Sinclair Beiles, Yeoville, Johannesburg 1994

Terrible Dreams by Sinclair Beiles

My condition is lamentable - to me anyway.
I keep a kind of old flying machine stability
On a cupboard full of drugs
And as I fly through the day
I can hear my nerves creaking.
I look over the side of the cockpit
And below I see the horrors of enemy territory
- the mental hospitals.
All I can think of is writing as much as I can
While a semblance of sanity and strengthen
remains for me,
I fear the fate of Artaud
Of Nietzsche
Of Nijinsky.
If some small magazine editor happens to
drop into your office
Or into your soup in the form of a fly when
You eat at
The arts laboratory
Perhaps you can pull out this work for his
consideration.
Tell him I have terrible dreams.

(From Ashes of Experience, Wurm, Pretoria, 1969)