‘art should comfort the disturbed and disturb the comfortable” – Cesar A. Cruz
Archive for September 5, 2015
the crime of forgetting …
the image of
a little boy washed ashore
is what it takes
to prick our consciences?
the image of
a little boy washed ashore
compels us to finally see
but never to acknowledge
the collective crimes
committed in our name
war
invasion
state-sponsored terrorism
ah but its much easier
to curse the migrant
fleeing the bombs your tax dollars
build
buy
manufacture
drop
while we pontificate
huff
&
puff
and
while we continue to shop
for the charade
the theatre of shallow veneer
must never stop …
the immigrant at home
fatigued
pained
cast adrift
shunned aside
living
existing
on
islands of despair
deprivation
death
human beings
you and i
who just yesterday
or perhaps many lives ago
were
hounded
persecuted
jailed
cursed
spat on
rendered
alien at home
and
then
lost at sea
mere cattle
to be hauled
onto desolate cages
mere cargo
in the
economics of flesh
and
who
now
are
everywhere
cursed
spat on
and
told
to go home
silence swells
drowning out the ceaseless chitter-chatter of days
innumerable
lost somewhere along these pathways
and having walked upon a few
and
crawled many more
i too
feel
that feeling
of feeling
bereft of hope
ah but
sprinkle some dreams coated with lies
glazed over
empty hollowed eyes
avert your sight
when they
stare at you
all cold
and
washed-up
and
dead
their
cold gaze
questioning
perhaps?
… questioning
us who feign death
on many a similar sun-drenched beach
while still squeezing in
4 hours a week
of community outreach?
lost in this ocean
of complicit howls
wails
hollow words
crocodile tears
it has no meaning
this life
these breaths we consume
nothingness
it is
just
half-muttered realpolitik …
one dead kid on a beach
… so that’s what it takes
more effigies
paraded on 24/7 TV
go look up the word ‘blowback’
and perhaps
unlike aylan
who was fed to the sea
you atleast
may
finally be
able to see
what really is
and not simply what you want it to be …
when tides of innocence wash up
dead
cold
empty on terra firma
why don’t i shudder
why don’t i care
‘cept for churning out some paltry scribbles
as the charade continues
as the world
salivates
& dribbles …
maropeng & the cradle of humankind* …
shared hopes
on
bloodied earth
of
common dreams
winding along myriad streams
whose
source is here
beneath our multi-hued feet
flowing
into a shared humanity
this shawl that should encompass us all
by
binding us together
a species with blood that is red
always red
for
we are all
the children of Africa
branched off
spread wide
but
of this soil
and
of this earth
foreign to none
hewn as one
so tell me again
what was it that
you were saying about “the bloody foreigners”
___________
*
Maropeng is a Setswana word meaning ‘returning to the place of our origins’
Scribbled Verse 