a soul lies strewn aside, a rotting mangled heap, a putrid heart decays inside, a will too dehydrated to weep, a festering me, aching to hide, a mind too splintered to sleep.
a severance from the here, the now, a life of constantly needing to bow, a torn wail of pain, wailed somehow, a frigid heart with nothing to endow, a stench reeks from each guilty bow, a stream of hot tears on blinded brow.
what happens when the mind itself claws, scratches, and mercilessly lashes, what can you do when the soul itself shatters, and is slayed by the blade that slashes,
it’s all a barren pantomime of unending dread, it’s all a freak-show until everything is dead.
2.
it’s all just the ha-ha-hee-hee of cacophonous gibberish,
It’s all just the ha-ha-hee-hee of festering rubbish …
Message of condolence from President Nelson Mandela to my father on the day of my mother’s death from ALS in Johannesburg April 2008
My mother reuniting with Comrade Ahmed Kathrada, who spent 27 years in jail with Comrade Nelson Mandela and other Rivonia Trial accused. (Photograph taken by me in Stockholm, Sweden mid-1990). On the right is Comrade Winnie Mandela (who along with Nelson Mandela was friend and comrade of the family dating back to the 1950s) and in the background on the left is my father
My mother addressing an anti-apartheid meeting in New Delhi mid-1980s, alongside the wife of the Amvassador of SWAPO of Namibia and Mrs. Margaret Alva
For my mother, Zubeida Moolla, and 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 women fighting for human dignity the world over
My mother meeting President Nelson Mandela upon his release from prison 27 years after they last saw each other. (Photograph taken by me in Stockholm, Sweden, in the summer of 1990)
My mother meeting President Nelson Mandela upon his release from prison 27 years after they last saw each other. (Photograph taken by me in Stockholm, Sweden, in the summer of 1990)
My mother with President Nelson Mandela’s mother, alongside South African women of all races protesting the imprisonment of their loved ones who were thrown in Apartheid South Africa’s jails as political prisoners.
(Photograph from The Nelson Mandela Foundation in Johannesburg, South Africa)
My mother addressing an Anti-Apartheidmeeting in New Delhi – mid 1980s
South African Struggle Poster
✊🏾 For women everywhere ✊🏾
Pregnant, your husband on the run, your daughter just a child, a few years old,
they hauled you in, those brutish men, into the bowels of Apartheid’s racist hell.
They wanted information to sell your comrades out, you gave them nothing, these savage men, who skin just happened to be lighter,
You did not cower, you stood resolute,
you, my mother, faced them down, their power, their ‘racial superiority’, their taunts, their threats.
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 children,
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 by taking a moral and principled and valiant 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!
Viva the undying spirit of the women Viva!
For the brave women of South Africa, of all colours, who fought against racial discrimination and Apartheid and for women fighting for human dignity the world over
South African Struggle Poster
South African Struggle Poster
South African Struggle Poster
South African Struggle Poster
My mother and my then 7-month old sister Tasneem, following the arrest of my father under the infamous “90-day Detention Law” raids against anti-apartheid activists in 1963
The letter from President Nelson Mandela to my father on the day my mother passed away.
My parents were comrades of President Nelson Mandela stretching back to the 1950s
For a Mother …
She left me, with only the thoughts of her embrace to warm me, in frigid mornings of tomorrows yet to come.
She left me, with her words of tender truths to shroud me, in the coming evenings of stabbing sleet and hail.
She left me, yet she stays forever within me,
in my waking dreams and in my restful thoughts,
she stays forever within me,
she remains an abiding part,
of the love, the pain, the tears,
and thusly, we shall never, ever be truly apart.
( for my mother, who passed away on the 4th of April 2008, after a long battle with Motor-Neurone Disease or ALS, and for every brave soul battling ALS and other illnesses across the globe )
My mother used tell me this with tears in her eyes.
My mother left South Africa in the 1960’s to join my father who was in political exile at the time in Zambia and Tanzania.
My father was a close comrade and friend of Nelson Mandela and shared the cell next to Mandela during one of their periods of being jailed by the Apartheid security services.
My father later escaped from Marshall Square jail along with his comrades, Abdulhay Jassat, Harold Wolpe, and Arthur Goldreich.
The four escapees were then were spirited out of South Africa as there was a then £2000 reward for them to be captured – dead or alive.
In 1970 my father was deployed by the African National Congress of South Africa (ANC) to India to be its Chief-Representative there.
I was born in New Delhi a couple of years later in 1972.
My mother and father spent two years in Mumbai (then Bombay).
One afternoon my father fell and broke his leg.
My mother knocked on their neighbour’s door of the apartment complex where they lived.
The neighbour was an elderly Punjabi lady.
My mother asked the elderly lady for assistance in calling a doctor to see to my injured father.
A Zoroastrian (Parsi) ‘bone-setter’ was promptly summoned.
My mother and the elderly neighbour got to talking and the lady asked my mother where they were from, as their accents were clearly not local.
My mother told the elderly Punjabi lady that my father worked for the African National Congress of South Africa and had been forced into exile to continue to struggle to raise awareness internationally about the appalling situation in Apartheid South Africa.
My mother also mentioned that they had to leave their two young children (my siblings, whom I met only later in life) behind in South Africa, in the care of grandparents, and that they were now essentially political refugees.
The elderly lady broke down and wept uncontrollably.
She told my mother that she too had to leave their home in Lahore in 1947 and flee to India with only the clothes on their back when the partition of the subcontinent took place and when Pakistan was torn from India and formed, due to narrow religious and sectarian reasons, whose repercussions are felt to this day.
