Best Townships Poems
From high above the mighty eagles soar
and gaze with teary eyes upon the land;
a proud and peaceful nation thrived, before
the bombs began to fall with czar’s command.
Their saddened eyes see blood upon the sand
as innocence lay scattered on the shore;
they’re witnessing the slaughter now at hand
from high above as mighty eagles soar.
Her cities lay in ruin from the war;
her leaders pleading for a helping hand;
the world in horror watches evermore,
and gaze with teary eyes upon the land.
Atrocities and pillage deftly planned
erasing all the joys from days of yore;
the villages and townships now unmanned
where proud and peaceful nation thrived before.
I cannot see the reason for this gore
nor endgame of this despot’s evil hand,
and history repeats itself once more
as bombs begin to fall with czar’s command.
And what will be the outcome of this stand
when smoke has cleared the war which we deplore;
and who will be the next at his demand
as angel’s tears begin to fall once more
from high above?
July 1, 2022
Categories:
townships, evil, horror, war,
Form:
Rondeau Redouble
Rapid urbanisation of the last century
causes more slums to mushroom
in the major cities of the world
particularly in developing countries.
Unplanned townships make it difficult
for government to plan for better
service delivery such as roads,
electricity,health,water and sanitation.
Local planning authorities should halt
illeagal allocation of land which leads
to the proliferation of slums.
Government should keep planning
for the poor;and must find better
solutions of phasing out slums
which have characterised many
towns and cities of the world.
And slums lie on a GOLDMINE
(PRIME LAND)which can
generate great wealthy
for poorer communities.
chipepo lwele
29/01/2013
Categories:
townships, courage, urban, work,
Form:
Blank verse
Crowned May Queen
As the music flows in my mind and soul in cheer
I dance around on my toes in the sun kissed fragrant fields
of wildflowers and tall emerald green grass yields
With a breath of life that dwells the day is near
For I’m favored to be the prettiest maiden here
All eyes will be on me in my white lace dress
and closed shoes I will astound with my hair in curls
and a crown of blossoms and leaves of green
when I'm honored with the crown of May Queen
a symbol of the stillness of nature surrounds
In which everything revolves around
Early bright is here with a clear blue unclouded sky
My friends and neighbors are all excited to their utmost ability
Townships and villages celebrating springtime fertility
Handsome couples gathering bouquets of flowers from nearby
decorating the whole town with springtime greenery and mystify
I lead the celebration up to the heart of town singing
Old buildings and tables are adorned
with scented blooms that leave you breathless
Populace displays all the elegance of their dress
Dressed in white, carrying garlands of flowers
and beaming children follow giggling and dancing
They place a crown of blossoms on my head,
I say a speech from my soul and set off the festivities,
with dance and overwhelming merriment
Musicians play their musical instruments with talent
with eating, drinking, jubilant music,
and courtly lovers dancing around the Maypole
A feast fit for a King, everyone enjoys
crafts, games, and carousel to console
With a breath of life at the age of sixteen
As the music flows in my mind and soul
I dance around the maypole
Favored for being the prettiest maiden seen
Honored with being crowned May Queen
By: Eve Roper 4/18/2015 Quintella Form
Children Story
Categories:
townships, celebration,
Form:
Quintilla
RISING FROM THE ASHES
Wordancer
The eyes of the dragon seen through the trees
Mesmerize minds and cause bodies to freeze.
Which way to go, which way to turn;
No time for questions when the trees burn.
Just jump in the cars and flee towards town
But the road is cut off as the wind swings around.
No way to go, no way to turn;
An acceptance of fate, as the trees burn.
The fence of the paddock does not impede
The scorched car that flattens it, picking up speed
Away from the flames, away they must turn
Desperate with fear, as the trees burn.
The breath of this beast lights fires with no flame
The heat of its breath burn all just the same.
It’s tail flames on, it’s head, see it turn
Back towards town, there are more things to burn.
With fire, smoke and tears these folk have learnt
To rise from the ashes; spirits singed; not burnt
A call for assistance, now the schools turn
To grey squares of ashes; and more townships burn.
The calls went out across this wide country
And the offers came from all and sundry.
What do you need? What can we bring you?
They were told, so they went; what else would they do?
Hand towels, toothbrushes, soap and shampoo
To clean away ashes; the soot, and tears too
Through fire and smoke, these folk have learnt
To rise from the ashes; spirits singed; not burnt
The towns’ people will labor as long as there’s need,
They’ll listen and learn and plant as they weed,
While their houses and schools, fire stations too,
Rise from the ashes, and stand good as new.
The February Dragon has left for a time,
But hope that heals the scars in the minds
Of the people there, is strong and alive,
They have rebuilt their towns, their dreams and their lives.
