the cycle of hate …
reeking of venom,
soaked in the stench of rage,
still, silent, prowling,
lying in wait, to pounce,
maul, go for the jugular,
snap, sink teeth into,
then, of course,
allow the hapless prey to bleed out, then consume,
and naturally,
expel …
to be continued … … …
Humanity ?
Us men,
almost always,
men,
myopic, impotent men,
our manliness oozing, seeping,
dripping,
soaking,
in swathes of red,
scarlet blood on infant skin,
hardened,
caked,
dried on cold, dead flesh.
Who am i,
a man,
myopic, impotent,
my swagger puffed on conceit,
my country right or wrong,
my god not yours,
my culture your caste,
tribe, sect, ideology … … …
Who am i ?
a man ?
knitted into,
shared humanity ?
Perhaps ’tis time,
to let this rotten, festering,
glossy, botoxed, tucked, trimmed, diseased skin,
moult,
laying stark this sham,
this theatre,
these lies, the maggots burrowing deep,
into man,
chiselling, smashing,
beheading, hanging,
shooting, bombing, drone-ing, killing, raping, torturing, killing, killing, killing,
excising man,
ripping man out of humanity.
Yes,
i am man.
Mrs. Agnes Msimang,
ANC Stalwart and mother to countless South African exiles, during the struggle against Apartheid tyranny.
Long Live the Spirit of The Women!
Now that You have touched a Woman, You have struck a Rock!
Amandla!
All Power to the People!
( the photograph below was taken at Luthuli House, Johannesburg recently )
the photograph below was taken in Delhi, India, sometime in the mid 1970s
The Women
(for the countless women, names unknown, who bore the brunt of Apartheid, and who fought the racist system at great cost to themselves and their families, and for my mother, Zubeida Moolla)
Pregnant, your husband on the run,
your daughter, a child, a few years old,
they hauled you in, these brutish men,
into the bowels of Apartheid’s racist hell.
They wanted information, you gave them nothing,
these savage men, who skin happened to be lighter,
and white was right in South Africa back then,
but, you did not cower, you stood resolute,
you, my mother, faced them down, their power,
their ‘racial superiority’, their taunts, their threats.
You, my mother, would not, could not break,
You stood firm, you stood tall.
You, like the countless mothers did not break, did not fall.
You told me many things, of the pains, the struggles,
the scraping for scraps, the desolation of separation
from your beloved Tasneem and your beloved Azad,
my elder sister and brother, whom I could not grow
up with, your beloved children separated by time, by place,
by monstrous Apartheid, by brutish men,
whose skin just happened to be lighter.
You told me many things, as I grew older,
of the years in exile, of the winters that grew ever colder.
You were a fighter, for a just cause,
like countless other South African women,
you sacrificed much, you suffered the pangs,
of memories that cut into your bone, your marrow,
you resisted a system, an ideology, brutal and callous and narrow.
Yes, you lived to see freedom arrive, yet you suffered still,
a family torn apart, and struggling to rebuild a life,
all the while, nursing a void, that nothing could ever fill.
I salute you, mother, as I salute the nameless mothers,
the countless sisters, daughters, women of this land,
who fought, sacrificing it all for taking a moral stand.
I salute you, my mother, and though you have passed,
your body interred in your beloved South African soil,
you shall remain, within me, an ever-present reminder,
of the cost of freedom, the struggles, the hunger, the toil.
I salute you!
(for the brave women of South Africa, of all colours,
who fought against racial discrimination and Apartheid)
broken wings, shattered,
hugging the frigid ground,
emotions scampering,
flitting between smiles and tears,
peaking crests, plunging into valleys,
of loss, of fear,
of future unclear,
of that,
of this,
often pain,
and,
sometimes,
sometimes,
a shard of,
bliss.
there shall not be peace …
as hunger rumbles,
desolation stalks,
poverty numbs,
apathy dumbs,
there shall be no peace,
until hungry mouths are fed,
till poverty slithers away,
back into the coffers that prey,
the greedy upon the needy,
this is how it has always been,
is this how it shall always be …
capitalism 101
when it breaks,
shatters,
rendering souls mute,
hearts in tatters,
does it bother you at all,
that for you to rise,
so many must fall.
the glitterati feast,
neatly,
dismembered spirits,
salving consciences,
bidding to
purchase redemption,
for continuing crimes,
that don’t make the headlines,
business as usual,
the glitterati,
lost in a fine-wine haze,
sparkling carats dazzling,
leaving the dregs behind,
as the
blindness slowly slithers,
sinking talons,
gnawing at the bone,
while the sweaty, bloody,
the pained,
lost,
the far, far too many
batter and shatter,
hacking away,
deep beneath our gleaming golden city
for pieces of glittering stone
are we broken by spoken barbs spewing out of sewers cloaked beneath acceptable garbs while the blades of splintered humanity are sharpened into lethal shards of ‘my country right or wrong’ under the comfortable charade of clinging onto feigned piety dragged along weaving new lies obfuscating what’s right and what’s wrong waving flags like swords wielding swords to behead and to subjugate the many who’ve forever been on the wrong side of the gate shut out of the dream pummelled by untruths of working hard and doing more and shutting up because we need the money the greenback the notes the coins the oil the designer innerwear that barely shrouds the stench of putrid opulence of festering greed of capital and influence and power ripping out each seed by the by wishing a better life for all a hasty goodbye because when love and life and hopes and dreams and aspirations and desires and aches and yearning for something better just a bit better not much not much at all except for some grain for the famished and respite for the numberless banished cast away into the currents of the seas swept along islands of stillness breaking ashore with the waves of happenstance.
so yes
yes
“that’s how i got to be here”, the immigrant says …
Scribbled Verse 