This was also a time when religious violence wreaked havoc, and untold suffering and death for millions of human beings.
The elderly lady then asked my mother what her name was.
‘Zubeida’, but you can call me ‘Zubie’.
The Punjabi woman hugged Zubeida some more, and the two women, seperated by age and geography, by religion and all the things that seek to divide humanity, wept, for they could understand the pain and trauma of a shared experience.
The elderly Punjabi lady told my mother that she was her ‘sister’ from that day on, and that she too felt the pain of exile after being forced to become refugees, and what being a refugee felt like.
Zubie and her husband Mosie (my father) and the family next door became the closest of friends.
Then came the time for Mosie and Zubie to leave for Delhi where the African National Congress (ANC) office was to be officially opened.
The elderly Punjabi lady and Mosie and Zubie said their goodbyes.
A year or two later, the elderly lady’s daughter Lata married Ravi Sethi and the couple moved to Delhi.
The elderly lady telephoned Zubie and told her that her daughter was coming to Delhi to live there, and that she had told Lata, her daughter that she had a ‘sister’ in Delhi, and that she should not feel alone.
Lata and Ravi Sethi then moved to Delhi in the mid-1970’s.
Lata and Zubie became the closest of friends and that bond stayed true, till the both my mother passed away in 2008.
My father and I still feel a close bond with Lata and Ravi Sethi, and vice versa.
A bond that was forged between Hindu and Muslim and between two countries of South Africa and of India, shattering the barriers of creed and of time.
A bond strong and resilient, forged by the pain and trauma of a shared experience.
That is why I shall never stop believing that hope shines still, for with so much religious bigotry almost consuming our world today, there will always be a woman, somewhere, anywhere, who would take the ‘other’ in as a sister, and as a fellow human being.
And that is why, I believe, that there will always be hope.
Hope in the midst of unbearable pain and hope in the midst of loss and of unspeakable suffering.
Hope.
For we can never give up hope for a better world.
(For aunty Lata’s late-mother, my mother’s ‘sister’ and who took us all into her heart, and for Lata and Ravi Sethi of Defence Colony, New Delhi, India)
my ceaseless deceit, my puffed-up conceit, reeking of what i am, of what i do, of my pathetic charade, my sacharine parade - coiled in an infinite loop:
a conscienceless repeatedly repeating repeat ...
... juggling halves, my polar mind skids, with no traction on this seesawing slide,
as it scurries off to hide,
behind effortless lies, spewing forth with a phantom innocence in my eyes,
throttling the urge to feel honest emotions, soiling all meaningful ties,
strangling the surge of a feeling so fleeting, so devoid of all meaning,
while by the by, my desecrated soul rips and shreds,
fleeing like rotten cowardice, up and away into the grieving skies,
with nothing but putrid detritus left behind,
stinking up the paths i always seem to find,
and always, always,
always concocting spurious excuses, blaming it all on the chemicals misfiring between the crevasses of my unkind mind,
while getting away with it all for the briefest time,
shivering with stunned fear,
knowing, always knowing, i shall be exposed,
no matter how craftily i regurgitate each and every scribbled rhyme,
as i desert the purest ones who truly care, the truest ones who have never hesitated to share,
as i tread with crocodile smiles, upon the hearts and souls they have with love laid bare,
while by the by, i feel nothing as i abandon them with scarcely a goodbye ...
... and so it always goes, as it has always gone, and as it will always go,
my heart frigid, my soul inured,
hardly sparing a passing glance,
as i leave in my toxic wake, the shattered trust,
an epic of reeking untruths, spun in my web of feigned love, of all goodness pummelled into dust,
blow by excruciating blow,
yes, it is i,
who leaves nothing but a snaking pyroclastic flow ...
A summer breeze, drifts down lonesome pathways and byways and alleyways, touching worlds, torn apart. The breeze engulfs, a pristine sky of blue, while, scattering the murmuring clouds, that blanket the blazing African heavens, in swirls and immaculate shrouds.
2.
A passing shower, of gentle misty rain, settles, on freshly scented-earth. It soothes, it caresses, the exhausted thoughts, of, a weary traveller, who sits, alone, all alone, under a Baobab tree.
3.
The traveller walks alone, at peace with the fragrant soil, collecting memories of smiles embraced along the way.
4.
Finally, the wandering soul, seeks rest, finding peace at last, yet, knowing its price, is to let go – each memory, and every smile, that once burned true, but now, awaits release, from the ache of the lingering past.
“Rhino at Sunset with Baobab Tree” by Errol Norbury
The flying machine, a harbinger of death, flew across oceans, a beast in the morning calm.
The Enola Gay*, and Little Boy** silently sliced the skies, roaring ever closer to ground zero.
Hiroshima bustled, the sound of birds, of children, of mothers preparing breakfast, of fathers shaving their one day old stubbles.
Dogs barked, cats tucked themselves in corners, children skipped, vegetable stands ploughed the streets.
The Enola Gay flew nearer.
Hiroshima's people oblivious of the hell that awaited them, the fires of apocalypse that would soon consume them, laughed and quarrelled and worked and haggled the price of the fresh morning fruit.
It was at 8:15 AM, the metallic beast prowling above released Little Boy.
Little Boy fell, down towards the city, to fracture its people, in the hubbub of early morning.
The Atomic Bomb exploded, its light blotting out the morning sun, its deafening roar bursting eardrums.
The payload was delivered.
