South Africa is inundated with a problem
Kidnapping, baffled with an emblem
Months passed and devastation still lasts
In the minds and bodies of the casts...
Prayers can help
All the time, we need not yelp
"Stranger in Egoli"
Not right to feel lost in a city of vices, they judge you therefore you are a victim.
She creams for her purse ,
He screams for his jacket,
Bloody panties on the sidewalk,
Last month the hood rats engulfed him!
I cannot understand what they say though we speak the same language!
My eyes do not sparkle like theirs.
l am a dog in a den....
Saturday Rain in Johannesburg…
…With sighs of torrential passion,
the heavens shower teardrops,
weeping with me,
as memories of you come cascading back,
skin on skin, ablaze,
moist kisses, fiery,
gentle whispers of undying love, murmured,
in another life, another time,
far removed from my present, a desolate state of despair,
wallowing in the grime.
…
The rain keeps falling,
each teardrop stinging my face,
tasting the salt on my lips,
I wonder, do you still remember the caresses of my fingertips,
between breathy confessions, and vows of eternal love,
before you left me, stranded on an island of solitude,
wounded as a wingless dove,
bereft of life,
stripped of all traces of fortitude
1.
Calm descends,
feathery, misty, settling gently on this city’s breath.
Elusive sleep,
teases,
hiding amongst the clouds,
while silver ribbons of moonlight, caress the concrete.
2.
Midnight in Jo’burg,
alone, in this wild-eyed, crazy city,
warm and cruel at once,
ragged, torn, sublime,
brimming with African life,
alive in an African summer night.
3.
Zimbabwe, you are us,
Morocco is infused in our veins,
Nigeria lingers on our wet kisses,
Malawi, we are you.
4.
A continental mosaic,
the smells of Cairo,
and sounds of Dakar,
soaked in tastes of Addis,
mingle on my city’s streets.
5.
We are all, African.
‘They’ are not the other,
we are ‘them’, tossed in a communal pot,
sipping mampoer*,
and chowing pap and vleis*,
in my city,
my Jozi**,
your Jo’burg**,
our eGoli**
_____
* – a home-brewed drink, and a maize-meal porridge and meat.
** – all names refer to Johannesburg.
From my window pane,
i behold your soulful presence.
I whose gaze is gripping,
whose passion has known
the melancholy of nature` s splendor.
There` s no brilliance to be compared
to your glittering lights
in the night season.
your Meadows are charming.
your lawns unstrip like
a green carpet cast upon the mountain side,
and your streets are bustling
with different colors, one people.
you are beautiful O` Johannesburg!
you are the symbol of Black perfection,
the pride of Africa,
the hub of nature`s lovers.
O` let me fetch you unend
with my Western gaze.
Let me collapse your vastness
into my forlorn heart,
where your memory slays
like a Crystal fountain
ebbing out in the midst of a Hundred Palm trees.
A busy city,
Lots of light
A dazzling skyline
Great by night
African sun,
Almost set
A stack of memories
Hard to forget
Africans united
Happy together
Proud to be there, now and forever
The one and only place to be
Is the city run by the ANC
One day I’ll return alone
To only city I can call home.
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