The Bench
That afternoon in the damp, green spring
I see you and Chappie: at seventeen
You are all angles and sharp edges
With your against-all-school-rules afros
Smoking menthol cigarettes
Tossing a ball for Blackie
Today I want to unearth a smoke from your box
Hidden under the loose bottom of a side cupboard
And sit on the bench with you — my brother
Even though our beloved Blackie is long gone
And no-one smokes anymore
archive - issue 18
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10 Characters
By Anton KruegerNurse Marie Her lapel is a little faded and her lipstick slightly smudged in the corner of her mouth. “It’s an easy job,” she…Read More- WRITING
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A Cry for Help
By Ross FlemingI come from a long line of great worriers. My earliest memory is of Father, the morning paper spread out before him, tearing his…Read More- WRITING
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A pair of star cross’d lovers take their life.
By Lance RautzhanA selection from a series of polaroids and paintings "We are Definitely Heroes" that calls into question our self-obsessed nature through the lens of…Read More- AUDIOVISUAL
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a perspective
By Lucca Munnikshe’s a contradiction:anxious yet fierce andchallenging yet sensitive. she carries emotions that she hides from people,but then bluntly spurts them out when it gets…Read More- POETRY
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A shortish life in 15 shortish paragraphs
By Maren BodensteinA shortish life in 15 shortish paragraphs 1. Birth From the start it was all hard work. Later her blue-eyed brothers and sisters made…Read More- WRITING
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All the World
By Jeannie Wallace McKeownHours spent dreaming herself a role in an infinite movie reel of lives; string theory says she’s living them; somewhere she moved to a…Read More- POETRY
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Commuting in Jozi
By PALESA RAMEKOANEComing from Polokwane, a small town in Limpopo, Johannesburg is a big city to me. It is a congested, confusing, concrete jungle compared to…Read More- WRITING
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Constellations
By Caitlin StobieFor Ryan We were meant to be characters: two queer geeks with a Tarot set. Setting: the day of the velveteen stage,…Read More- POETRY
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de-identified
By Kirsten Stollede-identified examines the impact of facial recognition technology on individual privacy. Using augmented portraits of 19th century women and an imagined narrative, de-identified explores how…Read More- AUDIOVISUAL
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gogogo is in love
By esethu esethuREMEMBERING HERE an excerpt from "A Long Story Short", an unpublished novella It was not always as contaminated, the nature of the resentments…Read More- WRITING
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I am very angry
By James Chapangara MugabePart 1 - Introduction Please let me rant! I am angry, very angry! I am angry with you Comrades Ja! Ek is gatvol! Ini ndakadumbirwa…Read More- POETRY
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I doodled your name by force
By Naggayi Lydia SanyuI doodled your name by force. Yes please. I was not going to be that girl who'd pass through her teenage years without ever…Read More- WRITING
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Joseph: Starlin
By Joseph ClaassenJoseph: Starlin He rolls up on me while I’m whatsapping calls softly from the side to not scare meout here in the city’s dukderma man…Read More- POETRY
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Kinoti's Flower Bud
By Michael ThuoA green writer is one in constant motion. This motion is in the state of mind: seeking ideas, inspiration and appealing to the yet…Read More- WRITING
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La femme obscur
By Lunette Elle WarrenShe’s a natural brunette. She has an incurable case of Resting Bitch Face. She’s a poet. She’s a dirt road that stretches into the…Read More- POETRY
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Listening at the edges
By Robin Dunn1. I hid in the church after they left. Some of the stained glass had been broken, and the plain sunlight bled into…Read More- WRITING
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Meeting Kasiobi
By Mariam SuleFew things have evoked my empathy like the evening I spent with a beautiful man named Kasiobi who has lost an ability that I…Read More- WRITING
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Mostly about a Beetle
By Anthea GarmanKen’s red beetle 1963 – I am three years old. I pose against the beetle in the way I have seen my mother do. Fat…Read More- WRITING
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My Grandmother's Name
By Louella SullivanIn her 70s the rigid clack of a label maker stamped out her neat name to be stuck spirit-level straight on cupboards, Tupperware, biscuit…Read More- POETRY
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Nairobi Is A Quick Lover
By Waiganjo NdiranguFirst flash: a business-bright billboard smile; A suit far too neat for the jam on Jogoo Road; A suit too well knit, too well…Read More- POETRY
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Sir Churge, Father Obsolescence
By Eugene MotsotsaThere’s an old proverbial postulate that the commercial competitive market model seeks to create the best possible goods at the lowest possible prices (now,…Read More- WRITING
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The Boys and Girls of the Burn Uncalendar
By Team TarbabyImage GalleryRead MoreView the embedded image gallery online at:Character resonating out hard into the environs: with physical manifestations in Heaven and Earth; for better or worse; meteorologically, geologically, technologically; synthesising…
https://www.itch.co.za/archive/issue-18/item/1684-the-bench#sigProId2cbf4bd9ab- AUDIOVISUAL
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The Garden's Memory
By Louella SullivanA garden is harder than a marriage you can’t throw sex or wine at it to pacify the wilderness that threatens. A garden…Read More- POETRY
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The Gathering
By Emmanuel Uweru OkohNow I ask... What do you see? Eyes with shades of variedness Eyes of diverse vision A hundred feet in this room A…Read More- POETRY
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The prisoner
By Carla ChaitThe clink-clink of chains along the corridor of area 354 is indicative of the approach of a prisoner. A prisoner is approaching and I…Read More- WRITING
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The Running Man
By Theodore SeneneIf you happened to be seated in the third coach of the 10 o'clock train heading west, watching the luscious green countryside flash by,…Read More- WRITING
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Tom and Flo Go to the Races
By Lester WalbrughBy the time they reached one hundred kilometres outside Kamieskroon, on the way to Cape Town, the rhythmic tikketu-tikketu of train meeting track had…Read More- WRITING
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Louella Sullivan
Louella Sullivan learned to type poems one-handed whilst bouncing small babies on her lap. She did an MA in Creative Writing at Rhodes in 2014 where she completed her thesis Bitten under Robert Berold. She is a Drama, History and English teacher as well as a part-time lecturer at Rhodes University. She has been published in Aerodrome, New Contrast, New Coin and Itch. Her poems have been described as "polished, poised and vivid". In 2016, her poem "Refugee" was longlisted for the Sol Plaatje European Union Poetry Award.