Details |
Neil Mcdonald Poem
HARMONY 69
The night of twelfth December `69
knotted together an icy storm wind
that whipped False bay`s waves
to white -frilled blankets.
Thunderclaps against primal rocks
resonated through a ghettoe of glowing tents
on a dark, rough ,bushy patch .
Rising plaintively above the din
of drums and flapping canvas,
creole strains solicited the capricious gods
for a clement Cape .
Love songs , sweet like wine
would even tittilated mermaid`s melons,
stranding them breathless, with tails scaled.
In my sixteenth tempestuous year,
I was sickened and sullied, spoiling for a fight
with that ever- prying, ever-lying police-state
denying us
dividing us
deriding us
ripping us
whipping us
in an all-pervasive racist propaganda storm
Harmony,was forced ethnic relocation right there
in a stamp-size sea-resort next to a stinking dump.
Our yearly anticipated salty baptism,
fouled for a full ten years,
dunked in fascist soil
of a false bay with a real bite….
rubbing coarse salt in our opened wounds
Rubbing it in the flayed
William, my sire, of the black turf belly
Rubbing it in the lashed
Maxie , my ma , of white-on-black graft
Rubbing it in the spurred
Dot Adams, my oracle , of the pearled-truth tongue
imprisoned to a silent ninety-day solitary confinement. .
Yes, a full two hundred scar-studded waxes
avidly saluting the wretched who rose in revolution
drowning exploiters in the oppressed`s precious blood
Algeria whilst raped,unveiling herself,
firing fear into bared French fascism
exploding the myth of a benevolent colonialism.
“Lumumba will guide the Kongo to freedom”
grandpa agitated hopefully as revolutionary Patrice,
our dark prince of peace
died on the bloodied butts
of neo-colonial carbines.
My seven-year heart burst
in anger and pain.
A companiable heart`s balance
tilted with unease at justice , unhinged.
the periodic uprisings of people in far-flung regions
against the arrogance of anglo-saxon imperialism
salted my youth with the tears of broken children,
their blood ever spattering my angry brow.
Copyright © Neil Mcdonald | Year Posted 2011
|
Details |
Neil Mcdonald Poem
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
Copyright © Neil Mcdonald | Year Posted 2011
|
Details |
Neil Mcdonald Poem
Will you burn the earth`s skin to glass?.
Yet, right there , in Harmony of `69
I bent in adoration
before the dusky pearl of your forehead
the soft slopes of your never-ending body
shifting under a sea of blankets
Oh! treasure of treasures !
sparkling
to life
love
in the inner-sanctum of the
tent-temple of my emerald heart,
filling it with that attar fragrance ,
that compassionate smile,
that yearning voice,
quieting my storm
urging me
to swim your sultry sea.
How could the world ever be the same again ?
Outside,
rooted like stark brood of the Black stone ,
rocks parried thuddingly the capricious charge of waves
and subdued the swell and swirl of a dark ,disturbed sea.
The summer night was short
and I
cleaved to you like a calf to its mother.
Your dark-eyed nipples breasted the blanket ,
occulting the coarseness of Harmony .
We rocked to cradle the peace in the galaxy,
with love milking the way
to the morning star .
Winking over the mount,
Venus caught us intertwined ,
drooling like babes,
sated
I, summer cloud paramour of
you Landie ,
altar of my sensuous sacrifice
sweet naos forever
Yolande
briefly
undraping your
compassionate cosmic essence
for a gallant stripling
starving for affirmation.
Awed,
i nested in mouths
harmonizing
now enchanting,
now strident symphonies,
keen enough to split
chaos
into mutual opposites
that grappled , grinded and finally clashed ,
giving birth to a higher union.
I tattoo your name , Landie, on the stretched skin of the earth.
I pullulate the waves in your name
sackbutting the syllables
till tremolo breaks it breathlessly to foam
on the glistening beach of your belly
Wrinkles I didgeridoo into the dark blanket of our night,
stringing out your diadem of stars
I spiral you stately across my deep.
Breaking away
reluctantly
from the tug of your knees
i trolled our anchor through love`s flow
girding it close to my wound-up heart.
"Go now love….spare me a thought "
Your voice and a gentle seabreeze wafted me out.