©
Categories:
townships, confusion, death, depression, fear,
Form:
Rhyme
A Comrade like Ben
A statesman like Mandela diplomatically
suspended the necessary struggle of opposites,
gummed his fragmented land together with reconciliation….
exploiters to exploited , murderers to martyrs
imperialist to invisibled indigenes
lives in Sandton and councils Bill Clinton
and Naomi Campbell on plush carpets
a sinewy activist, hard as nails, like yourself…
Ben Palmer Louw, always
cajoling
conspiring
criticizing
organising
uprising
forever
beautiful in your pregnant concern
that freedom , dignity and justice
is tangible and beautiful as black skin, kinky hair
is real when a continent’s wealth is fairly shared
is manifested when the state collapses in selfless deeds
old man Nelson turned ninety and is now a teddy
to those who feared the terrorist at forty.
He no longer speak for himself but for his party
and the party is a self-serving affair.
Pity your death at thirty-something
when Nelson started talking to his racist oppressors.
For ten years you and your young militant army
punctured holes in the racist ideology,
marched flames and thunder through townships,
died in your thousands,
stopping with blood and bones
bullets casted for centuries by the fascist
in black holes of greed and fear.
“A shame … but subversion is to blame ”
`` the defenders of law and order loudly exclaimed
“Not good for business”…the moneybags conceded
“ if Soweto bleeds , profit –rates receeds . ”
“Give black chiefs and compradors the garrotte
and stick the small change of capital under their nose .
They will throttle the radical noises at the root ”.
Wounded deeply, your rapid-firing baritone voice
still thundered on battle-fields and in halls,
urging us to destroy mental and wage slavery.
I saw you fight for freedom
the whole scorching way,
every hour of that long bloody apartheid day…
but one night
you leaped ,
proud black brother of mine,
right into the sky…
fist raised high as heaven with a two-hour smile
whispering re-assuringly “Don’t ever give up, gents…
the harder they come , the harder they fall.
See… brothers and sisters…revolution is!
In memory and respect to Ben Palmer Louw (1950-1987)a student leader of 1976 soweto insurrection
Categories:
townships, history, inspirational, loss, political,
Form:
Elegy
While crossing Verrazano Narrows Bridge
recurring mem’ries of New York recapture
history and civilization of the two boroughs
provide me with deep interest and emphasis.
Brooklyn in its old Dutch for “broken land,”
and Staten Island named “Staaten Eylandt”
named in the early 1600s by Henry Hudson,
trailed off on a tangent through centuries.
A myth or perhaps a legend, the island thus far,
was like a quagmire of townships and disputes;
its meaning to immigrants’ culture and religion,
favored silence, security, peace, and integration.
The burden of too many choices based on clans,
growing businesses and stories of interactions;
new immigrants in droves through generations
like an orchestra combined with a sense of drama.
Reflections of their struggles to make ends meet,
reminded me of articulation through interpretation;
in sobriety of heeding of the composer’s intent,
such a musical piece made me suffer and sweat.
Oh, the pedal, rhythmic vitality and expression!
all these elements comprise what piano playing is,
the technique, in a special way, a benchmark item
indeed, a struggle to interiorize those conventions.
But as a human person with some limitations,
with my own history and capability in playing,
I see where I can be fit and freely express myself;
through movements in diverse missionary works.
As it says in French, “bon débarras, il est partí.”
my life continues with a backlog of other issues,
a different world focused on service to the Lord;
with my own repertory – its beauty to humanity.
It’s true that my prayer for the church at large,
is also a bridge across the gulf of separation;
coming to this borough of Staten Island
a hodge-podge of concerns, covenanted within.
Now that relationship with God and people
brings me to nourish that faith and commitment;
with that long stretch of Verrazano Narrows Bridge,
a metaphor to my own journey as a missionary.
