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tlhago Apr 2015
I am an Afrikan

Not only because I was born in Afrika
But because Afrika was born in me

My name speaks of the beauty of the Afrikan landscape, animals and their interactions
I am of the Afrikan skin, soil, sky, valleys, rivers and mountains

My ancestors were born in Afrika My mother, my father, my grandmother, my grandfather, my great grandmother, my great grandfather and their forefathers were all born in Afrika
They died in Afrika
I was born in Afrika
I will die in Afrika

My ancestors knew no other land but Afrika
I know no other home but Afrika

I am a true Afrikan
Ziphozihle Kati Jun 2014
TO AFRIKA, THE POWERFUL GIANT WHO IS BOUND, TEARS AT HER OWN FLESH AND CAN NOT SEE HER OWN BEAUTY

How long shall we grind our teeth?
As old man's bones crack to the beat
Of their picks digging white man gold in black man land
Afrika mama, you soul is sold

Vuka Afrika Mama
Ikati lilele eziko
As vultures tap dance on your corrugated iron roof
Hyenas point and cackle baring sharpened tooth

All the while you slumbered
They shackled you and tore your treasure asunder
Now is the time to break free
Clear those scales from your eyes so you can see

How long shall we cry these crocodile tears?
As the swollen belly babies, eyes filled with fear
Watch the queen who bore them, cowered in the corner, face to the ground
Battered by the head of the household, asserting his authority
No mercy to be found

Zijonge Afrika mama
Ubone ubuhle bakho
They lied and said your ebony skin wasn't beautiful
At all cost remain dutiful
Head bowed, queen uncrowned

All the while  you doubt yourself
There are those who eye and pillage your riches
May our united voice bring you to your senses
Lest you find yourself stripped naked, while balancing on fences
Expressing my frustration at the current level of dysfunction within Afrika as a whole. There is an accompanying video that is still a work in progress. http://youtu.be/LibStfY-TPc
Nikita Tshawe Sep 2019
Sons of the soil.
Daughters of the soil.
Wake up and rejoice, for its the day of your heritage.
Celebrate your culture, for it is your privilege.

You are Africa, Africa is you.
A nation so diverse and true.
A real rainbow nation.
Deeply rooted in our tradition.

Nna ke mo Tswana, ebile ke motlotlo ka bo Tswana bame.
Nna ke mo Pedi, ebile ka ikgantsha ka go nna mo Pedi.
Mna ndi ngum Xhosa, ubona nje, ndiyazi dla ngo buXhosa bam.
Mina ngi ngum Zulu qobo, futhi ngiyazi qhenya.

On this day, remember who you are.
On this day, commemorate who you are.
Take pride in your true identity.
Let there be peace and serenity.
In South Africa our land.
Together may we all stand.

Le ga ole moTswana wa Afrika.
Noba ungu m'Xhosa wase Afrika.
Le ha ole mo Sotho wa Afrika Borwa.
Are rataneng. Masi thandaneni.

On this day, speak your mother tounge.
On this day, sing your clan song.
A moTswana eme a kgibe.
UmXhosa maka phakame axhentse.
UmZulu maka sukume agide.
A moPedi a emelle bine.

Sons of the soil.
Daughters of the soil.
Wake up and rejoice, for its the day of your heritage.
Celebrate your culture, for it is your privilege.
Mateuš Conrad Feb 2020
why did i ever go out on a friday night?
drinks with "friends" and hitting the essex
club "scene" -
well - no much of a scene -
there was never the music you'd want to listen
to: come friday or saturday -
even mid-week when all the rock kids
were "hanging out" -
what would be chances of being your own d.j. -
catching something really new...
POIZON - church is poizon -
cool mom - something between a crossbreed
of cage the elephants and nirvana on blew -
3rd view - moi -
but i used to: and i remember that gehenna of
a sobering walk - alone after a night out -
like some furious son of sam -
when youth still had the adrenaline with it
and a sense of anger ******* around with
disillusionment -

those were the friday nights: bon jovi highlights
and long hair and milking a somewhat androgynous
look - sometimes the mascara would come out...
those were the days of having milk skin
and a proper shave -
the long hair and the waistcoast and cravat: semi-,

the lonesome story before i met my beard:
fwyday mordaithceirch -
i actually have a name for it...
i forgot what's already the designated
whittle pecker mr. pritchard of the down down:
below...

