FLOWERS

I don’t know what it means, my love.
We saw it, we saw it coming –
a black brother selling.

We walk and work, he sells flowers.
We tint windows and drive,
he sells flowers only to white folks.
We press the horn and they tint windows;
with an officious smile, he knocks gently
selling flowers only to white folks.
We walk and drive with white friends,
he sells flowers only to white folks.

I don’t know why, how he does this, my love.
Even on holy days,
even at the graveyard
he sells them smiles and flowers.

Never mind black brother,
in my township I have a flower garden –
Palesa of all time!
Not on sale.

Her head grows plaited beauty
of magical versatility.
Her face shows unearthly eyes,
twinkling petals of soul.
Her fragrance; ethereal cord
defying planes and distances.
Birth marks on black chicks;
snow crystals from another dimension.
Her chest sports pencil-sharp breasts,
ripening fruits for the new race.
But we saw it, we saw it coming
from old South Africa,
a black brother …

GATHERING PIECES

I

Gosh! this Kiss-Madolo* in shorts;
obese and amoebic - shakes
the earth like an elephant in haste.
O! blessed deformity
gorging on a MacDonald’s burger -
you are oblivious to a skeleton
slouching against a stranger's car.
The way to the mall gate is far.
I’m like a fountain groping to the ocean,
my body is but a battleground.

Long is the distance to my Merc.
Were I that Kiss-Madolo
three hours would be three minutes.
Oh, come dear chauffer of mine,
come, drive me home;
home of sleep-gazing
at the ceiling.

II

I have money, money, money
but cannot buy Health and Yesterday.
Top scientists and professors,
top shamans and prophets
far and near –
all have failed the test
to trace, trick, trap and kill
or just let go tribes
of viruses with part of me
as lizards do with ease.

III

O! Yesterday, let me buy you out, Yesterday!
Yesterday, six months ago
I got a golden handshake.
That top position had launched my mansion houses
and led me to direct consortiums.
That top life had attracted women of all sizes to me.

O! Yesterday, let me buy you out, Yesterday!
Yesterday, when we arrived from exile,
the masses could not believe.
It was as if we emerged from the bible;
the way they celebrated,
it was as if the heavens were showing up.

O! Yesterday, let me buy you out of my life, Yesterday!
Yesterday, exile where a great citizen
of continents I was. Already
I knew. Two of my mistresses
died. Three followed
my first wife.

O! Yesterday, let me repossess you, Yesterday!
Yesterday, here as a high school student
full of dreams - brilliant
and mercurial, I wanted
to be a scientist, a top scientist!
But in me inevitable flames raged
as apartheid condemned us to death
while in song it romanticized life.

O! Yesterday, let me repossess you, Yesterday!
Yesterday, there was this guy …
Ah! KK – Karl Karapau … of all answers,
Karl from Bush Varsity,
Karl, he who sang the Communist
Manifesto and Das Kapital
as if it was Nkosi Sikelela ...

IV

I know, I know I'll die
a lonely death. Pain,
is seeing noisy predators
plundering your estates –
you, a mere mummy. Pain
is knowing you'll be buried
with pomp, sponsored lies and extremes -
you, a mere platform.

I know, I know diseases
from our witchcraft
to floor one making love with someone's wife.
But this, this virus has super cunning of a terrorist.
Only the Devil can unleash
such explosive witchery
of megaslaughter, megasuffering.

V

So ends my obituary.
This is the path I have travelled.
Yours in the making to be where you'll be.
We are all rivers
in different forms and flow
seeking a way out
to the ocean.

Website developed by Lynn Danzig