Freedom Where is Freedom

Freedom where is freedom

Women rowed in hues

Turning and twisting backs

To barren derelict veld

Humming their pain away

To get food for tomorrow

Ploughing beans and maize

Under the name
“wake up and do it for yourself programme”

Where is Freedom

Baba Dladla demands to know

He sits on the bank stool

In the seething sun

Warming his body.

From ice tine house

Dirty attire and muddy slippers

His head has not seen the comb

Nor his beard shaved

Barefooted tiny legs

And ballooned belly kids

Skipping old panty house

In the stream of sewerage furrow

From the blocked sewer

Have seen Freedom, they say

It was on Television in the morning

Our Votes Our Rights

The man comes to our homes

Kisses our dirty children,
Gives us peanut butter or food parcel

Asks us problems

We say No jobs, no food

And rodents everywhere

He says, he is the answer

He says he is a candidate

We must vote him

On the day we stand in the long line

Without sitting nor eating

We go to the booth

Looking for your holiness

We X the messiah

We X his party the liberator

We get our thumbs painted black.

To brag to our neighbours

Who don’t have green books

We go home, prepare supper

Which might be the last

Before we hunt and catch another supper

We wear our old inherited attires

Shoemaker man cannot release our shoes

Without payment

We wear sandals in the biting winter

We wear old jerseys bitten by rats on the elbow

Our saviour comes

Kicks our dogs and insulted our children

Cuts electricity

Cuts water

And says there is nothing for free

Then is another five years

Other elections

Another time for the rights that

Solomon Mahlangu was executed for

Biko killed for

And Mandela incarcerated for

We vote again

Our hopes are pumped again

With high hopes

We vote again and again

Like an Addict who is addicted to a poison

And we vote again

Our hopes are inflated and deflated

Our poverty remains

But We vote for the man again

And we say to our party till death do us apart

And We vote again……. And again 

Struggle against evictions

Propelled by greed, pity and shame

To construct mountains of wealth

To inflate pockets and stomachs

Blood suckers, vampires

Dinning from oozing blood of our mothers

Who lost houses

Profit maximisation is the game

Play by dog which eats another

To build the empire of bourgeoisie

Captained by land moguls and wealth owners

Resistance is outlawed by the rule of the money

Sheriff and the constable

The servants of the landlord and the bureaucrat

His finger is ready

To pull trigger

To pump bolts in the chest of Thabo Mokgethi in defence of profits

Mothers are sobbing

From the from the pain of losing children

Today Nhlanhla Masuku and Dennis Mathibedi have perished

For fighting for shelter

Engraved right in the constitution.

