White as day and dark as night,
Sitting as a candle bright.
Standing lonely on a shore,
Guiding ships that sail once more.
Ocean churning, birds in flight,
Staircase spirals out of sight.
Sands of gold lie at your feet,
Longing for the sea to meet.
Silent guiding straight and true,
Years on end you’ve weathered through.
Always faithful as a friend,
Always treasured till the end.
For those who want to travel throughout the sparkling magic of space,
to see meteors crashing on planets,
Icy comets passing by and dead moons revolving…
Just where do you think you are now?
After the sirens fade
and the yellow tape is gone,
the street breathes slow again
as if nothing went wrong.
Neighbours close their doors,
windows shut tight,
no one speaks of the blood
that was here last night.
A mother wipes the floor
where her child once stood,
scrubbing and scrubbing
but it does no good.
The stain does not leave,
it lives in her mind,
repeating the moment
time left behind.
Morning still comes,
people go to work,
but under the quiet
the memory lurks.
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Cape wind fills the sails~
white wings skimming indigo,
tipping toward the sun.
Salt-spray arcs in laughing light
I want to stand on the black scalp of Pico do Fogo,
Where the earth smokes cigarettes with the sky.
Not for the view,
but for the vibration;
To feel the heat that cooked my grandfather’s name.
They say the vines there drink ash instead of water,
Birthing a wine that tastes like sulfur and secrets.
I need to peel off my clothes, my degrees, my Spanish,
And lay naked on that dark, magnetic grit,
Until the iron in the soil speaks to the iron in my blood.
Cape Verde is not just islands;
it is punctuation In the middle of the Atlantic sentence.
I must go where the ground is still being born,
To remind my skin that we are both volcanic,
Both waiting to erupt, both beautiful in the burn.
Sorrow and pain is no more
South Easter has blown them away
it gathered me up in leaves
to fall in raindrops on Earth
South Easter has blown them away
I drifted on wind’s wings
to fall in raindrops on Earth
it let me rest in sleep
I drifted on wind’s wings
my dreams soft notes on airwaves
it let me rest in sleep
lifting enchanting dried leaves
I became a mustard leaf
swooning in your lacy breath
South Easter ! You are Cape Doctor
dissolving I rise and fly away
Swooning in your lacy breath
it gathered me up in leaves
South Easter ! You are Cape Doctor
sorrow and pain is no more
____________________————_________
Cape Flats is my town
But it always lets me down
I feel like a clown
With a crown
The violence
We cannot silence
Rob kill and maim
To the gangs its all the same.
where childhood is stolen,
where mothers bury their children
Heart broken and sorrow
A life so hollow
You they will follow.
Like a barn-swallow.
A township so vain
Full of pain
A killing everyday
This is the only way
With violence everyday
All we can do is pray.
Childhoods are stolen callously
Stolen very tactfully
Cape Flats live in brutality
And hate and fear angrily.
A lot of hate crimes
At the best of times.
Rape and killing
This is so unfulfilling.
Let this be a lesson
And not a mere session
To teach a session
Let it be a lesson
Not just an obsession
But a positive progression.
Of our own confession.
Puisque je dois te retrouver
dans des endroits isolés
je te verrai là-bas
Puisque je dois mentir
quelques instants avec toi
alors je dois juste mentir
car si je ne peux pas aller jusqu'au bout, ma belle
j'ai l'impression que je vais me demander pourquoi
j'ai besoin de toi
près de moi
j'ai besoin de toi
,Puisque je dois me faufiler
pour être avec toi
voilà ce que je ferai, chérie
Puisque je dois te retrouver
dans des endroits isolés
je te verrai là-bas
Puisque je dois mentir
quelques instants avec toi
alors je dois juste mentir
car si je ne peux pas aller jusqu'au bout, ma belle
j'ai l'impression que je vais me demander pourquoi
j'ai besoin de toi
près de moi
j'ai besoin de toi, ma belle
ça fait si longtemps
ah-ah----ah--ah oh, ooh oo!
__________________________________________________
she and her husband had problems
while he went away working
she began seeing a guy
she wasn't serious about leaving her husband
"a fling thing you know"
the guy fell deep in love
so much he wrote this song for her
____________________________________________________
A hat like Melania's
casts her face in shadow—
a yellow bouquet clasped in her hands
above a fluttering white skirt—
the full moon has her back
as he passes by.
You love the Ocean
as it comes
I love the Ocean
as it goes
Caught in its tide
of becoming
Washed in the change
— of its flow
(Yarmouth Massachusetts: September, 1974)
Native Americans call me 'Paleface'
'Roundeye' say the Chinese race
to a Scot I'm a 'Sassenach' 'Boyo' to those in Wales
altho' a 'Limey' in New York
I answer to none such hails
once a 'Gweilo' in Hong Kong Down Under was a 'Pom'
you may give a dog a bad name (and/or a bone)
he may even be your (best) 'Pal' don't think me fuddy-duddy
for what's more I have my limits and I'm not your (good) 'Buddy'
then a 'Rooinek' 'round Cape Town
'Farangi' was I in Dubai
and tho' no English rose was a 'Bloke' when there
as originally from Kenya when owned by Blighty
in some parts of the U.S.A. I'm now called 'Whitey'
'Haole' in Hawaii that's me and 'Gringo'
down south in Mexico
seems I'm all things to all men a man of many hats
altho' no they know me not
whether saint or sinner
you may call me what you will
but just not late for dinner
Murder and mayhem on the Cape Flats.
This is life and that is that.
From the youngest to the oldest,
the murderers are bold.
Murderers kill at random.
On their heads should be a ransom.
Every day is a killing season,
killing for no reason.
Children cry and mothers die,
living by the sword.
The murderers must be caught.
Gangs for whom killing is a must,
mothers and fathers want them bust.
Teenagers join gangs to kill.
For their parents, it is a bitter pill.
The Cape Flats is a killing field,
if you live there, there is no shield.
Thirty-four people killed in a week.
The Cape Flats gangs are not weak.
They shoot to kill and maim,
to them, it’s all the same.
Let’s be real,
the gangs are a bad deal.
In them, there is no good.
To them, death is like food.
You must fight to live, every day.
Being bad is the only way.
They rule the street
and the innocent must take the heat.
Seven days a week
they feed on the weak.
The gangs have no love to give.
They don’t forget or forgive.
In the Cape flats the bullets are flying
Today people are dying
The gangs are killing
To them it is fulfilling
It is a deed so sad
It can only be done by the bad
The gangs don’t feel a thing
They love the sting.
The gangs are like wild animals
Like real damn cannibals
Running in the street
Wanting to kill whoever they meet
Whether night or day
The gangs will have their way
Even If they have their own way
It is their way night and day.
They smoke weed
Even if there is no need
Like the drugs they snort
Their life will be short.
They live by the sword
And die by the sword
They don’t really care
To them life is one big dare.
They drink a pill
In order to kill
They smoke weed
Because they have a need
They consume a lot of alcohol
Till on the floor they crawl
Harming people is what they do
Heavy drinking is what they do.
In this life they cannot cope
Living a life without hope
Living a life so hollow
There Is nothing to follow.
beware of black death
africa’s cape buffalo
they even charge cars
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