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ALUTA CONTINUA : FORCED REMOVALS 

( Poet’s Note : I’m posting this poem here as a South African history student recently asked to interview poet on Forced Removals. I read this poem which he enjoyed. I thought it might interest other SA history students who too were studying aspects of the country’s Apartheid past. It first appeared in : A Collection of Memoirs on District Six titled District Six Memories, Thoughts and Images/ Attic Press, 2021, as part of a collection of nine poems on Forced Removals )


We willed concentrated power
circled in cobalt blue 
fields of strawberries 
and dagger beckoned 
irrespective of consciousness 
A sorry state of affairs when battles
between Darkness and Light
continued unabated 
 
Aluta Continua ! 

How is this ?
To live as Spirit-woman, Tiger-turtle
waves of dragons fast and smooth
to digest one egg in a 
fridge of bones
serve unquestioningly as  
District Six dissolves
lymph longed for ten oranges
in a meadow with Ruth
on silvery Planet Mercury

Aluta Continua ! 

Far is luminosity when 
a path was already cleared 
A test is at the door
looking up at new windows 
in flat townships 
tugging at deep black 
pools of wondrous confusion 
in fright and resistance
she was so innocent ! 

Soft marshmallows stood in Sun
as delight and enticement
A battle of swords and cups
diamonds and diggings 
Let go ?
A still pond attempting not to ripple 
silent space in a battle of steel
I am here…my home dissolved 
Whose to know the difference ?

Gulls swirled above surrender 
to destinies written in cursive 
cupboards filled with old clothes 
burnished gold remained 
stuck in crevices 
Boxed up District Six
lay naked, bruised, torn
 
Aluta Continua ! 

Through lifetimes of sorrow
as step by step, inch by inch
chains loosen, shackles shake
under flat Table Mountain 
ghosts in the District 
watch then play 
sucking dewdrop pears
for a sense of power gained
We are gone.

Aluta Continua ! 

A body bent down to pick 
up offerings from begging 
knelt in humiliation 
or was it humility ?
as black energies flashed white
with faith to suck up survival 
drink in a second what was 
distilled in a fortnight of fasting
and maniacal meditations 
that stank of spiritual exhaustion 
in purple drunkenness 

Cells were clear, open
hearts exposed 
receiving offerings from Sky
and all that went before 
all that was to come 
A gong went round, round
pealing and pealing
forever, without end
still sores bled bright blood
star circles tinkered afar
grasping for that which 
slipped in the distance 
on a removal lorry
when all seemed lost

Aluta Continua ! 

Some say they prepared 
a thousand years for a 
single silent move
a lifetime of prayer
for an hour’s Grace
A sickly soul looked to
recapture what escaped
in the night 
Cape Doctor blowing grey
sand soft tears
showing the way to
a new flight of stairs 


©GhairoDanielsPoetry&Song
+-1997
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