architects have gone to make their saintlymarks on English, Swiss, Croatian soil,to ring, with distant Esmeraldas, faintly,distant bells from which in faith recoilour ladies' faithless and unRoman backs,and yet to which unfold the (un- and working)spines of honest parents. She who lacksthe bending-will, who stands (day's duties shirking)backboned, tongued, and tasting of the saltof steppes: she whistles-in the Soft Revolt.

The Man That Never Wastell the mothers and the fathers goodbye from him.whisper at the prayer-heavy bedsteads of the sonsand at the daughters' sleeping keyhole earsa harmless good night's goodnightand a lullaby of soft betrayals.and tell the doves sweep clean the skyof every any once-shared scrap,the moon and the fragments of the moon.and the stains of its spilled stilled stormson the tousled ballgowns of the night scrub out:then bid the saints and cinderellas all a fond forgetting.the man that never was.