oh, oh so what...
rough friday nights in my youth -
on the clubbing "scene" -
and always that moral hangover when it came
to drinking with others -
ever since i started drinking by myself:
i forgot the mirror and that bucket
of warm water beside my bed to put my hand
in before going to sleep...
once or twice the company was worth the drink -
but most of the time you only kept
such company: because you were drinking -
drinking was never an afterthought -

now... i like drinking alone -
at least i can keep fact-checking the company
and the odd vocab peacock taking to the catwalk
of a ruminating free-fall tongue waggle
and rummage - the needle in the haystack
adventure - or... the ******* bucket
of deshelled oysters...

there have been some awful friday nights -
but: seeing how i started to give my beard
a welsh name borrowed from a willem dafoe
novel - and how it simply became pointless
to wake the dead with the angry tantrums
of youth: and how i seem to have
forgotten where my 20s "went" -
somehow rooted in: da-sein and how
i "wasted" 2 years on one book by kant -
2 years on one book by heidegger -
and: how i didn't have the time to "catch-up"
on the greek classics -

oh these island dwelling people -
i try to imagine them not being a seafaring:
and their messiah / superiority complex -
with their breakfast that could hardly
be digested come the hour of noon -
or no messiah / superiority complex -
the traffic: indeed - works like clockword...
from left to right...
sidenote: what of fahrenheit and
the feet and inches - stones and pounds?
ounces?
the metric of: baseline 0 here,
baseline 00 over there...

no... Michele Campanella piano solo take
on wagner's das rheingelt: entry of the gods into
valhalla - it's hardly anemic -
it's... the last leaf of autumn falling -
because the crescendo has already happened...
a befitting closure...

the superior island folk and their...
hyphens and germanic loan words -
how almost all names in chemistry are still
in their germanic: intact form of: no hyphen:
broken leg or broken arm...

woodwinds... perhaps... the violins providing
the humming of birds:
chirp chirp: no chirping -
and of course the horn - but the horns never
as prominent as those drank from...

something has happened today -
but i am... left without having any english
sensibility / egalitarianism -
somehow i always equate egalitarianism with
the english - the islanders -
a firework went off in the background -
mr. sloth awoke mrs. slouch after 3 years
for a firecracker celebration...

because who would want to be ruled
over by unelected: chocolatiers...
esp. after their trial run in the Congo -
but i have certainly had worse friday nights...

it can't exactly get much worse than...
say... listening to the siegfried idyll...
multitasking: drinking a cider, smoking a cigarette,
balancing act of folded leg sat on
perched on a windowsill solving a no. 11,289
sudoku from the 27th jan. 2020...
otherwise prior to:
imagine my disbelief at the pleasure -

with numbers to somehow escape thinking in words:
no grand arithmetic linear gymnastics -
of the end result -
certainly no logical statements -
just a whirlwind of numbers complimenting
these few words...
and what a fine friday night it has become:

the pizza was made - god save me from the perfume
of yeast... or checking on the rising dough
from time to time -
the leftover yeast gave me the opportunity
to bake an imitation sourdough crust pretty-as-a-picture
loaf that: would make any mushroom blush
and shy away from unfolding into an umbrella pose...
or a Y... curling outward-inward into an upsilon Υ...

