Roy Joseph Cotton – September 11, '53 – March 10, '85

Roy commenced writing poetry during his latter school years. He read prolifically and was passionate about music and was a devote to Bob Dylan. He wrote many plays or "Musical Paintings" as he called them, and was also busy with two works "Multimythicum" and "Girlpools, Whirpools, and other gusts of Twirling Hair". He wrote from the security of a warm, close family in a comfortable Cape Town (South Africa) suburb. Yet most of his huge output of poems reflect a consuming angst. It was an angst which drove him to search for peace throughout books, music, writing, and religion, and it led to ultimate despair. His highly idiosyncratic way with language and the intense pressure of his emotional and spiritual concerns make his poetry compelling and disturbing reading. His untimely death at age of 31 cut short his promising career as a poet.

My Heart is Heavy

MY HEART IS HEAVY

my heart is heavy
like a basket of stone
filled with her kisses
all of them leprous
all of them perspiring
all around me the salt
of her shadow haunts
the bay she wishes to
transform into ostrichmirth;
alas her eyes are whiter
than ravenblood and her
tongue is ashen with
my polite refusal to
accompany her to the brink
of the abyss of our despair

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