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
flickering moonbeams …
on ancient shores
retracing steps
wet sand beneath bare feet
sipping kisses
hungry
sweet.
in distant streams
soul heart body mind
bathed as one
in sundrenched streams
flowing
ebbing
teasing
tugging
tasting
lapping
meandering
breathing caresses
wildly flickering
like
giddy moonbeams
on the cool wet sands
of
our beach of dreams
that gentler way …
sometimes in dreams
this world feels a much gentler place
where hunger stalks nights and days no more
where we share this earths gifts
more equally
less greedually
a gentler place
where we’ve bade farewell to war …
sometimes in dreams
i taste the hope
of a gentler world
where songs of joy may be heard each day
a gentler world
where we all
all of us
together
as one
always
always
always
strive to find
that gentler way …
( inspired by Pete Seeger’s “Last Night I had the Strangest Dream” )
http://stopwar.org.uk/music/pete-seeger-last-night-i-had-the-strangest-dream
the sapling that took root,
enmeshed in the sweat-soaked gulag of kisses & pain,
silence & self-pity,
will grow to be a tree,
rising above the prejudices of men,
higher & higher,
to that point when looking down,
humans all look the same.
and so …
I stretch out my arm,
my thumb defiant in the oppressive air,
& as I bid you an almondsweet adieu,
I hold you close,
whispering these words:
so long, my friend,
& stay well,
& know that I shall be counting down the days to how & to when,
I will see you here …
peace | love | uBuntu
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)
Scribbled Verse 