because how could i forget the pleasure of
sifting through numbers?
by the time i attempted puzzle no. 11,290
i had to write a "map"

           a             b             c
      x   x   x   x   x   x   x   x   x  
1)   x   x   x   x   x   x   x   x   x
      x   x   x   x   x   x   x   x   x
      x   x   x   x   x   x   x   x   x
2)   x   x   x   x   x   x   x   x   x
      x   x   x   x   x   x   x   x   x
      x   x   x   x   x   x   x   x   x
3)   x   x   x   x   x   x   x   x   x
      x   x   x   x   x   x   x   x   x

come to think of it... where's a subscript?
if i'm going to use 1, 2, 3...
to tier the allocation of squares...
tennis and sudoku...
tennis: a game of 7 rectangles -
and how many judges and ball boys / girls?
sudoku - a puzzle of 10 squares - perhaps...
if i'll use tiers 1, 2, 3: a1, b2, c3...
what if... sudoku invoked letters rather than
numbers?

much later... oh believe me...
this is the antithesis of knausgård
writing about using googlemaps...
        
           a             b             c
      x   x   x   x   x   x   x   x   x  
1)   x   x   x   3   x   x   6   x   4
      x   x   x   2   x   4   x   8   9
      x   1   9   x   4   x   x   6   2
2)   x   x   x   7   x   x   x   5   x
      x   x   2   x   x   8   x   4   x
      x   2   x   x   x   x   x   x   x
3)   x   x   6   1   9   5   x   x   3
      x   3   8   4   x   x   x   7   x

it's still a schematic - the narrative is yet
to begin... otherwise...
there's nothing smart about this...
i have tired eyes sometimes:
i succumb and have to allow myself
to no acid-bath these eyes in words...

esp. since i speak so rarely -
imagine... in england and i spear
the bare minimum of english -
i can: i have to: i will - when being prompted -
but i can't remember the last time
i had an honest: informal exchange
of letters... lapped up by the glutton
tongue... i looked and looked
and with my silence i can attest:
there's a speech-impediment -
a stutter that's not born from nervousness...
but... an allusion to a "stoic" through
my lack of conversation...

at least on paper i can exfoliate -
enough cider and enoug whiskey and i'm all
sparrow McDermott!
ugh... the devolved scots and the likewise
welsh... devolved nations...
only this aspect of Brexit is... well...
imagine the "evolved" status of post-Yugoslavia...
Kosovo...
this is the only aspect of an otherwise:
fair enough that's... well...
if you lived for 3 years among the scots...
you'd get to appreciate them...
this is the only aspect of this whole affair
i will ever appreciate...
i would pour blood and **** into
the Welsh continuing their...
preservation of the iaith...
forever and the more - i would love to see
scotland start to dig trenches and
forget trainspotting gaelic -
parading like ponces and humpty dumpteys
with "harkccents"... glasgewian bull-runnings...
cousins aye and wee -

a thing of beauty: a thing of union...
but this... they were bullied in brussels...
they came back and started to bully the scots...
if you have lived -
the betas of cardiff - but they tongue: remains!
look far back and wales would encompass
cornwall -
ignorant i of a 26 year "servitude" on these isles...
quiz me on outside of London:
no point...
perhaps i too would wish for the lost
theta in Dublin - towing: to t'ink...
as any sanskrit H-surd does matter...

           a             b             c
      x   x   x   x   x   x   x   x   x  
1)   x   x   x   3   x   x   6   x   4
      x   x   x   2   x   4   x   8   9
      x   1   9   x   4   x   x   6   2
2)   x   x   x   7   x   x   x   5   x
      x   x   2   x   x   8   x   4   x
      x   2   x   x   x   x   x   x   x
3)   x   x   6   1   9   5   x   x   3
      x   3   8   4   x   x   x   7   x

but if i will replace... the side tiers of numbers...
the numbers in the puzzle will have to become
letters - greek... probably iota, epsilon and upper-case
gamma...