The Generals at Command Centre were triumphant.
The Enola Gay flew away, leaving a mushroom cloud rising higher and higher as it rained down unspeakable horrors, indescribable destruction.
It has been said that in Hiroshima that day, and in the weeks and months that followed, the living envied the dead, their skin peeling off as they roamed their city, their home, consumed by the sickening howls of pain from every quarter.
Little Boy exploded as it fell, releasing a heat that burnt people, searing their shadows into walls, preserved till today, a ghastly reminder of that savagery that befell all.
Radiation from the Bomb creeped into flesh, scorching innumerable innocents, as nuclear ash fell all around.
Man had created a weapon of such savagery, such indifferent brutality, a bringer of horrors, grotesque and merciless.
Man had used the weapon, not once, but twice, for three days later Fat Man*** was unleashed on Nagasaki.
I could write on, attempting to describe the indescribable horrors that rained down on Hiroshima and Nagasaki.
I could write on, about the deformed babies being born, decades after those two days in early August of 1945.
I could write on, about the inhumanity man visited upon fellow human beings.
I could write on, about the stockpiles of nuclear weapons - tens of thousands of bombs - far, far more powerful than those that reduced Hiroshima and Nagasaki to radioactive ash.
I could write on, about the nuclear, chemical, and biological weapons housed in the silos of those who preach peace, of those who crow on about democracy, of those who let their people starve while testing the means to carry these weapons of hell across oceans.
I could write on, about the hypocrisy, the money spent on machines of destruction, as most humans of this world go hungry each night and day.
I could write on, and on, and on.
But what more can anyone say, as the wailing, the shrieking screams of the victims echo across time,
till today.
_________
* Enola Gay - the plane that carried the Atomic Bomb.
** Little Boy - the code name for the Atomic Bomb dropped on Hiroshima.
*** Fat Man - the code name for the Atomic Bomb dropped on Nagasaki on August 9th, 1945.
a path leads, to where wild grasses grow, sashaying in the summer breeze.
2.
along the path, solace settles within, feeling the grass swooning, tickling ankles, swaying to lilting bird-song, in a dance of intimate abandon, brushing remnants of pain away.
3.
melodies float across fields of green, delicately caressing my heart, teasing emptiness to flee, and comforting the mind, to silently be.
4.
walking on, savouring the peace, a momentary respite, casting off burdens of the now, for all is quiet, in a stillness cradling fractured emotions, as the grass in the fields sway, and dusk descends, while shadows lengthen,
nudging the dimming light to take leave of the day …
beckoning, inviting me to plunge, into the celestial waters,
of your eyes.
all art from google
2.
In your Eyes #2
whittling down reason, drawing out a rhyme,
searching for the truth,
hurtling through time,
in your eyes, i find my answer, my refuge from the incessant rain,
in your eyes, i sail upon the ocean, devoid of pain.
all art from google
3.
In your Eyes #3.
As another day recedes,
enveloped under the shawl of night,
allow me to drown,
in your eyes.
Moments fleeting,
fickle hands of time unseeing,
allow me to seek solace,
in your eyes.
The trodden path littered with each shard,
regrets this heart wishes to discard,
so allow me to seek refuge,
in your eyes.
I have walked through twisting boulevards of life,
seeking simple joy, away from desolation, strife,
so allow me to find peace,
in your eyes
all art from google
4.
In your Eyes #4.
I find,
the gentleness left behind,
away from superficial smiles,
away from fatigue of the walked mile.
In your eyes,
I feel,
at home at long last,
your love caressing away the restlessness of the past,
stepping out of the shadows to embrace pure contentment,
though a bit player,
in your life’s theatrical cast.
In your eyes,
I touch,
the flame of promise radiating through your loving light,
that is why,
I no longer dread,
the vacuum of encroaching night.
all art from google
5.
In your Eyes #5.
in your eyes,
marmalade swirls,
candyfloss twirls,
draw me ever deeper,
as another day unfurls …
all art from google
6.
In your Eyes #6.
I have plumbed the depths of truth,
in your eyes,
I have found rejuvenated youth,
in your eyes,
I have seen my future, and my now,
in your eyes,
that so effortlessly soothe.
all art from google
7.
In your Eyes #7.
clasping onto hope,
fragile strands of sanity dispelling unseen phantoms,
lost amongst the suffocating crowd,
cloaked in your invisible shroud,
fortitude restraining you from crying out loud,
still your fire rages, crackling embers testament to your dignity,
your insolent defiance, ever steely, seeing through the lies,
your quiet strength resting deep,
in your eyes.
all art from google
8.
In your Eyes #8.
in your eyes, I see,
desolation flee,
in your eyes, I know,
is a humanity that shall always flourish, ever grow,
in your eyes, I see, a fiery need, passion ablaze, mirth set free,
in your eyes, is where I wish to be.
all art from google
9.
In your Eyes #9
in your eyes, I see,
waters of turquoise,
pearls in the deep,
in your eyes, I drown,
swept by the currents,
banishing my sleep,
in your eyes, I feel,
a yearning for peace,
beyond the tears we weep.
all art from google
10.
In your Eyes #10.
consumed by the crowd, deafening silence assailing my ears too loud,
slipping away from the raucous row, the din of moments, the savagery of the now:
finding you,
my open sky so blue,
seeking peace, elusive,
rented out on a married lease,
give me a kiss, honest and true, deep,
in your eyes, finding the peace, that renders me a bore,
exhausted, fatigued,
needing only you, in your arms a restful sleep.
all art from google
11.
