(The ancestors are dead. Some buried and forgotten. Gardens along sandy paths whisper poetic; rain like tears of longing, blown by the wind. As we stand watching.)
Saturday, 26 May 2012
'n Storie met dertig woorde...
Die voorouers is dood. Somige begrawe en vergeet. Tuine langs sand paaie fluister poëties, reën soos trane van verlange wat gewaai word deur die wind. Terwyl ons staan en kyk.
(The ancestors are dead. Some buried and forgotten. Gardens along sandy paths whisper poetic; rain like tears of longing, blown by the wind. As we stand watching.)
(The ancestors are dead. Some buried and forgotten. Gardens along sandy paths whisper poetic; rain like tears of longing, blown by the wind. As we stand watching.)
Friday, 25 May 2012
OH AFRIKA, MY AFRIKA!
Oh Africa, my Africa
How I wish I could wipe away your tears
To alleviate, no eliminate your suffering
To return you to your former glory
Help you to reclaim your exalted place
In the annals of this epoch.
We’ve defeated the colonial slave master
To be ruled by mindless martyrs
And greedy, blood-thirsty bastards
Whose only desire is personal power
Achieved through the murder of innocence
And callously maintained with armed intolerance.
Where now are the people’s leaders?
Where are the revolutionary ideals?
Gone and buried in the blood-soaked fatherland
Forgotten amid the greater carnage of commerce
And crushed beneath the grinding wheels of progress
As we all look on so helpless.
Stand tall sisters and brothers
Honour the memory of the father and mother
Together we can stem the tide
Let the children live with pride
United we can dream again
Freed from the shackles of relentless strain.
Once more to claim our place in the sun
Without fear of persecution and harm
Our voices can be raised as one
Ubuntu! Uhuru! We will sing freedom’s song
Of Africa, my Africa
The struggle carries on!
How I wish I could wipe away your tears
To alleviate, no eliminate your suffering
To return you to your former glory
Help you to reclaim your exalted place
In the annals of this epoch.
We’ve defeated the colonial slave master
To be ruled by mindless martyrs
And greedy, blood-thirsty bastards
Whose only desire is personal power
Achieved through the murder of innocence
And callously maintained with armed intolerance.
Where now are the people’s leaders?
Where are the revolutionary ideals?
Gone and buried in the blood-soaked fatherland
Forgotten amid the greater carnage of commerce
And crushed beneath the grinding wheels of progress
As we all look on so helpless.
Stand tall sisters and brothers
Honour the memory of the father and mother
Together we can stem the tide
Let the children live with pride
United we can dream again
Freed from the shackles of relentless strain.
Once more to claim our place in the sun
Without fear of persecution and harm
Our voices can be raised as one
Ubuntu! Uhuru! We will sing freedom’s song
Of Africa, my Africa
The struggle carries on!
Thursday, 17 May 2012
Just Another Day - May 25 every year...
It’s cozy indoors by the fire
Just another cold, wet, gray autumn day
Out there the raindrops
And icy gusts are uninviting
Biting, drenching souls
Relentlessly reminding all
That in Africa there is more
Than just sunshine today
On this day unacknowledged
Unannounced, uncelebrated
Not forgiven, unforgotten
Africa Day, just another African day
Unforgiven, not forgotten
Africa Day, African dazed.
Dazed and warm indoors
So easy to forget that outside
It is cold and wet and uncomfortable
Around some other fire
Misery sits warming its hands
And drying its feet
Beneath a leaking roof
With broken hinges on the door
Of the empty grocery cupboard
As the last log is licked
By a struggling, frail flame
As the draught seeps
Beneath the door
So easy to forget
That its Africa day today.
Unacknowledged, unannounced
And not celebrated
Instead a toast is drunk
To the barman’s continued health
As the gray skies darken
And the rain continues to pour
And somewhere up there
The sun is shining on Africa
On this dreary African day
Unacknowledged, unannounced
And not celebrated
In an African daze.
Sunday, 13 May 2012
Woman
Life’s nurturer
Child’s comforter
Silent sufferer
Heart’s conqueror.
Life giver
Beautiful lover
Someone’s sister
Eternal mother.
Leader, teacher,
Preacher and seeker
Future and past
The abuse cannot last.
Reflect, respect
Reject object.
Pain inflicted
Living restricted.
Thursday, 10 May 2012
OBVIOUS
It fell
From my face
Shattered
On the floor.
Nowhere to run
No place to hide
No more deception
No delusions.
I am exposed
My rose tinted spectacle
Lies broken
On the ground.
THE END OF WAITING
The years have passed by in a moment,
Leaving just the scars and memories
To keep me company; keeping me sane –
Helping me to cope with the strain.
All the time wasted waiting
For a better day, a better way,
A reason to stay the distance
Despite this clinically reduced
existence.
And while the spilled blood dries, the
flesh rots:
Souls entwined inevitably unravel:
The truth, a thread, a solitary
trickle –
A teardrop that rusts the moon’s
sickle.
Wasted living waiting for life to
begin;
Wasted living in someone else’s
dream;
Where love once given cannot be
returned –
Where souls once cherished cannot be
spurned.
The tender smiles and joyous
laughter;
The special moments that we share:
These are the treasures that linger
When you dance alone on the edge of
despair.
So much living wasted...
Waiting…
Just
waiting…
Monday, 23 April 2012
BLOWING
The voices on the wind speak to me
Sharing their mirthless whispers
Screaming their timeless secrets
The South-Easter filling our lungs
Daring us all to listen.
