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Dladla Angifi Poem
Angifi Dladla
BAYEDE
Bayede , Son of man, Bayede!
You who outsmart the invisible God of our ancestors,
You who perfect the creations of the One-Who-Cannot-Be-
Imagined.
Modernizer of flying dragons that drop eggs down on cities –
They whose eggs hatch bouncing chicks, enveloped in
clouds with no linings.
O Inventor of plague-like rain and diseases,
What a mutagen of nature you are!
Bayede, Son of man, Bayede!
With lashes and nails, Jesu surrendered to your cross,
With a red stroke, sons of heaven rot to die in your jails,
With omission and neglect, sages die muzzled and
forgotten.
Yes! You appraise absolute truth and belittle the God of our
ancestors.
Yes! You sentence God to eternity in your prisons.
What a demystifier of God you are!
Bayede, dredge of ocean and land marrow, Bayede!
You who imprison nature and charge for entrance,
You who farm waste to fertilize the sky and the soil and the
waters,
You who crack cells and sells us mutants for cyborgs.
Colonizer of oceans, You’ll soon reside under the ocean,
Colonizer of space, You’ll soon drill the Moon and Mars,
Build supermaxes and nuthouses up there.
Yes! as God-shrike, You’ll lynch angels and the sons of
heaven up there, yes!
But look, O youngest brother of Mu, just look:
We are on the brink of taking a Cosmic Route.
Look, O man who inherited breast milk from Atlantis,
O, no-no, don’t borrow Madam Lot’s eyes.
Look, and listen to your heart: The voice within
is the call of the Cosmic Brotherhood!
Copyright © Dladla Angifi | Year Posted 2020
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Dladla Angifi Poem
Angifi Dladla
LAST NIGHT
Last night I wasted no time;
I hovered over the mortals.
One was soft snores, the other
a Pharaoh in stiffness.
For weeks I had been preparing
for this up-flight! Up, up,
through the ceiling
I defied gravity.
Somewhere in another realm,
two creatures stood in my way –
demons, unlike anything in our orbit.
Each carried plate-like lips: huge round things
stretched out, and stuck to each other. Cumbersome
on those bodies, the size of Tasmanian devils.
Like frilled lizards the creatures stormed at me.
Lips burst open, displaying a furnace
with flaming teeth.
‘Devils, devils!’ I charged,
‘All my life, alone, I have been venturing out …’
Off they backed like hyenas.
I resumed my voyage.
Screeches, menace: those creatures again.
‘I am a Udibi, the courier-poet of God!’ I shouted.
Their tails melted away between the legs.
Their lips, like hairs in the grave, lingered.
Peacefully, I continued my voyage ...
Copyright © Dladla Angifi | Year Posted 2020
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Dladla Angifi Poem
Angifi Dladla
There is Someone,
or a presence,
I am not sure;
but I feel it
driving me – a voiceless
passenger, in cycles.
Sure of my way,
I sometimes feel
like changing track
as if there’s a radar within.
I dodge wounds, tears;
I bump into friends, stairs.
Deaf to the feeling,
I dive, dive deep into a den
of fangs and claws. Calm, I escape.
Then I tremble, I sweat.
Neither my wits nor my muscles
could shame such death.
As youths we always plunged
into a canyon – home of a two-headed
monster. We defied parents
and passers-by; but today
I would never, ever try
even if promised to win a lottery!
The other season I was deep
in the heart of flames
where fury is pumped.
I burned man, I burst into flames
with no help even from the God
of Shadrach, Meshach and Abednego.
Today, those flames are within,
lighting the path for people
between life-and-death,
between snipers and strikes.
So, Someone, or, this presence,
is older, wiser than reason.
It has paws
obeying cat’s laws ?
soft as placebo,
light as pumice,
hard as claws
to tend, condition,
goad, and launch!
Copyright © Dladla Angifi | Year Posted 2020
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Dladla Angifi Poem
Bodies at the morgue
seem to be waiting
for partners …
Waiting, waiting still
like nothing.
Bodies at the morgue
seem to be so
for good …
So poor and dull and so
low.
Bodies today;
nobodies tomorrow.
Copyright © Dladla Angifi | Year Posted 2020
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Dladla Angifi Poem
OUR BODIES
Our bodies
are practically entrances
and exits
for the open-
ended drama of gore.
Even in the grave,
worms, white
as if practically all fat,
loot us dry.
Copyright © Dladla Angifi | Year Posted 2020
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