In your Eyes #11.
your light blazed bright,
a comet slicing through the moonless night,
enveloped by your sight, dimming the pangs of my darkening plight,
I found my peace, in the blue open skies,
of your eyes.
all art from google
12.
In your Eyes #12.
darkness enfolds night,
suffocating, cold, empty,
I stare, unseeing,
alone, desolate,
till I see,
the light in your eyes.
all art from google
13.
In your Eyes #13.
in your eyes,
spices swirl, dark chocolates whirl,
awake beside you,
your breath against mine,
waiting, as you sleep,
for your eyelashes to unfurl.
all art from google
14.
In your Eyes #14.
in your eyes,
seeing the pain i touch and feel,
in your eyes,
the ache of having to scrape and kneel,
in your eyes,
beholding the fire of your wandering soul,
in your eyes, I see,
the promise of being whole.
all art from google
15.
In your Eyes #15.
May your embracing warmth,
be forever by your side,
may you walk the soft beaches of the fates, at the coming in of the tide.
May life shower you with love, laughter, truth, peace, health,
your spirit be a wellspring of ceaseless wealth.
May your dreams be boundless soaring through hopeful skies,
the open skies residing,
swirling, bubbling,
in your eyes.
all art from google
16.
In your Eyes #16.
Walking along these bending alleys of life,
the promise of meeting a fellow-traveller was deemed far too remote,
and so,
I shut down my heart,
severing all loves’ ties,
but then again,
that was before,
before I gazed into the ocean of your fiery, gentle, irresistibly enticing eyes.
all art from google
17.
In youe Eyes #17.
Your eyes sketch skies,
a silken canvas.
Your touch,
the smell of your hair,
seduces me,
in an avalanche of curls.
Our kisses like tributaries fanning out, eroding life’s cold hard stone.
In your arms,
in the shadows of your form,
I am whole,
I am never alone.
all art from google
18.
In her Eyes #18.
Drowning in her eyes,
eyes chastising me for looking away,
till my gaze got caught, in her eyes’ captivating sway.
“I fear I would drown in your eyes”, I said in a whisper,
“drown”, she murmured.
all art from google
19.
In your Eyes #19.
my starved eyes, aching for a glimpse of your smile, ready to beguile, their thirst quenched, seeking simple joys, not million dollar toys, finally, coaxed the ocean of your eyes, to reveal the kernel of truth beneath the veneer of lies, so love me now, today, where fractured dreams are made whole by the sea spray, plunging deeper into the ocean shimmering in your eyes, hoping we may breathe, like the terror of time, high on up into blue skies, where love roams unshackled, in that ocean so deep,
Thank you ever so much for all the kind words and sentiments expressed here.
My scribble is just me moping a lot and wallowing in some irresistible self-pity.
I have caused far too many good and kind people far too much pain and hurt and I have been untruthful as well as being many other not nice at all things to those who have been the nicest to me.
So my moping here is just that – moping.
Thank you yet again for your warmth and kindness and to all fellow WordPressers for all the kind words shared by us in this wacky but lovely WordPress family.
from google
I am broken,
fractured, lost amidst the folds of well-meaning words spoken.
I am torn,
splintered, numbing myself in that vain hope of a new day yet to dawn.
I am dead,
inured, feeling no pain even as the flowing of red-hot crimson blood is bled.
I am nothing.
I am nothingness.
I am choking,
flailing, churning in the maelstrom as my life lies in cinders, silently smoking.
I am moulting,
discarding this sorry skin in which I feel unbearably revolting.
I am without place,
a dandelion seed on the thermals that scald my innerspace,
I am without place,
a shell of a man who can longer bear to see his own face …
“Ode to Joy” – Beethoven 9th Symphony sheet music from google“Starry Night” by Vincent van Gogh
Poem Series – Vincent van Gogh and Ludwig van Beethoven #1 to #10
1.
Vincent and Ludwig # 1.
“Do you know, my dear Ludwig, that I’ve sold just one of my paintings?”
“Yes, Vincent, do not despair, my friend, they cannot, will not, fathom the flower that reveals its petals before their eyes”
“I suppose you are right, old friend. They cannot, will not, hear your ‘Ode to Joy’, though it is you who are deaf!”
“But my dear Vincent, you do hear my ‘Ode to Joy’, deep in your soul”
“Yes, I hear it, I feel it, Ludwig, flowing like liquid paint through the canvas of my veins”
“My dear Vincent, I too feel your brush-strokes, and in each swirl of colour I hear your joy, and I can touch your pain”
“What does that make us, my friend? Two men cast adrift on the bluest seas, leaving nothing behind, yet heading nowhere. What does that make us then?”, asks Vincent.
“Human”, replies Ludwig, smiling.
“Human, yes, dear Ludwig”.
“And that is enough”, says Ludwig, almost to himself.
“It is enough”, smiles Vincent.
“To be human. It is enough.”
Vincent laughs, as Ludwig watches a gentle wave caress their toes, through their tattered shoes.
Symphony No. 5 sheet music from google
2.
Ludwig and Vincent #2
‘what inspired you to write your 9th?’, Vincent asks Ludwig.
‘wasn’t it madness that drove you to sketch starry nights above a sea of Irises?’, Ludwig asks Vincent.
‘madness it was, Ludwig. A madness of the soul. Restless, frantic, maddening madness’, whispers Vincent.
‘what does that make us, my dear Vincent?’, Ludwig murmurs, leaning close to Vincent.
‘sane’, says Vincent.