Raise you’re your fist for solidarity

Raise your flag of struggle

March in throngs

Carry in your heart

The spirit of martyrs

Hintsa and Bambatha

Masuku and Mathibedi

Fight like Thabo Mokget

To defend our houses

Sing songs of heroes

Heroes of Ncome and Thaba Bosiu

Heroes of Soweto and Sharpeville

No Retreat, No surrender

Fight Evictions

Betrayed Youth

Lost generation or

Lost memory of

Struggle for dignity for all

Forgotten by elites

Whose snorts are digging the trough

Herded for corner

Shrine of slander raids

Against passerby prey

Drowned in laughter

And swiftly killing the sun

He is a betrayed youth

From the pass one pass all generation

Crowded in scullery,

Of monotonous matchbox houses

Sleeping on the concrete floor

In a buggy blankets

Shared with cockroaches

Dreams Dreams

Entering the gates of umsobomvu

Meeting comrade in ventricose

To help his venture

You don’t qualify he is told

It only a dream

For betrayed youth

Lost in spirit and down

Punched by nightmare

Neatly ironed newspaper

With trembling fingers

Rolled paper to channel powder smoke,
To soothe the brain

From tormenting dream

Days puff is over,

Money is finished

Energised by poison powder and tablet

Waits at the corner

For the next prey

He kicks, clubs and gun the target

To quench his sadistic gallantry

He is a betrayed youth

From the class of OBE            

Mohale Wa Ntwa o Fihlile

Mohale wa ntwa

Lesole la tokoloho

Tokoloho ya maafrika

Kgahlanong le bo koloniale lekgethollo

Tseleng ya hae Otshetse donoka bo Limpopo le Zambezi

O tlotse mellwane

Bo Beit bridge le chirundu

O hahlautse mahlathe a maholo

O tetse bothja le thuto

Ailo batla sebetsa sa tokoloho

Kgahlanong le  maburu le bokapitale

Kajeno mohale o fihlile lapeng

Afrika Borwa enthja, e kgabang ka mebalabala

Afrika borwa ya Bokapitale le bokoloniale bothja

O fihlile, ka nonyana ya tshepe ya borithane

Sefihlile sefofane OR

Diphetoho tsa bonahala

Tsela eyang lapeng e apere diphetoho

Boyamafofane Jan Smuts ke OR Tambo kajeno

Straydom drive ke  Nelson Mandela Drive

Ka bothjabela ho mmila o kgahlanyetswa ke Ramaphosa Squatter camp

Lepatlelo la ntwa kgahlanong la baditjhaba

Dikilometara tse  pedi ka bophirima ke Slovo squatter camp

Le Holomisa Squatter camp lepatlelo la ntwa ya merabe.

La kena lesole mabaleng

Medidietsane ya utlwala Dunusa

Kajeno es ele Winnie Mandela squatter camp

Ho tlotla mothei wa Mandela United Football Club

Le mofumahadi wa Ntate Nelson Mandela

Lefihlile lesole, Lesole la tokoloho

Judas of the South

Rainbow miracle

Carrying a magic wand to unify adversaries

Madiba Magic an ointment for Bafana Victory

And Amabokeboke

Gravy train of the bourgeoisie

Moving In top Gear to nowhere

Buying arms, to kill joviality of RDP

RDP a beautiful lass for the lowly and the lofty

To build dignity of the South

And mend relations of the foe and the friend

Betrayed and crucified on the altar of World Bank

By Judas of the South

For the offset bread crumbs

Xenophobia

Love to hate others

Love to kill others

Love for attention

Like a hyperactive infant

Who throws objects at himself to

To injure himself

Deception, manipulation of unsuspecting masses

To turn their spears harmless

Who unblock lavatories and do garden jobs

South African play by idle cowards and morons

Motivated by

And kill for joy

 

The life of the many

Many are ruled

Many live in tin or madhouses

Drink water in rivers with donkeys

Eat in the rubble with pigs

Wakes in the wee hours

To catch cramped trains

Work in freezing workshops

And earn bread crumbs

From the table of the few

Who live in glass houses

wakes late, kisses children to school

Drive comforts

Sit and play solitaire in the office

And earn fortune

Are the many cursed?

Are the few lucky chosen?

Or is it just business as usual

In the office of Capitalism

The Sinking Ship

Dinosaur, Titanic or is he?

Hoofing to warriors tune

trimmed by cowskin and tire sandals

Clutching baton from Polokwane

Passop, If you are a homosexual

He will knock you down

Passop if you are a school child

He will send you to Bantustans

He is a pilot, driving the ship of the nation

To the distant rocky waters

All trusted are seated

Sipping red wine and blue cheese

The small man is the left

His red sox is the only exhibit

The Big man is the ultra-left

His red blood is the only exhibit

The stroppy envious small boy is trumpeting

At the mines and the misses

Don’t throw stone when you are

Inside glass ship

He is warned

The sentry is checking coast outside

The trouble is now brewing in and out

The child is hungry the mother is dying

The house is burning and

The granny is thirsty

There is no money to buy water card

And no money for food

Destroy the ship

Called the workers and the loafers

The ship is cracked

Water is streaming in

And the pilot is marrying again     

Love is beautiful, love is free

Like a bright spring blossom

flourishes on untarred, derelict road

sweet aromatic fragrance

love is sweet

Buzzing like a brute worker bee,

Stings, wound lonely heart

And takes eternal refuge in hearts

Creed, creature and colour blind

Dismantle all frontiers

to pierce world hearts

with bows and arrows

melts frozen sorrows

rams raised egos

and puncture pomposity

heals envy and escape gossips

love is beautiful and free


Water

Is produced by mother nature
To nature her children
It is water that ooze from fountains and wells
To quench the the thirst of white earth
Water is now caged
By human greed
Bottled by business
Priced by markets
To profit the capital