Categories:
townships, history, hope, imagination, introspection,
Form:
Narrative
IF ever I had a country : XXIII-XXIV
XXIII
IF ever I had a country
And if ever I were but the Home Secretary
I wouldn't sit on my baked beans doing my level-best to avoid responsibility
While waiting to pat myself on the back on Bastille Day down the Champs Elysée
I'd keep both public and pubic forces from running rampage on every refugee
But set about tidying the House with bleach to rid oath-taking secret skullduggery
That is, if ever I were but the Home Secretary
And even if I never ever had no country
XXIV
IF ever I had a country
And if ever I were but the Interior Secretary
I'd neither arrogate nor take for granted Hobbes's Leviathan-authorised cruelty
I'd seek and demolish local townships' self-appointed chief mafiosi
Who undermine hotel-maids with virile World Bank authority
Who add to the You-Too Hall of Fame Hollywood-producer community
That is, if ever I were but the Interior Sec in Gay Paree
And even if I never ever had no country
© T. Wignesan - Paris, July 10, 2018
Categories:
townships, anti bullying, betrayal, cinco
Form:
Dramatic Monologue
Human life deserves a platform to unfold
Away from straitjackets of pious scrutiny
Whose eyes, ears and hands feel so cold
They reject freedom and project a mutiny
Born from the scorn society pours on freedom
Curtailing every progressive move towards expanding
Frontiers of free thought, thought outside the stricture kingdom
Where dissenters earn the label of antisocial branding
Perceived by untested notions whose dubious value
Lies in objecting to new ideas, new approaches
To matters where life suffers because critics with no clue
Claim innovations and expansions in thinking circulate cockroaches
In citadels that preserve culture and tradition
To limit the extent to which inhabitants expand the scope
Life ought to enjoy without any undue restriction
Imposed by custodians of traditions whose pope
Preaches limitations on abortion and exploration of modernization
In the wake of disruptive technologies
That spawn conundrums in which efforts of socialization
In traditional societies and African mythologies
Die a natural death
When social media facilitate new ways of communicating and connecting
Whose wealth and health
Diminish and extinguish mores, norms and customs, projecting
Arguments whose cogent basis tenuous at best
Can’t stand reliability and validity
Scrutiny and which traditionalists attest
Matter to defend the utility and solidity
Archaic notions offer to society’s progress
In which the worth and splendor of life
Matters more than efforts to suppress
Moves to eradicate and eliminate wife
Battery and slavery in the context of gender based violence
Rife in African townships and homesteads
Where traditionalists promote the importance
Domestic violence plays in subjugating stubborn heads.
Categories:
townships, poems,
Form:
Free verse
In Memory of Motherhood
Pain scribbled signatures in mothers buttocks
announcing the beginning of sunset
sun rays remained un vomited from the beauty of rainbows
war tied ropes of struggle round their necks
many rhymes of suffering sung and unheard
in congregations marching townships and mountains
in search of freedom seeds
seeds of their wombs yearned for freedom far to be harvested
motherhood a definition of honesty hearts
with breasts carrying scars ,laughter ,smiles, and hope
those dimples signatures of resilience
thighs with grafitti of bullet bruises
valleys of their backs smell blood of sons,
sons long buried inthe barrel ofviolence
life stolen in its greenness
motherhood her hands trust red clay soil , even
during cloudless seasons
the womb that breathe rays of this dawn ,today
scribbling this memory on the walls of the rainbow
Shoulders of motherhood carried journeys and hope
how many times hope die ,rise and ripe
erase propaganda from her shoulders
delete the baggage of slogan from from breasts
abort the luggage of war from her womb
bring pastures that she reap fruits of freedom
motherhood how many times you cough sorrow
how many seasons you sneeze hunger
you have eaten enough poverty
and licked the rough hand of war long unforgotten
motherhood freedom is no
Categories:
townships, abortion, absence, abuse, adventure,
Form:
Free verse
The half-eaten, rotten remains of a culture
Still tastes like success to a ravenous vulture
To his chin, a sparkling teardrop drips
Into the abysmal from their slipping tight grips
Atop the tip of a sunken continent
Stands a risen giant monument
Under the growing weight of sadness
And the crushing pressure of darkness
Subdivided scatterings of a united mind
In the palm of a blistered, quivering hand
Shaking fists of fresh ideas punch the air
Revived from the coma of stifling fear
Unsheathed from an embryonic oil of riches
The face of a stillborn dug from mine trenches
Muddled from eons of a dysfunctional family feud
Blindsided by camouflage to fall to a poacher's foot
Lead by the neon glow of a golden tooth
Into the gaping jaw of a lion's mouth
To walk in our sandals of pride
Into the distant, eyes open wide
A nation built on slogans
The cost was sure at a bargain
And the growing waves of black and white fellowship
The returns of the struggle are in the townships
Categories:
townships, how i feel,
Form:
Rhyme
As the sun sets
A hot wind like this
Does not belong in downtown Lansing
But here it is
Speed-boating down the Grand River grinning and wearing Ray-Bans
My wife and I
We hold down our pouncing bouncing patio table
At the Waterfront Bar and Grill
As if we were airborne soldiers just landed
But still attached and tangled
To our thumping jumping parachutes
Strings of lightbulbs clattering like teeth above us
Hung from under the Friday night tent
96 degrees even as the day sinks to evening.
The river converts to beer and shots of whiskey.
The catfish are buzzed and jump for joy.
