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.

Who are we not to die? (Tribute to Hayikanti Mandyoli)

Even though our conversations were occupied by death
Every sentence you would remind me of what it should be
When you die. As the end neared you gallantly faced it like a beast.
Unfazed by the fear of uncertainty you were calm until your last hour.

All the knowledge shared, and all the hearts poured.
All the years, months, to the seconds spent counted for nothing.
Hurt so much that your heart stopped and fighting at last.
I could not stand your mortal body lying in death bed as
I remembered your immortal teachings.

They teach us that every sin faces an equal punishment.
Not too little and yet not too severe, yet you were subjected to such pain.
What matters if the best men cannot die a better death?
What will make me feel better if your image of your mutilated body,
Lingers on my head every time I go to bed.


I have never seen you lifting an hand to a child.
Yet you promised to break their backs when they transgressed
You have taken all the crying children into your chest
And sung them a lullaby until they were also deep into their sleep

When I am asleep it’s better because I know you are smiling at my unconscious youth. I wish I had known you were departing so that I should have sent my greeting to Baba, Qamata, and all the others I did not bid farewell to.
Should you have taken me with you I would be glad too.

Like a soldiers I say you are happy you are there.
And I cannot wait to join you in my sleep.
I am not sad that you left, but I am just mad that you left me.
How selfish can naïve person be?
Can you imagine when this race is won and we are all there?
We would all be dancing with our kings in the hot sunny day.

Some of us would be blowing the legendary horns
Only a mad men would be a sane person around us to make sense of death

A cat and mice affair

Those that know have seen it afar.
When our people were trying to defend democracy
Thought they had one option. Changing defense into offence, yet
They were wrong; the point is to give the cat enough rope to strap itself.

One crawling insect “The scorpion” was sent home,
Simple because it had stung and humiliated the untouchable
The nice mice ended up being given the onus.
Some were puzzled and they doubted the ability of the mice,
To catch the Cat and finally restore justice

We had seen that something was wrong,
Little did we know that everything was wrong.
There is no way that the mice could catch the cat.
The cat in its catwalk leaped its way to the house of the elephant.
The rattling song was please giving me my rat.


The elephant was on its cleaning spree and had unfortunately
stamped and crashed the cat.
Finally the great one matched his equivalent and
We the wise were not shocked. And we honestly knew that
You cannot send a cat to arrest the elephant unless,
You want to defeat social equality.

Together we can do more

Yes, together we can do more rapes, corruption, and political intolerance.
Even worse together we can do more of making people our canon fodders.
Worse still together we can do more undermining of the constitutional sovereignty.

But together we have done more Harm to the country, what more can we do?
We have expelled the most respected men in the land and we rendered them jobless.
The same that were not good enough for us are now serving in world bodies.
Together we have been blinded by loyalty in pursuit of the unjust cause.
We have gone as far as support a person that embodies
infidelity, plagued by ignorance and illiteracy but to top it all disrespect of our values.

Together we can hoist our flags,
chant the slogans and even swear to kill for our president.
How that profits our land remains a mystery.
Yet we have the courage to say ‘it will not take a qualified accountant to figure that out’.

Together we cannot do this to ourselves,
this shouting with watered beaks.
What comes out of our beaks is too foul such that it will kill the child.
Power corrupts us but control even makes us immune to criticisms.
We cannot destroy the reason that Biko’s, Tambo’s and Sobukwe’s died.


No more together we can do nothing except, self destruction.
While we, the blind will be leading the blind into political oblivion.