BUILDING SA TOGETHER AND LEAVING NO ONE BEHIND
South Africa our Nation
'Cause of some actions
We have been apart
hatred filled in our hearts
Cries heard day to night
during day day light disappearing
We have been captured as rats
We lived with threats
Our lives as hard as nuts
We should not make eye to eye
rather let bygons be bygons
We must bury the hatchet
we no its easy to say than to do
Do stand together by any means
lets go at making everything right
For our Nation to have light
If we stand together wecan win
Win this battle together as a pride
In the dark of night, shadows danced, whispers of injustice echoed through time
Black men sought escape in new, destructive habits
Dreams faded like smoke in the air, leaving lost souls and shattered hopes
The barrier of getting a black lad a decent life aroused depression, but black men, we are
We rise, but do we rise taller or merely wiser?
We rise from the ashes of pain, while claiming our space and our pride
In the face of adversity, we won't hide, we march on with fists clenched high
But, how will we experience triumphs while we lack cooperation?
Broken chains reveal broken minds, struggling to unite, weighed by internal demons
Yet in vulnerability, we find unbreakable strength,we rise, unshaken
For black men, we are unbreakable
A tinted rainbow smeared with blood
On its surface lies the bodies of youth devoured by guns
Guns aimed at them by the same people who were meant to protect them
46 years later we are still fighting the same battle as the class of 76
But now the narrative has changed
Instead of fighting against being taught in a language we don’t understand
The fight is against fees and black on black oppression
Please forgive mama that they didn’t tell you when you were voting in 1994 that you were voting for your grandkids and great grandkids to be unemployed
Please forgive me sir that they didn’t tell you ukuthi you were voting for your kids to be working at a carwash with a Masters degree
I am sorry that they didn’t tell you, you were voting for black-on-black oppression
a body on a table in middle of Gaza
shaft of golden light pierced apex
from Heart Centre grew a beanstalk
onto which InnerChild ascended
saw white sails of boats in blue-green ocean
they took our homes away ~
[Poet’s Note : this is a wry autobiographical memory written in traditional pirouette verse viz. 2 quintains, line 5 & 6 repeat, which is the toe turnaround. I wanted to write a narrative of a weird syncopated vignette, when I was knitting a pink mohair jersey at the time of my imprisonment. I reduced the narrative to a pirouette. When in prison, one of my interrogators was knitting the EXACT jersey in the exact colour & exact wool ! ie. in the final analysis, (in retrospect) everything in human life can be reduced to a pirouette, a turn-around dance ! ]
knitting a pink jersey
mohair with cables fine
to process flying thoughts
political activist
south africa turmoiled
south africa turmoiled
security police
came with casspirs and cuffs
interrogation chamber
police knit jersey pink
~~~~~~~~~
I am Rainbow
seven colours merged to flowing
glow in Dark Nights of the Soul
landed in a country nicknamed
the “Rainbow Nation” untamed
my mission to transform, transmute
colours covered in dust and rust
with rain we gain, attain without shame
sublime freedom for Self and fellow
with not much bellow never shallow
arcs of colours we witness together
comradeship our survival dope to cope
heliocentric symbols unified we hope
regard one another with approval and respect
as we watch rainbows high-low, know neglect
through struggling pain red became orange
orange yellow, yellow to green to blue then
indigo to white sprinkled with fight, onto light
arcs across sunny skies, sunflowers, koppies
such radiant patterns flood our mixed-up blood !
I no longer praise it, no I don’t,
I no longer call it, the Nation’s pride,
Nor do I raise it anymore, it lost value.
No, it doesn’t hold its meaning anymore.
Unity became just a word, in political rhetoric,
The thread of ubuntu isn’t strong enough to-
Hold together the colors, my flag needs sewing,
Gold, green, blue, black and white no longer wave.
The rainbow isn’t a rainbow in the absence of one color,
Bishop, for now I fold and put away your dream,
No, I will not burn it, for I still believe in the dream,
The rainbow nation is a phoenix t’will rise again and wave the colors.
Perhaps one day, the flag will mend,
And the thread of unity will unite the flag
The colors will wave, vibrant and bright,
Just like Bishop D. Tutu envisioned it.
Until then, I will hold on to the hope,
That ubuntu spirit will kick the coffin open,
The rainbow’s promise will be fulfilled,
Then that will be when I wave the flag again.
We all rejoice to see
The wounds of apartheid heal
We are so happy to witness
Black men flourish in business.
It is a delight to see
A black man in a white-collar job,
Watching a white child chase a black child
In play is a pleasant scene.
We smile as we see
Black people deciding their fate;
What a sight it is when black students
Protest to shape education for a better state.