Diving at dawn with a whale of love
between waking dunes
capped by sourfigs , bleary-eyed revellers,
the blue-blue sky warbled
“one and one and one is three
One thing you got know ,is you got to be free
Come together, right now , over me.”
.
Copyright © Neil Mcdonald | Year Posted 2011
|
Details |
Neil Mcdonald Poem
Anytime is good for loving .
It is a good time to love
now with the mountain peak
bulging forward steely
and the late afternoon sun
piebalding out a pink
like a body flushed
It is a time good for love
spread out over a table
tomatoes red-cheeked
against aubergines
knobbed purple
with the sizzle of unions,
garlic and a trace of cloves
cornering the giddy secret
of detergent
somewhere
Love would be good
as the garden- corner darkens
around the rose`s virginal white
and the fathomless mouths
of the hibiscus trumpets
simply red
Timely would good love come
with the gibbous head
of the moon bulbing
over the mount
over the still mouth of the rose
rooting in the dark flesh
of the brooding black earth...
Surely ...
It`s a good time for love
like any other.
Critique This Poem -- Vote for this poem
Anytime is a good time to love
Comments
Email
(Optional)
BECOME A POETRY SPONSOR
- Remove Ads -
- Vote for this poem -
V
Email Poem
Sign Guestbook Read Guestbook
Provide Feedback | Vote | Guestbook | Email this Poem
Copyright © Neil Mcdonald | Year Posted 2011
|
Details |
Neil Mcdonald Poem
Like an oyster
Left now only
with a belt of pearls
I peel and palm each lustering orb
whilst whispering your names
reverently,
till the call of dawn
and this….
after invading your , sometimes,
sacred spaces ,
oh !
so brusquely
but then again…..
you ,
naturally,
like an oyster,
haloed and held
my rough intrusion
deep inside your quivering fibres and folds…..
churning and turning
the irritation into a tear-like pearl,
or was it rather,
after the ache ,
a pearl-like tear?
And now…….
with the night
gelling around me a bounteous black pearl
I think of you
and your loose-limbed movements,
dearly,
and it eases like love,
loneliness away .
Truly……
you must be infused
by the same enveloping force ,
that now
majestically orients
this silver orb,
this pocked pearl…..
in my zenith .
Copyright © Neil Mcdonald | Year Posted 2011
|
Details |
Neil Mcdonald Poem
We are two…..
your hands
two nervous birds
nesting in mine
my chest
hollowing itself
for your breasts
love-birding
close to the cage of my heart
your mouth
chick-beak
hungrily
to swallow the worm
of my tongue
our hips
birds of paradise tails
dipping
urgently
to rim
our probing head
into our enchanting nest…
we are two
we are one !
Copyright © Neil Mcdonald | Year Posted 2011
|
Details |
Neil Mcdonald Poem
Jade
She sits moon-stil
in the low tide of the afternoon
ebbing the annoying scum after a robust ingress...
A breeze from the bay, goose-bumped her breast
and her eyes stabbed at jaded notes
on ruffled sheets…..
Copyright © Neil Mcdonald | Year Posted 2011
|
Details |
Neil Mcdonald Poem
Harrowing the heart
“Will you be my Valentine” she stuttered,
lips melting in a heart-shaped blush.
“Yes sure” he lushed , clasping her to his clement chest
And sure…
the red god, collapsing in the west
spotted him, arrowing
in frenzied abandon
the furry labiated heart,
wedged tightly between another’s heaving hips .
Homing the heart
A spotted butterfly
flutters breezily towards its nest of whirring wings .
A coral train
snakes electrified towards its station of expectant workers.
And I….
sit here harping on a hapless heart without a home
Copyright © Neil Mcdonald | Year Posted 2011
|
Details |
Neil Mcdonald Poem
Harrowing the heart
“Will you be my Valentine” she stuttered,
lips melting in a heart-shaped blush.
“Yes sure” he lushed , clasping her to his clement chest
And sure…
the red god, collapsing in the west
spotted him, arrowing
in frenzied abandon
the furry labiated heart,
wedged tightly between another’s heaving hips .
Homing the heart
A spotted butterfly
flutters breezily towards its nest of whirring wings .
A coral train
snakes electrified towards its station of expectant workers.
And I….
sit here harping on a hapless heart without a home
Copyright © Neil Mcdonald | Year Posted 2011
|