the bullied have returned from the palance
of the chocalatiers and: back to their old ways
of bullying the rest of these island folk...
because: it's infantile for me imagine
a resurrection of the crown (poland)
and the grand duchy of lithuania -
the commonwealth -
but somehow the united kingdom is not
fated to become the next yugoslavia -

i can confirm - up in edinburgh i was
confirmed by having the hat of Knox having
scalped me -
never is always metaphor: vaguely -
as in literally - in these quasi-paragraphs...
so it's not... infantile to even "think" that
the british empire can be revived?
zee window-licker spezials of
cross-breed h'americana postcards sent?
i nibble to attempt a joke...

oh i can bulldozer this whole narrative...
turn into a berserker -
i've saved enough money to deal
with the label loser...
all it will take is me having drunk enough -
sightseeing the slums of london's east end
and then hitting the brothel:
like an iron-head... to the pillow
and the ***** of a *******...

because i have had worse friday nights...
terrible company...
if i were not a michel de montaigne or a knausgård:
me me me, me me, me me me me,
write enough of that and:
to meme to grafitti... or to...
why are there no diacritical markers in
the english language worthy of recognition?
why would i...
rhoi fy **** y Cymraeg enw?
give my beard a welsh name?
and why is that not a cedilla C but a ******* K?
why not... Çumraeg?

on foreign shores i have made it adamant that...
this sense of foreigness does not
peppermint my presence with hopes to:
add to - an integration -
just borrow what the local have made: left-overs...
and work with that...

(insert snigger) - the neu-vikings of
northumberland...

           a             b             c
      x   x   x   x   x   x   x   x   x  
1)   x   x   x   3   x   x   6   x   4
      x   x   x   2   x   4   x   8   9
      x   1   9   x   4   x   x   6   2
2)   x   x   x   7   x   x   x   5   x
      x   x   2   x   x   8   x   4   x
      x   2   x   x   x   x   x   x   x
3)   x   x   6   1   9   5   x   x   3
      x   3   8   4   x   x   x   7   x

this really does have a linear narrative...
here goes...
3(c1), 9(c3), 1(c1), 2(c3), 2(c1), 2(a1), 9(a3), 8(c3),
4(c3), 8(c2), 8(a2), 5(b2), 7(c2), 3(b2), 3(b3), 8(b3),
7(c1), 5(c1), 7(b3), 5(c3), 1(c3), 6(c3), 1(c2), 3(c2),
9(c2), 9(b2), 6(b1), 6(b2), 6(b3), 2(b3), 2(b2), 1(b2),
1(b1), 9(b1), 9(a1), 8(b1), 8(a1), 5(b1), 7(b1), 7(a1)...

and then a "gamble" in the narrative...
the (7a2 and the 5a2 - interchange)....
it's a pleasure - not a chore -
5  9  4
2  8  7
3  6  1
8  1  9
6  4  3
7  5  2 - this line... what if it was 5  7  2?
1  2  5
4  7  6
9  3  8
if i want to solve this puzzle - i will solve it
and not read a tabloid article /
whatever the hell has become of youtube...
my diamond jukebox...

otherwise the "narrative" continued from
7a2 and the 5a2 interchange:
7(3a), 4(a3), 4(a2), 6(a1), 4(a1), 5(a1), 5(a3),
1(a3), 1(a1), 3(a1), 3(a2), 6(a2)... end result?

           a             b             c
      5   9   4   6   8   1   2   3   7  
1)   2   8   7   3   5   9   6   1   4
      3   6   1   2   7   4   5   8   9
      8   1   9   5   4   3   7   6   2
2)   6   4   3   7   1   2   9   5   8
      7   5   2   9   6   8   3   4   1
      1   2   5   8   3   7   4   9   6
3)   4   7   6   1   9   5   8   2   3
      9   3   8   4   2   6   1   7   5

because i can imagine this not being:
the most difficult Finnish sudoku...
i can almost imagine this puzzle
to be in greek...
where: 1ι, 2ζ, 3ε, 4χ, 5Σ, 6δ, 7Γ, 8β, 9ρ...

