fitting in,
acceptably hushed,
alienation photoshopped, airbrushed …
at home ?
not this rolling stone,
bruising my rattled self to the bone,
enveloped by walls,
as each evening falls,
shivering as desolate morning dawns,
painted smile,
shushing rising bile,
my fatigued soul yawns,
a being who fawns:
the perennial exile … … …
Banksy
talkin’ springsteenesque introspection blues …
i have lost myself,
so often,
tripping over the tangled barbs,
here and there and everywhere i have been,
splintering me more,
each time we hauled ass,
and where once i tried to sew myself whole,
now i know,
sure,
all the random trivia,
a bit of this
but not much of much at all,
that’s the truth,
and i’ll stick to it,
go ahead,
haul me up against the wall,
but now, you see,
that now i see a little more,
cutting deep to the core,
i’ve been putting on a show,
playing the part,
cowardly,
callow,
hollow,
empty,
blind-mans bowl,
and chillingly,
effortlessly,
almost now,
clanging on,
the same old song,
the tired old dance,
but then again having strutted once,
puffy,
conceited ego,
once,
and since i have been humbled,
many times since,
this old shell has had some touch-up, and some paint,
but still,
typecast,
twisted,
playing the sad old role,
vagabond castaway,
misfit whatever,
neither here nor there,
and not that i don’t,
(pretend, at leas) to care,
i am tired of the perennial fare,
this endless fair,
playing the skin i shed yesterday,
slipping into my new skin today,
vaulting myself high,
perched up,
on the mantle,
tucked away,
between suburban pomposity,
and expected holier-than-thouness,
but now after all these years,
and after all these miles and after all these tears,
i think i am able to get through the times,
when my burden of sins,
keeps kicking me in the shins,
because one thing i know is what you said,
what you said, man, was true,
i remember it was during one of your pre-song talk-in/intro/philosophical detours on that never-ending highway,
i remember it time and time,
i’ll remember it always,
again and again,
each time i’m kicked in the shins,
remember, you said,
“… remember, in the end, no one wins unless everyone wins.”
_______________
for Bruce Springsteen
as i walk along
trampling memories
away
afar
trying
seeking always
always
to moult this skin
this sorry skin of words
wrapped around me tight
staggering
scurrying
fleeing
into the arms
of
desolate
welcoming night
talkin’ double-standerds blues
i am bewildered,
the hypocrisy wrapped up and glistening,
plastic foil skin deep,
disregardin’ the ‘others’,
yet we feel pain,
&
yes we weep,
for ‘our own’,
cos’ ‘our’ pain is true,
and,
‘they’ after all,
are savages,
&
ingrates too,
they bite the very paws of those who kindly let them out of the zoo,
so don’t stand there so smug & fuelled by righteous passion,
’cause you and i know that soon we’ll be last decades’ spent fashion,
i don’t know if you’re catching my drift,
or am i being simple,
nuanced subtleties being in short-shrift,
i don’t even know if that sentence makes any sense,
or any of the yakkitty yak yak i scribble,
but i swear i can feel it,
machete-like in my bones,
my own hypocrisy slithering within,
as i you him her we she he & coming back to i again,
wrapping ourselves in that awful plastic foil,
skin-deep,
all as we drizzle lemonsalt on long open wounds,
rubbing some depleted uranium in there so it really stings,
while we shop till we drop,
&
while we pray for the glorious bounties the next shopping-mall brings
ps: rest in peace, empathy & compassion
peace | love | uBuntu
Mido Macia 1986 – 2013
Mido Macia was a 27 year old Mozambican man, working in Daveyton near Johannesburg as a taxi-driver, who was found dead in a police cell, after police savagely dragged Mr. Macia whom they had tied to their police van.
The brutal incident of Mr. Macia being dragged was caught on camera and has shocked South Africa.
The 8 police officers involved are facing charges of murder, and have been suspended from the South African Police Service (SAPS).
This poem is an angry poem that I felt had to be written, because as a society, we need to ask ourselves and each other the hardest questions about xenophobia and intolerance and violence.
Mido Macia 1986 – 2013
Death came to Mido Macia,
a savage, brutal, hellish death came to Mido Macia.
Death came to Mido Macia,
death dressed-up in the colours of authority,
as callous, vile, sadistic policemen murdered Mido Macia.
The video-footage is blood-curdling,
Mido Macia being dragged,
his hands tied behind him,
to a police van.
But death came later to Mido Macia,
death cheered, clapped, and tore into Mido Macia.
Death came to Mido Macia,
in the cells where they murdered Mido Macia.
Death came to Mido Macia,
a fuelled, cheered-on, instigated death came to Mido Macia.
We are all culpable,
every one of us is culpable,
from racist ‘jokes’ emailed and texted,
to self-righteous comments about the ‘foreigners’,
from casual dinner-table conversations,
‘they take our jobs’,
‘they are crooks’
the ‘they marry our women’ kind of lunch-time chats,
racist, xenophobic, hate-filled talk,
to beating a human-being to death in a police cell,
or on the streets of Cape Town, Johannesburg ,
and in Daveyton,
where death came to Mido Macia.
Mido Macia 1986 – 2013
😉 Illegitimi non carborundum 🙂
Staggering, my vision cloudy,
I fall to the hard ground.
when life’s sharp left-jab leaves my face bloody,
and all that surrounds me, is the desolation of loss I feel all around.
…
I see myself slipping,
down the abyss to where nothingness exists,
still, I cling on, groping for a foothold,
for my will to stay persists.
…
I clamber up, I stand my ground, though battered and bruised I may be,
my curtain is not falling yet, I have some fight still left in me.
…
It is then, in the pit of despair, when all seems bleak and painful and dull,
I summon the strength from deep within,
I rise, slowly, to face the day,
I refuse to sink,
to wallow, to surrender, to throw in the towel,
to drown,
for I am stronger now,
indeed I am, after all the years, and all the battles,
I stand, bruised and bloody,
still,
I stand,
I refuse, to sink, to drown,
for they can try, to punish me some more,
but I shall not allow them to grind me down… 😉
…
Clawing into myself,
digging, scraping, scratching a phantom itch.
…
Amputating feelings, thoughts, emotions,
love,
always excising love,
…
to feel some pain,
for once, to feel the ache, the heartbreak, the anger, the desolation, the loss, the pangs of remorse,
to feel anything at all,
not this numbness,
these tattered synapses, this innured state of anaesthetised unfeeling, the brittle thoughts that shatter, painless, when I stumble and crash, and fall.
…
I ache for the ache, pining to pine, hungering to hunger, bleeding fragments of myself, only to bleed, to feel,
alive,
again…
…
Three words,
murmured in exhaled whispers,
filling infinite ears,
through numberless tongues.
Three words,
soothing, embalming, teasing, cajoling, suffocating, giggling,
spoken so much, meaning so little,
conveying dreams, hopes, life, peace,
offering solace, comfort,
bliss,
stoking fear, frustration, anger,
emptying days of meaning,
offering rickety crutches,
onto which countless emotions end up leaning.
Three words,
mumbled, gargled, spewed, spit out,
violated, battered, ripped open, casually desecrated,
crashing down upon skewered hearts,
shrinking into nothingness,
in each breath that departs.
Three words,
‘I love you’,
blaring out of empty mouths,
emblazoned on fluff,
rings on fingers, cards, flowers, puffed teddy-bears,
stuff,
hollow stuff.
Three words,
mortify me, as I scribble this verse,
rendered catatonic by fear,
revisiting the truant past,
knowing,
three words,
curled-up, wounded, gasping for air,
accepting at last,
that,
you do not care
…
Scribbled Verse 