Solidarity with Greece

We Shall Always be Many More

(For the dispossessed of this world)

we shall always be many more
we who roast in your designer factories
our brows dripping with our salty sweat
we who may forgive but shall never forget

we shall always be many more
we who reek of cheap moonshine
we who stagger and often stumble
we whose stomachs never cease to rumble

we shall always be many more
we who polish your fine bone china
we whose pay gets docked if one cup is chipped
we who fight your wars, and off to battle get shipped

we shall always be many more
we who clean up after your pretty children
we whose kids are hungry, naked and get swept
into the bowels of desolation, as mothers’ tears are wept

we shall always be many more
we who do your dirty work each day
we who you treat like vermin, foul and rotten
we whose trampled dignity is always forgotten

we shall always be many more
we who will rise up and seize the light of hope
and reclaim what is ours for our daughters and sons
though we will always be in the cross-hairs of your guns

we shall always be many more
and there shall be many more of us still to come
to rid you of your smug arrogance and endless greed
for we too have children whom we have to feed

we shall always be many more
‘and the meek shall inherit the earth’
or something like that though we no longer care
for we shall rise up one day to demand our rightful share

we shall always be many more…

(With thanks to Ken Loach’s movie ‘Land & Freedom’)

scribbles & rhymes

scribbles & rhymes

kind words
skewered over baking cobblestones

littering the streets of shameful cries

all caught in frozen sunlight

catatonic amidst cavernous avenues
as
silenced screams echo across each thorny boulevard …

traversing rivers of tears drowned in an ocean of fears

choked by the noose bound tight held captive by endless night

walking and walking

between pillars of apathy veiled behind doors of hollow solace

trampling consciences deadened by malice dripping blood from a golden chalice

into the reeking sewers of feigned morality where it’s all about the deals that get struck

while we eat drink buy

f**k

ps: to skewer a line from the film ‘Apocalypse Now’,

‘ we drop napalm on children and yet we can’t use the word “fuck” because that’s obscene ‘

Who Killed the Miners at Marikana?*

Who Killed the Marikana Miners?*

who killed the miners at Marikana?

definitely not the executive

nor the executives
far removed from the grime
and the slime

Who killed the miners at Marikana?

not the Prez
and not even the Press for a change

strange

so who killed the miners at Marikana?

the unions perhaps
or the errant miner
led astray

in that obscene demand for better pay

who killed the miners at Marikana?

not armed cops,
firing bullets of lead into the back of the head

execution-style it’s been said

who killed the miners at Marikana?

it seems no one can be found

as bodies decompose deep under gold dust ground

while families grieve

there
ain’t no one around to take the fall

so
who killed the Marikana Miners?

no one

no one at all

* inspired by the protest song “Who Killed Davey Moore”, a topical song written in 1963 by American folk singer/songwriter Bob Dylan.

Slaughter at Marikana

Slaughter at Marikana.

1.

Bullets tearing,
into muscled flesh,

as,
bodies slump,
dead as dust.

Sweaty and bruised,
slogging,

mining the land of the ancestors,

descending into hell,
day by wretched day,

for shiny metals,

like those shiny metal bullets,

that tore,
into muscled flesh,

as,
bodies slumped,

dead as dust.

2.

How can we mourn,
the slaughtered,

how do we cleanse,
our blood-soaked hands,

without,
betraying our complicity,

in the slaughter at Marikana,

as we lightly tread,
on the mine-fields,

of greed,
of profit,

on the backs,
of the slaughtered dead.

(dedicated to the human beings massacred at Marikana)

Charleston, South Carolina, June 17th 2015

Charleston, South Carolina, June 17th 2015

21st Century Lynching

Gone are the white masks and sheets,

today the KKK struts in plain sight,

on nameless blood-soaked streets.

The past still lives,
breathes,

spewing hate,

stereotyping and profiling and generalising,

‘the Nigger deserved it’,

they still say,

as they continue to hate,

and to slay.

Justice is blind,
we are so often told,

but it’s deaf,
and mute,

and can be,
and is,
bought and sold,

just as they once,

traded,
bought,
sold,
flogged,
whipped,
lynched,

and raped human-beings,

and just as each of those human-beings of colour was called a slave,

today, in the 21st century,

a person of colour,

still better ‘know’ his or her ‘place’,

or face the racist murderers’ hate,

and be shot down,
and be clubbed
and be beaten,

to an early, shallow grave

_____________________

peace | love | uBuntu

June 16th 2015 South Africa

June 16th 2015
South Africa

1.

the blood of the valiant flowed,

absorbed by our famished soil,

our battered pained earth,

moistened by beads of collective sweat,

the endless toil,

where the valiant rest.

2.

or do they?

do the valiant rest
beneath our African skies?

do the valiant rest?

no.

they do not rest.

they recoil.

this is not what they fought for.

we’ve betrayed them.

we’ve betrayed the core …

yakkity-yakking

when cellophane skies fall

swirling down

settling gently
on marshmallow clouds

of chocolate whispers

velveteen murmurs
form crisp peppermint kisses

hazelnutty dreams still burn bright

and
the belief

the belief still rages!

and so
may it rage forever on!

through rough oncoming tides

always

through ensuing epochs and ages

more pomposity …

life sways
walking the tightrope

on the cusp of departing night

hoping
always hoping

that the day to be

be gentler
less harsh
more humane

that the day to be

be bathed
in equality’s
ever-hopeful
light

hopeful thoughts aka ‘pompous thoughts’

hopeful thoughts

(also known as ‘pompous thoughts’)

deafening
howls of hate
may
yet
be

quelled

simply
by

knowing
believing
fairly
justly

collectively

that
you

me

him

she

her

they

us

yes us
may still

share
a
kinder
gentler fate

but only if
i

you

her

they

him

us
yes us

begin
anew

and then

when peace is what we all shall wage

we may then

and only then

begin to scribble afresh

new
dreams
aspirations
hopes

collectively

on

a

new
fresh page.

dawn breaking …

dawn breaking.

1.

willowy brushstrokes
conjured sketches

painted
etched
embossed

hewn between forgotten morns

waking
splintering
straining

against another

ceaseless
relentless
endless

empty
vacuumed
abyss
of
night.

2.

and
still

still
hope blazes

bright
radiant
smiling

though
measured
disciplined

while
embracing
enveloping

and always
always
surrendering to the eternal promise

raging
hungering
aching

that promise of a new dawn breaking …

kleptocratic ungovernance

kleptocratic ungovernance …

the 1%.

snouts deep,
buried alive,

all conscience excised,

seeking more,
always seeking more.

the 99%.

shrivelled shadows,
tucked away under underpasses,

seeking enough,
always seeking just enough.

the river rolls …

neither here nor there …

traversing the meandering bylanes of life

tears fall
through the cauldron of strife

memories like jagged shards of sorrow,

embedded
hewn

into a torrent of emotion

flow on
               and on

cascading over raw wounds

                reaching without
                seeking
peace
                within

clinging onto
filaments of hope

while hollow words

crawl
fade

mope

slinking away to settle
           on tattered scrolls

while life persists,

so long as the river rolls…