in the background all i hear is:
corvus corax' la i mbealtaine...
the greek version of the japanese puzzle...

           a             b             c
      Σ   9   χ   6   8   ι   ζ   ε   7  
1)   ζ   8   7   ε   Σ   9   6   ι   χ
      ε   6   ι   ζ   7   χ   Σ   8   9
      8   ι   9   Σ   χ   ε   7   6   ζ
2)   6   χ   ε   7   ι   ζ   9   Σ   8
      7   Σ   ζ   9   6   8   ε   χ   ι
      ι   ζ   Σ   8   ε   7   χ   9   6
3)   χ   7   6   ι   9   Σ   8   ζ   ε
      9   ε   8   χ   ζ   6   ι   7   Σ

half-way... i just wanted to "selfie" what
will become of this... i no longer write: i paint...

            a             b             c
      Σ   9   χ   δ   8   ι   ζ   ε   Γ  
1)   ζ   8   Γ   ε   Σ   9   δ   ι   χ
      ε   δ   ι   ζ   Γ   χ   Σ   8   9
      8   ι   9   Σ   χ   ε   Γ   δ   ζ
2)   δ   χ   ε   Γ   ι   ζ   9   Σ   8
      Γ   Σ   ζ   9   δ   8   ε   χ   ι
      ι   ζ   Σ   8   ε   Γ   χ   9   δ
3)   χ   Γ   δ   ι   9   Σ   8   ζ   ε
      9   ε   8   χ   ζ   δ   ι   Γ   Σ

going... going... gone...

            a             b             c
      Σ   ρ   χ   δ   β   ι   ζ   ε   Γ  
1)   ζ   β   Γ   ε   Σ   ρ   δ   ι   χ
      ε   δ   ι   ζ   Γ   χ   Σ   β   ρ
      β   ι   ρ   Σ   χ   ε   Γ   δ   ζ
2)   δ   χ   ε   Γ   ι   ζ   ρ   Σ   β
      Γ   Σ   ζ   ρ   δ   β   ε   χ   ι
      ι   ζ   Σ   β   ε   Γ   χ   ρ   δ
3)   χ   Γ   δ   ι   ρ   Σ   β   ζ   ε
      ρ   ε   β   χ   ζ   δ   ι   Γ   Σ

i don't mind a people being right...
but the overt-gloating...
without having to work around the sort
of paranoia associated with:
how the russians are not allowed to glutton
themselves on gloating -
because they are always made
to feel suspcious - the russians can't gloat
like most of the anglo- speaking world...
always suspect: russophobia evil genuises...
tip-toeing goliaths - less the blundering
fudge-packers of "global ****"...
and i kissed a boy and i liked it...
my genitals started shrinking
and my *** started to exfoliate with:
welcome all! welcome all hard and on!
and that tongue in my mouth always helps...
but imagine my surprise when
i started to navigate my hands
but the reply came:
timbuktu and mt. kilimanjaro will not be found
attached to this sort of torso...
wrong dog, wrong tree...

some things really do require numbers...
i once had a mathematics teacher in high school
bemoan the origin of modern numbers
and how we once: upon a time used these letters...
but did our arithmetic with visual aids
akin to the abacus... because...
you'd have to "read braille" when counting...
to differentiate the already: lettered numbers
and the letters being letters -
and all arithmetic functions
were "spoken of" but never depicted...
i.e. there was no VII + III = X...
there was no XV - XI = IV...
eh?! arithmetic was cat-intuitive...
not spoken of - done by either the visual
aid of fingers when haggling
in a market place -
or by the abacus aid in a bureucratic office!

i said this was the most perfect friday night...
what did i have to offer?
no clickbait title - some gems of wording
in between?
the patient reader - as ever - most rewarded -

but... oh my god... the sensation of
changing the bed sheets...
it's friday night and you're... changing your bed sheets...
and they are more crisp and clean
than any political event that the journalist leeches
are milking -
and you do it with a saving private ryan precision -
you will sleep in this bed: well into
11am of a today to come...
believe me: that you will...