The four member rock band is amped up
With the addition of a mandolin
And plays the entire second side in order
From Led Zeppelin III
But replacing at the end Hats Off (To Roy Harper)
With Hey Hey What Can I Do? as one big set.
Who does that?
We notice there are well-known bartenders
Playing hooky from working anymore
At the drab and deadly chain restaurants
Back in the townships.
We should all follow their lead
And go on strike right now from the boredom of life
Everyone everywhere
Just quit and sit along the Grand River in this sparkling city
But the lead guitarist
He drinks his beers as fast as the crowd
And the bass guitarist tilts her instrument
Vertical to her shoulder
A mother soothing her baby’s back
Swaying her hips in melodic circles
While the drummer and the piano player try to catch up
On beat
So we sing along
Implanting our hands in the dough of air.
Jimmy Page is here.
Sitting alone.
Dressed in black.
Sipping from a tall glass of orange juice.
It’s too hot for flies
So lightning bugs twinkle to the sticky bottoms
Of emptied beer pitchers
Flickering on the table tops
To the night’s finale of Whole Lotta Love
Mixed at the end with Baba O’Riley.
Who does that?
All night
A friendly man at the table next to me
A union bus driver
Who bragged he’d worked enough overtime all year
To take PTO for the entire summer
Flicks his hand against my shoulder
(The same shoulder that has Melanoma growing on it)
Every time the band strikes the first chords
To another rare Zep
With the same look of
Can you believe it?
Apparently, I must have the same look.
Categories:
townships, happiness, music, nostalgia, peace,
Form:
Free verse
Spent my life in awe, lived it content and free
travelled the world letting my wonder show.
With amazing sights presented to me
in heat of deserts and dark nights of cold.
Started so young, then becoming quite old
adventures long past are tales to be told.
All the people I met took many forms
different colors and languages spoke.
Lived in townships or small family farms,
from boisterous captains to simple folk.
Some gave orders while others told their joke
shared gentle smiles and strong after-meal smoke.
Destinations flourished with cherished life,
remembrance of gratitude for times past.
Many hard times, struggles, lifetime of strife,
eons of traditions forever last.
Survival daily was the utmost task
looking back, the years disappeared too fast.
Still reminisce how the journeys began
those decades have made me a better man.
Categories:
townships, destiny, growth, humanity, international,
Form:
Sonnet
No Primus Inter Pares
Germans at the Costa Brava they just cannot yield
‘Brava’ the fight and they are conquering once more
Always the first on the beach or the striped deck chair but
The towel goes right up front and then they have breakfast
They claim their place in the sun and colonize the pool
I’m not a racist am German myself light skinned at dawn
Prejudice Discrimination Stereotype or double innocent vision
When too much sun meets a squinting eye of any beholder
Ready with parasol and sombrero and not enough lotion
To make sure I blend colourfully in and pretend I am native
Ingenious maybe but indigenous nowhere near but at my home
Not first under equals just one of the travelling circus’ crowd
I stake my claim forget all about physics in diabolical parable
Parabolic distant same old points and lines but when will I learn
That the sun scorches at high noon whatever I attempt
That horizons only widen when travelling in much truer fashion
Far and further afield immersion in less indifferent ventures
Brings me closer to peace to my own roots unburdens my search
I’ve seen the Taj Mahal under a midnight moon shadow absorbed
The Grand Canyon looked for precious Yellow Stone wisdom
Pyramids at Giza tear gas at Tahrir Square caves in Cappadocia
Never setting sun in Rovaniemi Omaha Beach and trenches in Belgium
I took local busses towards nowhere with no imminent return
No plan no target no defined ambition not steps merely ticked
Call me a voyeur in slums townships or favelas a frotteur with no towel
But I was made welcome once I shed my emperor’s colonial clothes
My luxury problems became smaller when I returned to the start
The gifts of the present the past and my very privileged future
One way or another I cannot and need not shed European origin
But my Universe has become less ignorant and a bit more unsure
23th July 2018
Categories:
townships, travel,
Form:
Free verse
I love meadowlands
And kasie where africans
Celebrate their
Ghettorization
In the land of their birth
Kasie:townships in south africa
Categories:
townships, africa,
Form:
Tanka
oh, this grinding surge
roaring into battle,
how the air is filled
with the sabre rattle;
how the sky is blacked
by fires in their burning,
how the townships sacked
by counter-strikes returning;
how the guns and shells
through the air are streaming,
how the tolling bells
bleed into the screaming;
oh, the fight for land,
conflicts over chattel,
how the days are spent
in slaughtering the cattle.
Categories:
townships, death, history, people, places,
Form:
Verse