Brock Yapp, South Africa's National Honour
October 2026
Synaesthesia
The grace my friend possessed,
the grace I coveted,
never once was mine.
He spent his life
transcribing instrumentals,
a translation only his hands knew how to resolve
He calibrated classical
to five hundred and
twenty-eight vibrations a second,
the frequency his deaf,
beloved lover could receive
by resonating in her bones
She read lips, so his phone calls
were private only
when he faced the wall
She ate the music
he crafted to be transient,
and only theirs,
with letters of the alphabet
held together
by candle wax and sugar
Maybe she liked the shape of words
like tikitiki den-den, tikitiki
Dun-dun-dun-DAAAAH—
with violins in italics,
the loudest parts
in letters she had to stretch her arms
to carry
How quietly he gave himself
to something most will never hear—
I have written a few poems
for those few who needed them,
as well
The few who did
needed them hellishly bad
Score: 80.04 out of 100.
Read the October 2026 National Honours