- in that i am still walking among the germanic people -
if the germans will sing a: bretonisher marsch...
then the two peoples are alligned by
their sentiment for the crow as their godhead:
alles menschen totem...
what could possibly make me feel welcome?
french grammar is polish grammar...
matin de printemps - poranek wiosny -
spring morning in reverse in germanic...
how many more examples would i ever wish
to give?

there was a moment in my life where...
i realised my faults... i should have read
the Pickwick Papers... anything by C. Dickens to be sure...
instead came Stendhal, Voltaire, Balzac...
because if you said to me...
BBC radio 4... the archers...
and... thomas hardy: madding crowd?
you'd accuse me of being ignorant of:
London is a bustling cosmopolitan in-waiting
from the busy-body industrial proto-Beijing
it was of 100 years ago?    
the French had cosmopolitan intellectualism
100 years prior to the english...
100 years later and it's still not much...
is anyone about to cite me william hazlitt?!

the trouble with the english is that they hold dear
to that one old 19th century idea -
this waiting for: awaiting a revival of darwinism...
the "blatantly" obvious needs a resurgence!
because a michael faraday must most surely
be forgotten!
how many times will this already painful reality
need to be emphasised once more:
intellectually - via a darwinism?
no one stresses the copernican "upside-down"...
or what is copernican "west" up in space?
how does acknowledging the sphere
of the earth - ease you reading a flat map -
moving from point A to point B?

earlier this week - for once in my life i was
ashamed of what i wrote -
so i wrote for scribli per se: scribbles for
scribbles themselves -
the darwinian germanic folk who say:
alles von afrika...
how the hebrews debased themselves
in both aushwitz and breaking their bones
on the emoji hieroglyphs -
alles von afrika: ja... so sicher... so wahr!

ask any slavic person among the germanic
peoples...
where from? wir (ar) sind lesen und schreiben
"afrika": i.e. Indu...
if the african challenged the hebrews
with... "the best they had": egyptian emojis...
why would i not stress my birth
with pseudo cedilla Ş / इ... ☦ -
this indo-european is not... at home with
these african-germanoids...
pseudos and quasi -
these chocolate frenzied busy-buddies!

from the caucasian and further still from
that whittle sub-corinthian quote: continent...
somehow, "somehow" this part of this story
is read: south to north... always a grand
marker missing when the people went
east, squinted... learned skeleton existence,
atoms... and the frenzy of letters:
owls and ******* **** flinging beetles
back in the north eastern tip of
africa: in that egyptian haemorrhage of "idea"...

i assure myself... perhaps the form came from
africa... but sure as **** the tongue only arrived
in the lap of the Dalai Lama...
as did the "thinking" and the music
across prior to the Mongol's curiosity
over the tundra of Siberia...
something had to be placed on a loan...
and coming back to the cradle and the crux
had to happen like so...
not this current: ergo: so...
quickened and: what news from Damascus?!

first impressions count...
i made my bed... it's newly washed...
as crisp as falling onto a bed a prawn crackers...
without the crumbs' itch...
like listening to some german:
juggernaut... this will do... i can fall asleep
with this: grab hören zu der winderhall...
mehr flöte - weniger violinekratzen!
schlechtdeutsche? alle deutsche ist gut deutsche...
erwarten etwas isländisch zu sein
gesprochen insel von insel: auf diese inseln?!

to make a crisp bed of freshly washed sheets...
to sleep in them alone...
given the grammar is not that far removed...
are the french even remotely translated
as a germanic "sort of" people?
"they" or "we" share the same grammar...
and there are celtic freedoms that would
never be allowed to exfoliate under
strict anglo-ßaß obligations...

oh sure! great people! steam engine: choo-choo!
newton et al...
shakespeare: when they taught us shakespeare
they should have taught us bernard shaw...
when they forced jane eyre down our throats
we should have been reading
the pickwick papers...
the music will remain german -
because as much as vaughan williams...
holst and händel were "were" english...
esp. latter with his umlaut that spread over
toward i-and-j...