We are delighted to witness
A new and changed South Africa.
as the Ugandan Judge at ICJ ,
Julia Sebutunda voted against South African legal
team 's case at ICJ ,
which portrayed the genocidal
actions of Israel troops
in Gaza.
The entire Africans astonished
to be betrayed by one of their daughters
who failed
To understand the consequences
of Apartheid in South Africa
and Colonisation in entire Africa.
Imagine ,
Only Judge Julia stood to defend genocidal actions
While others judges approved the demands
of South African legal team which portrayed
Humanity.
How do oppressors will respect Africans
when a top Judge like Julia thinks
of her stomach than Humanity?
Oh! Judge Julia come back to your senses
as quick as possible.
Remember more than 26.000 people
who already died in Gaza
from October 2023
to January 2024.
Humanity
And Humanity
must be the popular lyrics for Palestinians
in the World.
10/24/2023?
I had a most unique, unusual dream!
I woke, wide-eyed and there they stood!
Five meerkats, so darling, not made of cedar wood.
Of the notorious, great mongoose family are they.
Rodent eaters, and plants, by moonlight and day.
Traveling in packs of ten or more, to hunt and to play!
(Today is Tata MANDELA’S birthday. Freedom lovers all over South Africa are celebrating his legacy of Compassionate Love. I wrote this poem on his birthday when he was still alive. I am so grateful that I was humbled to serve in his government whilst he was President of the First National Democratic Government in South Africa.
At the time I wrote it, I was living opposite a pine forest. )
MANDELA’S BIRTHDAY POEM
All is radiantly translucent
Drops of water sit in
Silence on trees in sunshine
Aloe reflect themselves
In flooded ponds
Tasks are listed
Pines reach for the sky
Where clouds ripple lace across
A stretched out blueness
Dogs bark
Workers to work
Students to school
Earth holds us
in the full Awareness
of our own power to
Change !
Happy Birthday
Cherished leader
©GhairoDanielsPoetry&Song2011
SEE POEM READ BY POET ON YOUTUBE
@ghairodanielspresence
I
Hope dances in sparkling terms
II
Dashed justice equals ascerbic lives
III
Hope sparkles like false diamonds in South Africa
When I keep hearing this song so called "
South Africa supplied Russia munitions,"
I just laugh loudly ," Huh?Hahaaah! Hahaaah!
Hahaaah! Hahaaah! Hahaaah!
Hahaaah! Hahaaah! Hahaaah!
Hahaaah! Hahaaah! Hahaaah!
Hahaaah! Hahaaah! Hahaaah!"
Political language is hard to understand
Than mathematics and physics
Reason why some universities
Professors
Turned puppets
Of some politicians.
Don't ever underestimate
Some politicians in politic games
Because they can drible you and
You turn to be
their body guards
With your universities qualifications.
There is no African country
Which has capacity
To supply munitions
to Russia even Ukrain.
If it was about
some foods,
drinks,
cocoas and
other fruits
I could accept because many
African countries always
supplied those stuffs
To so many European countries.
I know that Usa , France, Germany, China, England and Russia are the biggest supply
of munitions In Africa.
By Alfonso Warally Ngengethe
Mussabwa Chris
SOUL BIRTH : 71 HORSTLEY STREET, DISTRICT SIX
Swathed in golden fleece
White light dancing
Cigarette smoke twirls
Waters break and gush
Bright as the nearby ocean
To say hello to the midwife
Preparing the birthing table
A violet spirit comes
A birthing through channels and layers
The room becomes vast
Souls linger about
Radiant and receiving
Onto the Earth Dimension
Task complete
Melancholy sits here too
Cradling the unknown
Too delicate to hold
Waves dance in rain and white wind
Ice cold separated by time
Here I sit in a District in the South
Watching myself being born
And red blood
Flows…
©GhairoDanielsPoetry&Song +-1980s
LISTEN TO POEM READ BY POET ON YOUTUBE
[ This is one of the poems I wrote on my experience of Forced Removals from District Six, South Africa under the Apartheid Government. Nine of the poems are published in the Testament : District Six Memories, Thoughts and Images /edited by Martin Greshoff/ Attic Press 2021. This is the first of the set. Watch this space for more poems on Forced Removals ]
Congrats to those who bore children,or adopted babies and older kids who had to be "given," because we cannot thank you enough.
Others who will start families, the family - even without your own biological children - is your treasure to civilization. Thank you for You are MOTHER too.
In South Africa, the family alone can save us ( if we won't have God); no law, fairness, gratification, or rules of courtesy apply in darkening South Africa, once graced by the Gospel, Gandhi of India, and great Nelson Mandela ( died 2013).
Sub Categories
Looking for the formal definition, structure, and history of this poetry form? Visit the Poetry Dictionary entry below. Then return to explore how PoetrySoup members bring the form to life through their own poems.