Huesque Foster
Ecstasy
With fond sentiment
I recall with selective detail
One dimly lit
Night, outside some bottle store
When for the first time I
Felt something different because you
Confessed your feelings as
The wind froze our skin
While my head burned intensely when
The streets were deserted and
Filled with amorphous
Dins as internally I rejoiced
When you let your
Cheek touch mine causing the
Houses and shops
To become floppy squares and
Moving colours.
I’m missing some details,
But I recall the rest. The sun
Flashed us awake. We
Greeted as friends, and you
Still, greet me as a friend.
The Difference Between Sheep
They're all the same,
Pathetic, weak, obedient.
They need a master to protect them.
To keep them scuff-free, or they're useless.
We can't have any blood blots on our perfect ewes.
The foolish things want nothing more than to ruin themselves,
They need us,
We deserve purity, nothing less.
Pure for us butchers, we’re the ones to break them
We’re to cut them up.
The shepherds are plentiful and the sheep are unlimited,
I get to bludgeon a body almost every week.
Yet, butchers respect the farmers’ work in breeding
Our perfect little product.
We all do our best to love our sheep,
We never wanted them to work.
They were to be fattened and groomed to our liking,
And raised to love their reaper’s voice,
Because they love us, and they need us.
A sheep’s head is a hollow shell.
Fairy
Let me tell you about a fairy
Whose magnificent diamond white wings
Could sparkle indefinitely
And squeeze love into lost souls.
I know a fairy
A crafty tinker
An immortal scholar
And a patient teacher -
I remember a fairy
That zipped faster than could be heard
Was stronger than all the unknown beasts
And more seraphic than even the dahlias
There once was a fairy
With a grizzly command
With smoky-sounding words
That sung sweet sonics
Even this fairy
Traded wings for a scaly tail
A deep set of gills
To go charming foreign merchants
I lost one fairy
And I don’t know
If my fables
Can get them back
We Used to Go Out
The best club I've been to is the place down the road.
With all its quiet rooms and loud rooms
Shining professionally and reflecting.
The hours spent by the cleaning staff
On inflating the cost of admission
Yet the experience was world-class
As it tends to be when you're intoxicated
Within the room famous for its substances
And lethal-grade fentanyl
That makes you forget you're already dying
I was told everyone there was hopeless
And that is what the staff is there for;
Whether they play to a sombre tune
Or raise hell by halting heaven,
All the people there have handed over their lives
To the sound of the house. Until they’re deaf to the song
And do nothing but shake and convulse
Hoping to fill the room with their screams
Not knowing if the person in the bed feels
Greater pain than they do watching.
Until they use the fentanyl.
Drought
Dry soil yearns for a drop of rain.
There's no delight upon the cracked ground,
or wish upon the airy sand.
The dust devils whisper my despair to the world.
Storm clouds were once my greatest fear
Your words calmed my turbulence when you said,
“Dear,
Rainbows follow storms.”
You turned chaos into beauty, an image of you…
A storm's voice is proud and it grumbles with depth.
That relaxed sound always wishes to be shared.
You shared your thoughts and shared your plans
I’m grateful for your comfort in my time of distress
The rain caused distress with its pelting aggression
I once saw hate, I see excitement.
The rain nurtures with force.
I still feel bad about your rain
The rainbow was my favourite
When we did no work together.
I would be happy just seeing the rainbow was there.
Your colours stand out amongst a blanket of grey
You were a focal point to span the sky
Your face was so radiant it almost blurred.
I never searched your body for its end
Gold is nothing when facing your narrow bends
When I see storm clouds I know the rainbow is with me.
But then it stopped raining.
Now even the weeds bend over and shrivel
The grass turned to dust once the rain departed
The temperature rises with each passing second
And I cry no tears to comfort this drought.
Huesque Foster is a seventeen-year-old swimmer, artist, and musician from South Africa.
Huesque has been published in The Malu Zine and won the Brakpan High School eisteddfod in short story writing. Huesque has written two horror novels based on occult studies.