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.

Black cottons

Let me tell a story of my people.
Faithful soldiers who vowed to serve their leader’s
Even if it meant to their own demise.
I am not saying anything about Shaka’s regiments,
Neither am I saying something about Xhosa warriors who fought
I the frontier war, but had nothing to produce as trophy out of it.

Their assuppers were busy showing fake heads to the world.
In their concocted story they said it was our king’s head.
Tshawe speak to your people and let them know the truth.
We were fighting a just war to defend our land against the invaders.

No, I forgot.

There is nothing that you can tell your people Tshiwo.
My people were fighting your own war,
and it so happened that it was the concocted war.
I am talking about Umendi which forced our soldiers to a barren war.
In that Barren Indian ocean our forefathers died.

What did they die for? Tell us.
Died for the piece of promised land in Constantia.
With your constatina you forget that we were there and we saw you betray us.
Sold us to fight the white men’s WORLD WAR two.
Yet you still believe we can warship you for your wisdom.

What wisdom there is in a tyrant?
To me you are just like them, A master without slaves.


I am so sorry that even my story mentions nothing of the unrewarded heroes.
Of the land of Kuntu who fought in such bad conditions.
Yet it was Amerika who was praised for her contribution to the war.
I say, We were like the man who tried to build a house in the wilderness.
Only for him to be cheated by wild animals who asked for help while they knew that next day the man will be out in the cold.

Let us celebrate our soldiers who fought a White man’s war.
We cannot only celebrate the vessel they boarded "Umendi" while we know
Not a single soldier who died there.

TROUBLED DREAMS

My eyes wide open I sleep.
This happens in most times and I weep.

Maybe I was born in the wrong time in this troubled place.
Enough blame I directed to my forefathers, for displacement.
Beheading another human soul maybe an ill we inherited from slave masters.
How would you cure an ill passed from generation to generation, in the web of veins.
Veins that represent a tedious world of spiders.

For their much hated carnivorous characteristics: has become the order of the day.
Yes I agree that it might be your child who beheaded someone’s child.
Let me also agree to swallow a sour pill that this unknown murdered
child must have been yours , your cousin, relative brother or
who knows the son who came through your womb.

Ancestor, which world you wanted your children to inherit if you turned into being a migrant labor?
My father, what it would be if you never conceived me if I am going to live like this?
Or the question should be why should you give birth if the death is without peace?
As we all squabble for the piece of Land, South Africa.
A Piece that my fore fathers sacrificed for.

Of the land that their grand children never inherited.
Instead they were trained to brutalize one another, in the jungle of Hunger.
Let the solution come from the victims not the victimizers who suffer and make us suffer.
I will only visit the cousin of death when I hear peace.
Yes I have given up the hope of getting a piece.
But my own children must atleast get the piece of my mind.

I sigh.

The arrival of the King.

I witnessed the arrival of the king.
Subjects were busy dueling with sticks, but I was not participating.
A young man in his twenties approached the king.
The regiment came to him and beat him.
Like a disciple he does not fight but runs like a horse.

They chase him like aroused male horses when they want to mate.
Suddenly he stops and fights them like a true warrior.
Three of them could not defeat him, until there comes a man who just pins him down.
Holding him another stabs and kills him with a sharp stick to the heart.
He blares like a sheep, before its death.

Finish: they live him to bleed to his death,
I and my colleagues stand astonished.
Later we decide to run, but there is chaos on our way
We meet rebels who think we are from the kingdom,
Yet we could not go back as they are chasing us.

This chaos troubles me until I wake up.
Thanks I was dreaming.

This is my poem to a criminal (Br)other

He was arrested last month, and escaped yesterday but
He went from hole to hole like a beetle last night
Pushing cattle dung was his concern
Policeman like knights were searching for him
Wow !!! there was even a price on his head

Policemen were like young boys who rudely interrupted him.
Kicked our door, first ejected their guns and I wailed to him.
As they abruptly took him to their Van,
and we thought his festive season was to be spent in prison.
His hands were cuffed like a criminal that he is.

Like Makhanda the son of Nxele bullets could not shoot him.
He says he is using intelezi but I say my ancestors are protecting him
For a reason, that he will one day tell the story.
He was re-arrested yesterday.


Maybe he will leave to tell the story of a crime ridden country.
Which is criminalising the impoverished youth.
Even Civil servants help themselves on tax payers money.
The Justice system is epitomising the crime.