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’
bloody foreigners …
these bloody foreigners
zimbabweans
somalis
angolans mozambicans syrians
pakistanis
turks
congolese
rwandans
indians
etc etc etc et al.
these bloody foreigners
flooding our clean streets
taking jobs away
from me and from you
ps: aylan kurdi was a bloody foreigner too
the migrant …
i couldn’t bid my beloved farewell
i didn’t hug my mother
i had argued with my father that morning
then
i left
fled
crouched
starved
and
died
in a lorry in austria
a boat off the coast of libya
washed ashore
cold and dead
i am that migrant
Scribbled Verse 