‘yes, Vincent. Sane’, responds Ludwig.
Vincent reaches up and feels around for his phantom ear,
Ludwig smiles, touching his ear that once could hear.
“Irises” by Vincent van Gogh
3.
Talking with Vincent #3
Alone,
in conversation with Vincent, we talk.
‘loneliness got to me’, he says with a smile.
I smile. I know.
‘I tried, I honestly tried’, says Vincent.
I know. I tried as well.
‘I tired, eventually I just tired’, he said with a wink.
I am tired too, I said.
‘I know’, replied Vincent.
art from google
4.
Vincent and Ludwig #4
“we are mere vagabonds, scraping here and there, never belonging anywhere, and never wanting to belong somewhere” said Vincent to Ludwig.
“yes my dear Vincent, we walk this earth with tattered shoes, our madness binding us in friendship, feted now and then, yet mostly left to ramble through our lonesome lives” Ludwig says, looking down at his weather-beaten boots.
Vincent and Ludwig share a smile, each knowing the feelings felt when sinking deeper into the depths of despair.
“your ‘sunflowers’ always bores a hole into my heart, my dear Vincent, your flourishes live in the swirls and your warmth and love for humanity shines through, tearing at my insides” Ludwig murmurs to Vincent.
“just as your ‘ode to joy’ bores a hole into my soul, with your unselfish, transcendent love for all living beings, alive and resounding in every note” Vincent says, looking into the distance.
“what are we, my dear friend, tortured by our inner demons, left to rot by the wayside, torn and broken by this harsh world all around us” Ludwig asks Vincent.
“we may be mad, and maddeningly so, my friend, but why do we see the smiles washed off the faces of the sane, why do we we tears trickling down from far too many eyes” Vincent says with a rueful smile.
“yes, my dearest Vincent, it often appears that this whole world, this whole veneer of civility, these people who have enough yet always clamouring for more, while those who have nothing hunger for just scraps” Ludwig says, almost to himself.
“and we see it every day, in their greed glazed eyes, their grubby grabbing hands, their world they call sane” Vincent mumbles.
“what are we then, Vincent, in this world of naked oppression, in these places of vulgar ostentation, in the midst of all this madness” Ludwig asks, looking to his friend.
“we are sane, my friend” Vincent says tugging at his phantom ear.
“sane, yes Vincent. sane” Ludwig says with a smile, his fingers feeling his ear that once could hear.
“sane“
Self Portrait by Vincent van Gogh
5.
Vincent and Ludwig #5
Vincent stared at the early evening sky.
Ludwig looked at his friend.
“why do we feel so alone, dear Ludwig, just look at this canvas, it bathes us, blankets us, and is filled with flashes of light” said Vincent.
“flashes of light, soaring like an orchestral crescendo, a blanket shared with a friend, yes, and yet, my dear Vincent, ifeel desolate”, whispered Ludwig.
“do you see the empty space between the flashes of light, my friend, that space is what your music colours“, Vincent said.
Ludwig looked up, smiling, ” yes, the space your colours infuse with hope, with every stroke of your brush, hope for those caught in all the empty spaces“.
“hope for us all, in each of our very own, empty spaces, yes“, Vincent smiled at his friend.
“empty spaces, but infused with colours, music, and hope“, whispered Ludwig, his smile broadening.
“hope“.
“hope“
art from google
6.
Vincent and Ludwig #6
“they call us mad, dear Vincent”, Ludwig said to his friend.
“even as you sketch starry nights on the blank canvas of this torrid life”.
“yes, my dear Ludwig, they call you insane too, even as you pluck odes to joy from the depths of deafness”.
“they call us mad”, whispers Vincent.
“mad, indeed”.
“I would rather be mad, than numb”, breathes Ludwig.
“I too would rather be mad than what they expect us to become”, Vincent sighs as the two men share a smile.
“mad, yet never mere shades of ice”.
“Café Terrace at Night” by Vincent van Gogh
7.
Vincent and Ludwig #7
“i paint starry nights, Ludwig, to help me forget each torrid day”
“and i compose odes to joy, Vincent, to keep pain at bay”
“we are alike, you and i, dear Ludwig”, Vincent says as he sketches a smile
“yes Vincent, we are alike, our tattered shoes yet to carry us across so many a mile”
from google
8.
Vincent and Ludwig #8
“I often wonder how hands so coarse are able to infuse a stark, naked canvas into a symphony of sensual brushstrokes”, Ludwig says with a wink.
Vincent laughs, “as have I, wondered that is, how such a stark raving mad soul may transform a mere gaggle of notes into soaring orchestral harmony”.
Ludwig smiles, nodding at Vincent, who smiles at his bruised hands.
“Wheat Field with Cypresses” by Vincent van Gogh
9.
Vincent and Ludwig #9
“i often write to Theo, my heart dripping bloodied ink on paper, burning up the parchment. Theo is my brother, dear Ludwig, who often sends me money, to get by” said Vincent.
“i understand, Vincent, life has dealt me similar circumstances, a jangle of cacophonous silence instead of the song of even the solitary bird” Ludwig breathes.
“i sketch my own pain”
“and i compose mine”
from google
10.
Vincent & Ludwig #10
“oh to hear a bird singing perched on a fresh twig, weeping down willowy branches, into an azure stream”, said Ludwig to Vincent.
“yes, my friend Ludwig, my nightmares aren’t raucous, but silent”, murmured Vincent.
“a desolate silence”, Ludwig breathed.
“loneliness”, whispered Vincent.
“loneliness”.