why wouldn't you **** at the pillar of the empire:
a past most assured - dust, books and moths...
like hell will i come to correct my ways
to state the: pish-poor Elgar... this poo'em too...
himmel... sky...
leerenhimmel - empty sky -
nein sonne während der tag:
das englischnebel: bedeckthimmel...
nein mond während der nacht...
nur so...

i of the lesser men of this world duly bow
my presence before the altar of the higher men
of these isles...
and hope and pray that their wisdom
will not bestow upon them any major calamity...
with not irony or ridicule i wish upon
these peoples... the right sort of oars
to turn this rooted island
into the people's imagined langboot...

there are only one british people a people
who will pursue to gloat having been
conquered by the romans...
being raided by the vikings...
integrating the anglo-ßaß...
a second viking coming via the Normans...
the push-over remains of the celts...
that somehow translated itself into
the: empire...
ideal: to compensate...
the islamic fervor for the... resurrected
caliphate...
jokes about the dritte ***** and the vierte *****...
that's pretty much the precursor jokes
surrounding: ein zweite ***** -
auf welche die sonne nimmer setzt -
ever wonder how that translates with the increased
cases of insomnia?!

again: bad german is better than
no german.
She stands tall.
Shaken by the regime - all the way to a fall.
Still standing firm in her roots,
striving against the cabinet in suite.

She stands tall.
Her roots being hacked at and poisoned,
yet she does not fall.

She does not fall.
Insults hit her heart,
yet she does not begin to stall,
but her heart begins to fall.

She does not fall.
Now she stands taller
like an elegant self-conscious queen,
but with the heart of a mother that no one has ever seen.


Slowly breaking,
She falls.

The abuse has become too much.
Just to name a cause;
It was you with your helpful, root unearthing touch.

RIP Mama Afrika.
FROM MOZAMBIQUE TO SOUTH AFRICA AND THE STRUGGLE IN BETWEEN
from Mozambique to the belly of the queen mother Afrika,
we were born soldiers, strangled from the arms of our mothers,
strangers to our engraved fathers in their early graves,
starve and strive in the command of our commanders,climb
and fall hills of many mountains, with countless bodies i carried
in my arms, moved from one camp to another, with blood of my
comrades fled in the river, as crocodiles tumble and roles with
them, they scream and cried while we crossed the Crocodile River.
a refuge toe to giant Afrika our queen mother, this has become
our home too, regardless of the chaos we've rendered. i know no
memories but nightmare in the surface of Mozambique, they see the beauty of its minerals and crops, the tremendous sea and scattered
informal settlement for farming left by my people to south
Africa, but in true essence i see graves, grenades, and guns
buried in the bodies of my comrades from Mozambique to
south Africa and the struggle in between
history
KnowLove Feb 2016
Dearest Mother
I love you so much, so deep.
Why do your Children make you weep?
You adopted me, with a broken past
Filled with hateful ideals.
Thus,  saving my heart.
Although Im not your aesthetic child,
I love you more than those,
Who claim your side.
My bloodline, an embarrasment, they **** your body.
They steal from you, a detestable history.
Engraved on the future, a history past.
Of foreign Politics, your new prison Mom.
And why do your children embrace this lie?
Why are they standing idly by,
While you wither and die?
For fame?
For Fortune?
For Self..
For GREED...
This is NOT your teachings!
"UBUNTU" is...
You taught me to Love beyond the colour of skin.
And to love profoundly, my Rainbow Kin.
Your Spirit, dear Mother, I will defend till Death.
Help me return your babies
back to your breast.
Forgive my Ancestors, they have no clue what they did.
Their greed, their hate, their fear, killed your Kid.
Forgive your Children,
My brothers and sisters.
For their hearts are violent and full of blisters.
And Mom, I know this is not your way.
You show love and respect, the opposite of pain...
Though I may not be biologically yours,
You blessed me in your love,
Showed me that with you, there are no borders.
My Mother I love you. Im sorry for what they do.
Though Im not your birth child,
I know you love me too..
so WAKE UP my Sister
WAKE UP my brother.
Stand up with me.
Defend our Mother.
She is bruised and hurt,
Cant you hear her cries?
Because Her children are greedy,
And dont care if She dies.
Our "Leaders" **** Her out
For personal gain.
She is NOT for sale!
I wont play that game.
So Mom, I love you.
I cry because of what they do.
They claim your being,
They claim they own YOU!
But you cant be owned, or sold by any,
Because you are loved,
By oh so many..
Again I pledge my Love to you.
Im not alone, many of your Kids are good.
They embrace your teachings.
They keep your ways.
To live life in your Tradition,
And not in shame.
I love you too, my sister, my brother.
In Truth and Respect, another gift from our Mother.
As a White South African male, born, raised and nurtured in SA... I was disproportionately advantaged because of my skin colour. I detest the notion of Apardheid and ask forgiveness for my ignorance that was born out of undue privilege. Because of this, I have never voted, nor will I ever. Africa has taught me more about Truth and Love, and the only privilege I embrace now, is to experience the Spirit of Africa.. the beautiful natural way of Africa before the violation began.
Thank you to a fellow poet for her inspiration on this one.. I hold her in the highest regard, as a Princess of her Land, a motivation to educate the ignorant, but mostly as a beautiful expression of Africas Spirit, full of beauty, intelligence and creativity...
while humanity lay sleeping
a subtle sound came creeping
a tiny muffled murmur
of the drums  

