Pop-Pop

we are 
all just 
monkeys

and the blind 
organ-grinder 

is still 
drunk

again

FREEDOM

We are free

To breathe this air

But please bring cash

For food and water.

We are free

To live wherever we like

But please pay the landlord

On your way in.

We are free

To conjure grand destinies

But please don’t get ahead of yourself

And keep your dreams real.

We are free

To make our own choices

But please don’t disagree

With the common opinion.

We are free

I am told.

DON’T FRACK WITH NIEU-BETHESDA

The 28^th of July is GLOBAL ANTI-FRACKING DAY and yet I am amazed by how many people still do not know what Hydraulic Fracturing is despite the media coverage fought for by an organization like the Treasure the Karoo Action Group (TKAG); or simply paid for by the oil companies who have applied for exploration rights to an area that covers almost one-fifth of South Africa’s territorial surface.

Shell South Africa has applied for exploration rights for 90 000km² of the ecologically sensitive Karoo – virtually its entirety. The village of Nieu-Bethesda falls within this area and is unique in that it has no petrol station, no tarred roads and no street lights. Situated in a valley in the Sneeuberg Range, 1500 meters above sea level and overshadowed only by the Compassberg which at 2400 meters towers imperviously above the arid expanse of the Great Karoo, "where the land meets the sky". The village is where you will find Helen Martin’s world famous Owl House and where the celebrated playwright, Athol Fugard lived while he wrote The Road To Mecca.

The future of countless little Karoo towns like Nieu-Bethesda will be in danger of extinction as water contamination, environmental degradation and the inevitable loss of livelihoods in a fragile regional economy that is largely sustained by agriculture and tourism.

On the weekend of the 27^th & 28^th of July the village of Nieu-Bethesda will be hosting a series of events that will raise awareness about the dangers of fracking.

On Friday evening a networking meet-and-greet at the Ramstal Pub will start with the screening of the locally made documentary entitled Unearthed, which will be followed by a bring-and-braai and an informal discussion session with local stakeholders and guests.

On Saturday morning a special Village Market will take place where the colourful and creative locals buy, sell and barter a mouth watering variety and organic, homemade food and handcrafted ‘little goodies’ as well as an eclectic assortment of seconds. To book a stall, email Belinda on belinda.meltingpot@gmail.com by the 21^st July.

On Saturday between 10.30 and 3pm, Marina Louw from the Climate Justice Campaign will conduct a workshop designed to equip interested individuals and activists with resource materials that have been developed with Earthlife Africa to educate communities about the dangers of fracking. To book your place for this free workshop, please email Marina on marina.louw@mweb.co.za before the 15^th of July.

At 17.45 a pre-concert anti-fracking rally will be held at The Old Church Hall where Steve Newman and Greg Georgiades will begin their performance at 19.00.

Tickets for the concert are R100 and for more information about accommodation and bookings please call 0498411642 during office hours or email accommodation@nieu-bethesda.com

CONTAINED

I’ve been imprisoned from the moment I was born: imprisoned by repressive laws and a barbarous system that has criminalized my existence, rendering me a fugitive in my dreams.

Cowardly thieves, sneaking around undercover of broad daylight with a righteous indignation and baying regiments of uniformed henchman who are deployed to silence the voices of dissent in the dead of night: the bloodlust will not be sated.

The oppression and murder were not enough, I had to be confined even further: regularly detained and occasionally arrested; interrogated and routinely tortured; humiliated and maimed. Murdered!

You thought that you could strip me of my soul by tearing off my clothes you tried to demolish my unwavering conviction that yours is the mind enchained.

Despite your relentless, tyrannical persecution, you fail to strip me of my humanity.

Broken and bleeding I embraced the cold concrete and steel; the pain and the imprisonment; you wondered when you saw me lying there then, you thought that I would break but I didn’t.

I was prepared.

I had been prepared ever since you enslaved my ancestors and detained my elders; kicking my mother and beating my father; I was prepared and it scared you further. You thought I would break but I wouldn’t.

The hours and days and years pass in the distance while I count out the seconds to the sound of your footsteps up and down the corridor.

It makes me smile.

I see you there deep inside your own demise, unable to leave; not thinking, just marking the passage of my every thought, imagining a better world; a world I know in which everyone is free and able to live and die with dignity.

And you do not even realize that you are there with me, in this prison and in my thoughts; you do not realize that it is you!

You who is not free to leave because your fear and your guilt and your mindless bigotry has enslaved you and made you ever vigilant, ever watching and unseeing!

I am released and you remain. Serving your time for a bastard father who is dead yet remains to demand your body and your blood and your thoughts and your soul: bowed to the dictate and demand of a despotic patriarch consumed by its own ravening will, being consumed.

And through your bars while you look at me maybe you’ll see the mother; maybe you’ll see another father with a child who is smiling as it points a tiny finger to the future.

I cannot believe that you did not realize that your laws and your jails and your boots and your guns would never again enslave me: the concrete and steel and razor-wire were never enough to restrain me; your plots and your schemes and your lies and false dreams never once fooled me.

I am the spirit of freedom, of equality and justice; I am woman and man, I am their child. I am greater than your futility and prejudice and violence; I am conscious, I am humanity and I will no longer be contained!

THE SOLITUDE OF SANITY

The island

Is not permanently inhabited

High tides engulf it

The flowers cannot grow.

The neighbours are strangers

I barely want to know

Cellular beacons towering over barbed garden walls

The black grass is stunted.

The mind is cluttered

No time to stop and think

No will, only desire

No one wants to go.

I stopped believing in fairytales

Often I feel so alone.

'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.)

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!

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.

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.

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…

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.