“The Potato Eaters” by Vincent Van Gogh
11.
Vincent and Ludwig #11
“my dear Vincent”, breathes a pensive Ludwig.
“have you found any work as yet. I ask it rhetorically because I know the answer”
Vincent smiles, “your wit hasn’t forsaken you, my friend. Do you know that they call me a “Van Gogh-wannabe”, and I try but always in vain to explain to them that I am a van Gogh, to which the kindly people look at each other and say”,
“and look he even ‘looks’ a bit like Vincent van Gogh and the charlatan even dresses like the great artist himself. The cheek of it”
Vincent laughs as Ludwig shakes his head in what seems to be utter astonishment.
“but my dear Vincent, that’s exactly what they accuse me of being – ‘a Beethoven clone’ – alas my friend, what lesson can we learn from these bizarre happenings?”
Vincent smiles, tugging at his phantom ear,
” they barely acknowledged us as human beings during our times, my dear Ludwig, and in 2015 they accuse us of masquerading as the ‘great’ ‘genius’ ‘incomparable’ Ludwig van Beethoven and Vincent van Gogh”.
Ludwig laughs heartily and sings lines of a song Vincent thinks sounds strangely familiar…
‘… this world was never meant for one as beautiful as you…”*.
*Lyrics from Don McLean’s song “Vincent”.
“Für Elise” by Ludwig van Beethoven sheet music from google
12.
Vincent and Ludwig #12
“Your ‘Sunflowers’ evokes the beauty of a sublime sonata to my deaf ears, my dear Vincent”,
“Ah! but you do hear! You hear the passions that torment my soul, my dear friend Ludwig”,
“And you paint in the colours of my dreams, Vincent, where I am alone in a field of sunflowers, as the moonlight caresses each tender stem”,
“Yes, Ludwig! Just as your ‘Moonlight Sonata’ moves me to tears, the tears that you see as delicate drops of dew on the sunflowers of your dreams”,
“Sunflowers bathed in soft moonlight”, smiles Ludwig,
“Oh yes, that same canvas of night that sways to the delicate touch of your music”, Vincent says with a wink.
Ludwig smiles again, as Vincent laughs a hearty laugh.
Beethoven Symphony 9 sheet music from google “Sunflowers” by Vincent van Gogh
the meandering stream of our lives, hopping over smooth pebbles, jarred by jagged rocks, swirling down maelstroms, surfacing in placid waters, washing up all our carried detritus on tiny islands of hope, coursing through the rapids of fate, just as life races on, a perpetual journey wrestling the still waters where hope itself, seemingly lies in state.
our lives, the daily grind, the cacophony of the banal, remains afloat, seeking solace in between crevasses, welcoming the temporary respite from the incessantly onward flow, stripping our skin bare, raw wounds inflicted by the flotsam and jetsam of these travels, the travails of the many masks we wear, seeking respite in the promise of an endless sea, always just around the corner, where for once, we may moult our broken skin, and where for once, we may just be.
the rising and ebbing of the tides, leave us gasping for breath, a seemingly endless cycle of the distant beacon of joy, only to be blinded by the silt, as the stream rolls on obliviously, leaving us gasping for breath, a twig snapped in two, while destiny offers us the mirage of a peaceful shore, only to be struck by the truth, the tired realisation that the stream rolls on, evermore.
we are torn apart by the ceaseless wear and tear, the infinite tears lost in the deluge, our fleeting laughs, our vanishing smiles, being pounded against the silence of the shallows, with hope a seductive vision, prodding us to go on,
to not sink in the greying depths of despair,
while we continually fall for the falseness of the charade,
grasping for just another breath of life affirming air.
uBuntu – The South African philosophy that espouses that all beings are inextricably linked to one another = I am because we are
The Journey …
Travelling along the myriad pathways of this life, side-stepping thorny obstacles, at times clambeing over jagged rocks, our bodies wracked and bruised.
May we pick up the crushed flowers, the dead leaves scattering these alleyways, may we reach and assist the countless souls, lying by the wayside, forgotten, torn, abused.
May we be human, more humane, less oblivious, less cruel, may we appreciate lives that stagger, inert, broken, inching forwards wracked by coughs, held back by pained starts.
May we be kind, more embracing, of the other, may we be less cocooned, less self-absorbed, with true respect,
knowing that all the world, and all living things, are nothing when alone,
for we are of this earth, a sum of all its infinite parts …
you hardly spare me a glance, as you walk past me, a fellow human, whom you pretend not to see.
you send me off to fight your wars, remaining comfortably ensconced in your ivory tower, while in the trenches i shiver and cower.
you dock my pay if one of your fine bone china cups gets chipped, you withhold my wages, while the hunger in my children’s stomachs rages.
your children still call me ‘boy’ or ‘girl’, though it was i who changed their diapers long ago, but it is still i who is the recipient of the epithets that you and they hurl and throw.
you use my body for your carnal desires, throwing some money on my stained bed, you use me as a lifeless rag, then dispose of me in a rubbish bag.
you claim to be so liberal, so open-minded and progressive, yet you ignore my plight, you discuss poverty in your chandeliered rooms, as i prepare some beans in the dim candlelight.
you send your cheques to greenpeace and amnesty, perhaps to assuage your guilt somehow, as you refuse to pay me my overtime due, your body weighed down by heaving jewellery, in red and white and blue.
you see me building your glittering skyscrapers and your glitzy malls, my hard hat pummelled by stone and dust, as i eke out a living, my dreams turned to rust.
you walk and you talk, leaving me to scrounge in the garbage heaps, for scraps of this and that, while your stocks and portfolios grow ever more fat.
i am invisible to you, to your posh and pompous kind, and i doubt your humanity will be ever anywhere to find.
you see me, a festering sore on your manicured lawns, a piece of dirt living on ‘charitable’ rations, and the first to bear the brunt of your police batons.
i am human, though only barely just, easily interred, once my purpose has been served,
i am human, though only barely just, as i get buried in a heap of dust.
