No children (A Poem for June 16 By Don Matera)

There are no children
Hippos, guns still stalk
The silent streets;
Blood, pain
Nurture an uncaring anger

No children in SOWETO, Langa, Mannenberg,
Not a child left in Sharpville
Dead
Jailed
Crippled
Blinded
Tortured, yes
The children have all become adults

And so, let no-one lament
Those unlived, lost summers
Nor weep for the shadows
That once were children
Laughing in the sand

Let us not walk too gently
When we pass their graves
Our footsteps must stir their sleep
The dead must learn to talk
The living learn to die

Jesus hymns fill the townships:
‘Fast falls the eventide’
And queues of morning mothers
Search for slain children
‘When other helpers fail…”
But death can lift a man
It can reshape a trembling people
And replenish it with purpose,
Give it new life

LET NO BLACK MAN WEEP
LET NO WHITE MAN WEEP
THERE IS PURPOSE IN DEATH

Marching dead (In response to Singing fools by Don Mattera)

Crimes committed disguised as political battles
An overuse of racism in the realm of freedom
What Uhuru? A countless voting cows waiting in line
For a command to shoot whatever that breaths and breeds
Non conformism


They want us to kneel before their slander
They want us to surrender to their Mob justice
They preach reconciliation while they teach racial hatred
Young man, ticking bombs waiting for orders in frustration

Their tongues so sweet, such that they have made us confuse
The sweetness of Uhuru, with the bitterness of being sell-outs
They cannot command us as they are waiting for their orders
From Washington, least they are brutally removed from posts of glorious messiahs

Our minds are continuously spring cleaned with myths that even
Greek mythologist would not have imagined
Have you seen how weary their eyes were in the middle of a storm in a tear cup?
They had pointed their spears ready to vomit
Their Venom is like the carrion vultures’.

I hide behind my computer
Knowing that there is a single soul that will heed my call
To sing in unison against Economic Slaves of my land
Double extra-large is the size of their average MPs
As they are scornfully fed poisonous ideals

Singing Fools (Don Mattera)

The mockery of fondest love
And exhibitions of peace
Behind private dinner halls
Must crushed for the lie the perpetuate at the altar of Uhuru

There can be no peace
Nor genuine love
While our minds are policed
Homes raided
Leaders jailed
And our sons and daughters murdered

O where are the minstrels now,
Those complaint clowns
Who jest while scarvengers tear at our eyes
To trace the soul of our rebellion

Where am I
That I may shout defiance
Emerging from the hidden furnace of my spirit
Calling an aggrieved people towards rebirth
And insurrection
Against these nocturnal beasts
Who guard our dreams
And command our poems
To kneel before their guns.

Hell

To a sinner it is pure repayment of the deeds
It is what heaven is to a saint
The ultimate price one pays for having conspired
To have his people enslaved
Captured
Tortured
And often starved to death

Hellish flames the only language Seth understands
An illusion that Crusaders keep the world under its spell
Once we overcome that there is no one to hold us back anymore
As we stand ready to march towards a free future
Free from fear
And free from consuming their deceit.

Sobukwe (by Don matera)

On his death

It was our suffering
and our tears
that nourished and kept him alive
their law that killed him

Let no dirges be sung
no shrines be raised
to burden his memory
sages such as he
need no tombstones
to speak their fame

Lay him down on a high mountain
that he may look
on the land he loved
the nation for which he died

Men feared the fire of his soul

Ikrexe

Akukho nto ilikrexe
Athi amadoda ehamba enkomponi
Kukhale izitixo krixi
Athi obephangele afike lingaphambili
Athi ebeyokukrexeza afike selikhona

Aloneli linetliziyo ende
Alithandwa ngamanye amadoda linezothe
Litya amanye amadoda izithende

Yinto ongasoze uyazi nokuba ichanwe phi
Kuba bonke abafazi bamadoda asenkomponi ngabayo

Bekumele sithini kuba inja nenja ifela ebunjeni bayo.
Kambe ke irhuqwa ngumniniyo
Sitsho siphumle elalini, atyebe amadoda

Kuba kaloku umshologu umnkile
Ombelwe owona umngxuma mkhulu,
onzulu khona ukuza asokole nangovuko lwabafileyo

If the river could talk

If the river could talk,
It would recount of the countless stories of young boys
Swimming in harmony with its snakes, frogs, crabs and dogs.
Oh if the river could talk,
It would recount of the stories of young initiates
Whom wash their bad luck,
While just below them the Christians are baptising the newly converted.

What about the young traditional healer who came to appease his ancestors on the river banks.
The river could talk the secrets of the homage,
and the wishes he makes when he talks with his ancestors.
Only if the river could talk

I would run away to the bushes with shame
The river would tell us of the young boys who first pray before they swim.
Yes I remember their prayer for luck.
That is the secret of the accident free dangerous swimming of children.
Yes they are skating on thin ice, trusting only Qamata

The river could tell us of that young traditional healer,
Whom prays for superpowers from his ancestors.
The river would narrate the prayer like the griot.
that is the secret that the river keeps while it drinks the brandy,
smokes the tobacco, the impepho and the isilawu to communicate with the departed.

Yes the river could definitely tell us of the stories of the young initiates
Whom wash each other’s backs while preparing for a journey back home
After a sleepless nights in their journey to manhood keeping the secrets of the bush.
The river hears their diaries when they tell each other’s ordeal
The river would be shy to tell us everything that these
Silly young men say they would do to young girls when they get back to the village.

Yes the river could reassure us that all our secrets bad or good are safe with her.
Like a gifted mother she would smile singing back all the joyful songs we shared with her
She would carry them to the sea to combine them with other
Nation’s stories in a bid to make us a citizen of the world, our world.
There my story goes through isidubi, icacadu, inciba to Indian Ocean
That’s the river for us, silent, resilient and as clear as its conscience.