We present this work in honor of the South African holiday, Human Rights Day.
Jeni Couzyn South African b. 1942
You are too naked for touching. If I stroke your brown skin as you sleep you may break. I irritate your long dreams. I depress your awakening. I am no good for you in your alien habitation.
Waiting for you to wake I wait for a return from a long voyage, not knowing what scurvy violence you bring back to embarrass my clean house. Wherever I sow perfection it grows into weeds. O my beautiful
How time changes the clean seed, how the corruption of absence on my body, my damp hands. Awake I am in sleep also, treacherous and lonely. I don’t know where to go, where to find rest. Come back.
Nontsizi Mgqwetho South African c. 1880? – c. 1930?
Where are your daughters? What do you say? They crossed the land in search of marriage, shamelessly shacked up with live-in lovers, cavorted in dances with young men in New Clare.
With eyes of porridge their mothers bemoan their absent children, who left them standing, advising blank air and pleading in vain with sons and daughters who’ve all been to school.
Jails crammed to capacity, courts jam-packed with the learned products of school education; the judges in charge just hoot in derision at college certificates brandished by bums.
All our crooks are in school, all our thieves are in school, all our witches in school: by Nontsizi, I swear you should all be expelled!
You wear red blankets in God’s very house, you’re Christians by day, hyenas by night; the pastor, the shepherd of God’s own flock, scurries past you without a nod.
What do we make of this curious conduct? Which voice do we choose from among this babble? Pride is one of your Christian companions, God wears a cloak of crocodile hide.
You Christians are suckers for every fad, you cast off skin garments and dressed up like whites, your ears are tinkling for white man’s booze, but whites won’t touch a drop of yours.
Every Sunday you romp on the veld, kicking a football, whacking a racquet, clothing your shame in the name of God: Satan’s struck dumb in amazement.
You’re bereft of love, bereft of all, yet you proclaim a God of love: that faith of yours stands just as tall as I do down on my knees.
If you ever try to come near us again, we Reds will roast you like meat. But I’m not saying the word of God is entirely barren of truth.
We present this work in honor of the poet’s 70th birthday.
Diana Ferrus South African b. 1953
My name is February. I was sold my breasts, private parts and eyes my brain are not mine yet like the São José I am ruined often sank by another storm no Jesus walking on water for me.
My name is February I am searching for the rod of the steering wheel Because the family lies at the bottom The child stitched to a mother’s dress Mother’s hand locked in father’s fist How deep down are they lying, on which side?
My name is February auctioned, sold, the highest bidder disposed of my real name paid no compensation for that, my name, stolen, sunked underwater it still lies with the family wrecks of the São José ran aground by a wind furious waves that decided the future of the loot smashing the profit against the embankment.
My name is February the Masbieker on the São José that’s how I was called when my mother tongue of here came into being when tongues started to form a bond and letters started walking freely in a desperate attempt at survival and hope that forces should not strip this identity too I became the Masbieker, only a name born under a different sky and deeply filled with shame.
My name is February I rearranged this landscape. my hands wove the patterns of the vineyards my feet pressed the grapes and I was paid with the wine. I carry Alcohol-Foetal Syndrome children on my back.
My name is February. I still march on the eve of December one, I walk the cobblestones of this city when I cry in desperation, “remember the emancipation of the slaves!”
My name is February. two hundred years after the São José I was given the vote, they said I was free
But do you see how often I am submerged, weighed down? I am the sunken, the soiled, forgotten and yet memory will not leave me!
My name is February, stranded at Third beach but no one comes to look for me, no one waves from the dunes, no bridges back to Mozambique.
My name is February. I will be resurrected, brought to the surface unshackled, unchained, unashamed! My name is February!
The child is not dead The child lifts his fists against his mother Who shouts Afrika ! shouts the breath Of freedom and the veld In the locations of the cordoned heart
The child lifts his fists against his father in the march of the generations who shouts Afrika ! shout the breath of righteousness and blood in the streets of his embattled pride
The child is not dead not at Langa nor at Nyanga not at Orlando nor at Sharpeville nor at the police station at Philippi where he lies with a bullet through his brain
The child is the dark shadow of the soldiers on guard with rifles Saracens and batons the child is present at all assemblies and law-givings the child peers through the windows of houses and into the hearts of mothers this child who just wanted to play in the sun at Nyanga is everywhere the child grown to a man treks through all Africa the child grown into a giant journeys through the whole world
We present this work in honor of Human Rights Day.
Bongekile Joyce Mbanjwa South African b. 1962
To be a jacket To be a slave To be a stepladder To be forsaken For you to understand You must have a disability
To be a breast of money For those who are abled And be the belt For civil servants And be a grass mat for feet The feet of the rich The feet of the wealthy For you to understand You must have a disability
And ask for help day and night No one will listen The government and community They all emphasise They emphasise your worthlessness And you also feel worthless But for you to understand You must have a disability
Discrimination has become obvious To be undermined People see a disability And do not see a person But for you to understand You must have a disability
Poets Corner 