With President Nelson Mandela & my fatherWith the National Poet Laureate of South Africa Comrade Mongane Wally Serote
An absolute honour and truly humbling that the National Poet Laureate of South Africa Comrade Mongane Wally Serote chose to write the Foreword to my book.
The following is the Foreword by the National Poet Laureate of. South Africa …
Foreword by Professor Mongane Wally Serote.
National Poet Laureate of South Africa.
Afzal Moolla-The Poet.
Afzal Moolla is a South African poet. He is a prolific poet. He grew up in a family, which, for the longest of time, was part and parcel of the liberation struggle in South Africa. That is to say, he grew up in a family of freedom fighters.
You can imagine what he had to listen to at an early age. He absorbed it all. His folks are elderly now.
“…These were the early 1970s, and this story was told to me by my parents, who themselves were recently arrived political exiles in India, having to leave South Africa, where my father, Moosa “Mosie” Moolla was arrested along with Nelson Mandela and 156 others in the infamous Treason Trial of 1956…”
He is young, living in a country which emerged from the depth of one of the most cruel political systems ever imagined by human beings. Nothing will allow Afzal to forget that, even as he may have been a toddler when that system was at its most vicious.
And now at his adult life, some among us, seek to destroy a dream of the people. We must scrutinize what this poet says about those who do that: who are they if face to face with OR, Madiba, Che, Fidel… that they can ony be traitors.
As we read what Afzal says, we will also be engulfed by a progressive and humane attitude of human life. Afzal is of Indian origin, a South African, whose young mind was shaped by a people who had to strife with everything possible to be human.
The combination of poetry and prose in Afzal’s rendition, walks one in very rough terraine, not sparing one. He calls all this, his work:
STRUGGLE EXILE LOVE
“…As we walked through the tombstones of the war soldiers from all parts of the world, my father explained how apartheid was a scourge like Fascism and Nazism. He explained how the world had joined forces to fight Mussolini and Hitler, and why we too had to fight against apartheid….”
Even when the worst of things are explored in this work, the optimism of the spirit from the poet, is still the basis to seek hope; to search for a way out of pessimism. A rare skill indeed. He can express anger, or despair, even cynicism, as also he seeks an anchor in the strength which resides in the hearts of human beings. And therefore Afzal, refuses to let go of the humaneness of human beings.
He then braves the challenge by referencing the reality of the beings of struggle as the names of the freedom fighters spread throughout the pages which carry the weight of his writing.
There is too much pain in Afzals work, but equally there is love, there is joy and as said there is hope. Afzal is a skilled artisan of things made of words that is, of things which become the writing on the wall: a history, a culture tempered in the freedom struggle.
“Searching.
Searching,
in the debris of the past,
scraps of casually discarded emotion.
Searching,
in hastily trashed yesterdays,
an inkling of moments flung away.
Searching,
in heaps of rubbished words,
that tiresome sigh of defeated thought.
Searching,
in the layers of moulted skin
the wilting self that once was true.
Searching,
in the reflections between the ripples,
for the whispered pangs of roaring desire.
Searching,
in the blank eyes streaming endlessly,
an echo of the faintest sigh of new life.
Searching.”
There is no letting go here. Life is pursued relentlessly, with the knowledge that life itself is a struggle for life and living; but also, knowing from having lived in struggle and among freedom fighters that there is no alternative to freedom. That want and that knowledge is insatiable; it is only satisfied by the reality of the manifestation of the spirit, meaning, everything which is liveable and defining being free.
(About Timol-a name we know because its reality teaches about the extremes of human cruelty, but also about utter commitment to that unbreakable particle of the human spirit which forever defines, and forever seeks freedom. )
“today their lies have been consigned to the dirt.
They tried to murder an ideal,
the revolutionary spirit that burned bright in your heart,
they tried to silence you, not knowing your memory shall never depart.
They tried to kill you,
but they will never silence you,
for you live,
through the expanse of our land,
mingling in the rivers,
standing high upon our shared revolutionary hill,
they tried to silence you,
yet the hunger for justice will never be still,
they tried to silence you, but the memory of your martyrdom never will.”
—————————————————–
March 21, 1960 – Sharpeville
They shot you in the back.
The oppressors lead tearing into muscled flesh. The flesh of Africa.
They massacred you in Sharpeville, in Soweto.
Today we remember you.
We salute you…”
There is an isiZulu saying which rings of finality in its utterance, expression and thirst for freedom: si dela nina e ni lele (we envy you who have fallen). It is a battle cry. It is an expression of love and hope. It is a yearning which is insatiable which knows and aligns with the purpose of life that living life is a definition of Freedom. When Afzal names the freedom fighters, and as a series ofthese names emerge and spread throughout his poetry, it conjures that feeling and that understanding.
That is what defines “Dr Martin Luther King Jr. (1929 – 1968)
You had a dream, of pastures of peace,
where children of all hues mingle like rainbows.
They silenced you, yet your dream
resounds louder still,
in pastures not yet of peace,
where children of all hues mingle like rainbows.”