A tale of enslavement
Minds and bodies bound
An ancient story of tomorrow
Spilling from fetid lips
Sputtering and blistering
Swallowing the truth decayed.
I am a child of slavery
Still remembering, feeling, reeling
From seeing the rusted chains intact
Amid the squalor and scorn
Of criminalized poverty
That is my brothers’ legacy
And the sons and daughters’ lot.
Wednesday, 4 April 2012
I CAN
Can you imagine a world
Untouched by greed and destruction
Where every effort is a part
Of a greater, living art?
Can you imagine the other
A distant sister or brother
Without fear and prejudice
As someone to love and care for?
Can you imagine yourself
Living to fulfill a different role
That encompasses more than your own security
A life of purpose untainted by impurity?
Can you imagine how it would be
If every one of us was a leader
Unchained and unscarred by preconception
Conscious and creating all that can be imagined?
GROWTH
Perfect isolation
Calm and wild
Now that history recedes
To create new memories
Of yet another tomorrow
That will undoubtedly grow.
This familiar ocean
Always met anew
Deceptive beneath the surface
Dark unfathomable depths
Conceal untold mysteries
Untold secrets
Forgotten.
SUGA!
The smile persists
Gently engraved
Juicy fruit
Succulent flesh.
The desire resists
Attempted distractions
Succulent fruit
Juicy flesh.
The memory consists
Of future images
Succulent, juicy
Fleshy fruit.
Wednesday, 14 March 2012
Yesterday's News...
Nothing for mahala
Bid to buy State support
MTN laments extortion
Sasol’s profit jumps
Cloudy skies over Velvet’s Aurora ties
Board will ponder failure
Gentlemen unionists
Win a house of cards.
Bigotry for dummies
Under the skin of whiteness
Pale males unfairly slated
Decisions of the past still hold us hostage
Carnage ahead
Road rage assault
Demands fall on deaf ears
Bus driver shot.
Cyclone Zuma’s
Lawyer and the mega tender
Vavi takes his toll on the ANC
Fractures on the march
Nzimande bunks again
I’m innocent
I’m ready for scrutiny
Has democracy failed?
Trapped in a soured relationship
Laundering wildlife
Puzzle of Putin’s tears
Theatre of frustration draws the crowds
Miners’ bodies abandoned
Bodies rained from the sky
Israeli Air Force pounds Gaza
Forty-seven bodies found in Homs.
Excuse us for not celebrating
Boerestaat to Blikkiesdorp
Africa is a gift I was given
Schoolboy wins big road tender
Radiation machine fails
Back to the dark ages
Some light relief
Vanity their meal ticket.
Fear and hope
Citizen distrust
Under fire for lack of scrutiny
The ANC’s evil twin
Deportee torture claims
Buthelezi must back off
Business as usual for hate camps
A dose of reality.
Crackdown
When you reach the top
Keep head at home
US soldier opens fire
Strikes kill twenty-five
Afghans skeptical
Police arrest four
Usual suspects.
Bid to buy State support
MTN laments extortion
Sasol’s profit jumps
Cloudy skies over Velvet’s Aurora ties
Board will ponder failure
Gentlemen unionists
Win a house of cards.
Bigotry for dummies
Under the skin of whiteness
Pale males unfairly slated
Decisions of the past still hold us hostage
Carnage ahead
Road rage assault
Demands fall on deaf ears
Bus driver shot.
Cyclone Zuma’s
Lawyer and the mega tender
Vavi takes his toll on the ANC
Fractures on the march
Nzimande bunks again
I’m innocent
I’m ready for scrutiny
Has democracy failed?
Trapped in a soured relationship
Laundering wildlife
Puzzle of Putin’s tears
Theatre of frustration draws the crowds
Miners’ bodies abandoned
Bodies rained from the sky
Israeli Air Force pounds Gaza
Forty-seven bodies found in Homs.
Excuse us for not celebrating
Boerestaat to Blikkiesdorp
Africa is a gift I was given
Schoolboy wins big road tender
Radiation machine fails
Back to the dark ages
Some light relief
Vanity their meal ticket.
Fear and hope
Citizen distrust
Under fire for lack of scrutiny
The ANC’s evil twin
Deportee torture claims
Buthelezi must back off
Business as usual for hate camps
A dose of reality.
Crackdown
When you reach the top
Keep head at home
US soldier opens fire
Strikes kill twenty-five
Afghans skeptical
Police arrest four
Usual suspects.
Monday, 12 March 2012
SUCH SUCCESS
Jagged spiked walls
Electric fences
Barred windows and doors
With panic buttons,
Standard features.
Big expensive car
High-octane lifestyle
Always rushing
Hard on the move
Exhaust fumes trailing.
Credit card consumerism
Everything’s for sale
Nothings discounted
Three score years and ten to pay
The bonded interest.
The cycle repeats
Inevitable surprise
Parent to child transmission
New grown-ups the same
Stunted growth, unquestioning.
Fiscal policy and indignity
The price we pay for progress
Wholesale compromise, we regress
The emperor’s tailor knows
The cost of such success.
Electric fences
Barred windows and doors
With panic buttons,
Standard features.
Big expensive car
High-octane lifestyle
Always rushing
Hard on the move
Exhaust fumes trailing.
Credit card consumerism
Everything’s for sale
Nothings discounted
Three score years and ten to pay
The bonded interest.
The cycle repeats
Inevitable surprise
Parent to child transmission
New grown-ups the same
Stunted growth, unquestioning.
Fiscal policy and indignity
The price we pay for progress
Wholesale compromise, we regress
The emperor’s tailor knows
The cost of such success.
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