talkin’ jo’burg city blues

talkin’ jo’burg city blues …

alone in this teeming city, surrounded by souls gone cold, we weathered the storms that lashed, we absorbed the barbed words that slashed, harsh times when dinner plates were empty, huddling close, feeling as desolate as the solitary rose, still we made it through, we held on to each other, knowing our love was true, we found work and we slogged till dawn, our only wish was for a kinder fate to be born, we have waited a while for those dreams to come to pass, shredding our hopes like shards of glass, was this the hope that drove us here, to share this single room, in a city of ugly gaudy tinsel meant to smother the gloom, this was not our dream, not mine nor yours, when we embarked on our seemingly never ending course, to build a life hewn from the promise of a better tomorrow, well we have waited through morrow after morrow, we are waiting still, for the fates to be kinder, to keep away the frigid winter chill

Football – A Ball and Some Feet

a ball and some feet …

I remember those days like yesterday, of bare feet kicking an ancient ball around, learning to dribble, swerve and to like the greats’ sway.

Then came some tattered sports shoes, as we nursed our aching ankles, our excruciating shins, ignoring our mothers’ calls for us to get back right then and there, as we trudged on, proudly showing off the bruises, returning home, always ready with a million and one excuses.

Then, in what seemed like an instant, we were old enough to follow the worlds’ game …

… Paolo Rossi scoring three goals, and breaking my 10 year old heart as Italy sent Brazil home in Espana 1982 …

Diego Armando Maradona slicing through England after his “hamd of God” insanity, to score his second goal of the match, the most exquisite goal in history in Mexico 1986 …

Roger Milla taking Cameroon and Africa and all of us into the heavens in Italia 1990, the old man a “super-sub” …

Roberto Baggio missing a penalty for Italy in the final at USA 1994, collapsing on his knees as Brazil took the trophy home …

Zinedine Zidane heading two goals to lift all of France in 1998, to the echoing chorus of “zizou-zizou” …

Ghana so heartbreakingly close in 2010 South Africa, being thwarted by some of the worst unsporting behaviour by Uruguay on the field of play …

Andres Iniesta scoring in the Final of 2010 for Spain against the Netherlands in my own Johannesburg’s Soccer City, lifting the World Cup high in our African night.

Today, much older we are as decades have past, our ankles and our shins in pain, thanks to encroaching age, still the memories flood back, through all the intervening years, the ache of having shed our fair share of tears.

Yes, it will always be our beautiful game,

the peoples game,

in the African sunshine,

under the Brazilian skies,

beyond all borders, in icy winter sleet,

in the pouring buckets of rain.

It is the beautiful game,

and may it always, and forever so remain …

you found me

lost and found …

1.

i was lost,

scrambling for scraps of love, of life,

desolate, empty, my heart seemed destined to ceaseless strife,

lost in between murmured promises and yearning for free abandoned flight,

only to be cast aside in the deep dark of night.

2.

you found me,

strewn across festering boulevards,

you picked me up as i lay broken,

your love breathed life into my deadened soul, 

after all the trite words were casually spoken,

your essence,

your being, lifted me,

my heart once more in free joyous flight,

you found me,

you saved me from myself,

you ushered in spring days,

after so many a corrosive night.

you found me …