———————————————
” The Wind Carries his Name
They shot him down,
to silence a man of flesh and bone.
Even as the bullets tore through him,
the wind carried his name.
Far across the weary fields,
high above the stubborn peaks,
over the blood-soaked streams,
the wind carried his name.
They shot him down,
to silence a man of flesh and bone.
Yet the wind carries his name,
to you and to me,
to them and to us.
They shot him down,
but his name resounds,
as it floats on the breeze.
And,
still they try to shoot him down,
to silence us all,
to stifle an ideal.
But the wind cannot be stilled,
and the wind carries his name:
“Che” “
Afzal is here, with that ‘…they…” referring to the international oligarchy, that “ …small group of people,,,”, who with mighty force control everything at all cost, against billions of people, indeed against humanity, who now, as Afzal warns us are pushing all of humanity to the precipice of a final and last war, if there are no thousands upon thousands of “Che(s)” who must emerge to stop them.
The world, humanity is once more, as the saying goes, that “…history repeats itself…” faced by a great possibility of an international arms race. The oligarchy’s objective: to amass all the resources of the earth for the “…small group of people…” They are relentless.
Afzal’s work of poetry traverses human feelings fearlessly. He is the child of Freedom. He is the adult nurtured by a series of names of people who carried the blood that has been spilled, whether in the street, or in the veld, or in the houses, on the bed or finally ill of health and having to bid a frail life farewell-nevertheless, life which sought to express the will of millions who have been trampled upon by the international oligarchy, “…a small group of people…” who will stop at nothing to burn the world and is content, turning it into ashes.
Afzal keeps “…Searching…” because he was brought up and grew up in the struggle for freedom. He searches, seeking to find that particle, which no one can break because it resides in spirit-it knows peace, it knows being secure, it knows the meaning of freedom. It is profound in it being simple.
To OR: Afzal says:
“And then finally off to a new dwelling in a faraway alien land,
reeking and drenched in a foreignness so blatantly bland,
never fitting in, though always dreading being shut out,
singing paeans to hope scribbled in the sand.
You left your country, your home, your very own place of being,
you fled, into exile, far away from blinded eyes so unseeing,
and you held to a principle within, and you stood resolute,
till the shadows felt themselves in shame fleeing,
We salute you! And all like you, and the so many countless more,
into whose flesh the tyrant’s sword so cruelly tore,
We salute you!
You who fought at home and you who left to fight,”
To his mother, who is an experience and voice of many women in South Africa, on Our Continent, and of the world; Victims of the powerful “…small group of people…” in the world, who tear it apart.
true and filled with the generosity of spirit that defines you,
may your dreams soar into the boundless open skies,
and may the benevolent fingertips of time and of fate,
brush away any tears that should fall from your gentlest eyes.
May you forever stand tall,
may your head always be held high,
with stoic dignity.
May your past experiences be the stepping-stones that mark your path ahead,
may your heart be your guide,
your blazing beacon of wildly enthusiastic hope,
may your wishes be simple,
and may they come to be,
filling your life and your moments,
with joyous bliss,
where you truly feel free.
Free of the weight of yesterday,
free of gnawing doubt,
and may your being be infused,
with the softest serendipity,
so that you may spread your arms,
and to the heavens shout,
I am free,
I am me,
at long last,
I am standing tall,
never again to bow,
or to fall on bended knee.
This is a wish both simple yet elusive,
a wish that only you can make true,
by simply being,
the kind,
warm,
gentle person,
that is you.
———————————-
In Your Eyes
As another day recedes,
enveloped under the shawl of night,
allow me to drown,
in your eyes.
Moments fleeting,
fickle hands of time unseeing,
allow me to seek solace,
in your eyes.
The trodden path littered with each shard,
regrets this heart wishes to discard,
so, allow me to seek refuge,
in your eyes.
I have walked through twisting boulevards of life,
seeking simple joy, away from desolation, strife,
so, allow me to find peace,
in your eyes.
In your eyes,
I find,
the gentleness left behind,
away from superficial smiles,
away from fatigue of the walked mile.
In your eyes,
I feel,
at home at long last,
your love caressing away the restlessness of the past,
stepping out of the shadows to embrace pure contentment,
though a bit player,
in your life’s theatrical cast.
In your eyes,
I touch,
the flame of promise radiating through your loving light,
that is why,
I no longer dread,
the vacuum of encroaching night.
—————————————–
What all of these words say, which Afzal has crafted, which we dare not forget, is that we as South Africans, as Africans come from a poetic place, as do all of humanity who come from a “…Paean…” a ululation and praise of the relentless freedom fighters.
Professor Mongane Wally Serote. National Poet Laureate of South Africa
My dear friends and fellow-travellers here on WordPress,
I hope that all dear ones here are well and keeping safe healthy during these harsh times.
I have been well, but have been so busy with work and more work and with house and home things so I’ve been away from this wonderful space for far too long.
I hope to be here more often as I miss all friends and your wonderful pieces.
Do stay well, and my love and warmest wishes to you and to all those loved by you and hoping and wishing and praying that this ghastly pandemic that has wreaked so much pain and grief and untold sorrow to so many may be soon less virulent and deadly as it has over the past year and a bit.
Hugs and love to all from Johannesburg in springtime South Africa 🤗🙏🏽✌🏾👍🏾❤️🌻
I may be off and on here given the pressures of work and home but my love and thoughts and deeply felt warmth of spirit is always here with my dearest friends and brothers and sisters in our wonderfully close-knit WordPress family
Scribbled Verse 
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