Gerhard Something

An early tormentor,

Gerhard Something:

scalped on a Friday

by the unbuckling 

early eighties’ bonnet of

his mother’s white Corolla.

The news on Monday drifts over

the assembly- draws 

gasps, sobs, palms to young mouths,  

before the bloody, 

eagerly embellished details 

reliably seep through the school veins. 

His eyes were open.

Still holding his Coke.

Alive...still Gerhard Something.

Alive, but dead, you understand? 

I had no doubt that 

the early eighties’ Dutch Reformed Jesus 

I knew and feared then

would have sent him, 

Coke in hand, 

swiftly  to hell…

Yet.

He’s an angel now,

Headmaster,

Van Der Walt eulogises. 

Here among us, eyes open.

Dead...still Gerhard Something.

Dead, but alive, you understand?