it crept into our valley
a quiet distant sally
the reverberating tapping
of the drums

oh the drums drums drums
foretell the things to come
the tapping beat calls
hearts and minds to stir

awakened from dear sleep
we discern the growing creep
the mounting host of warriors
tramping on
      
the fifers next came peeling
the swooning mass was kneeling
the flash of brass and horns
enthralled us all

the salute of rifles thundered
leaving all of us to wonder
what this show of force
would mean for you and me

oh the drums drums drums
the flash and crack of guns
the might and mien of country
on display

yes we howl a raucous cheer
as we shout we raise a beer
the march of shock and awe
is on its way

the thundering timpani                                  
soul of a nation's symphony
united in common purpose
all in step

pressing on to foreign fields
with armies, tanks and shields
we offer sons and daughters
to the lords of war

sleek missiles flew and flashed
buildings crumble and crash
the righteous right of the stronger
proved again

but blood will wash the ground
wails of mourning will sound
dead soldiers and civilians
on all sides

percussive cannon blasts
bursts eardrums kills you fast
the awful smashing and the
bashing of the bombs

the popping flap of flags
assure a profiteers swag
much riches to be made
through the spoils of war

filthy lucre that is earned
the value of life is spurned
hoards of begotten treasure
condemns its lord

so spend it if you must
for your gold will turn to rust
and dust to dust your
soul shall return

oh the drums drums drums
calls our sisters and our sons
to step and march along
a deathly roll

constant war begets a madness
unhealed wounds endless sadness
friends and lovers sadly perish
families destroyed

oh the drums drums drums
once so stirring like a sun
the rattling snare of drumsticks
a hissing asp

oh the drums drums drums
we whistle through our gums
past the midnight graveyards
hallowed for our youth

so listen for the drums
the droning of the guns
stand firm for peace
and walk its blessed way

or you can yell yell yell
marching onward straight to hell
where death will greet you
with the devils kiss

he’ll sing you bitter taps
the music that entraps
and commends the young
to the wretched earth

or play Djembe for peace
witness all conflict cease
bongo bops for peace
may it always increase

yes the drums drums drums
the resounding joyful strums
a mirthful dance of peace
may it always increase

so play Djembe for peace
our song will never cease
our dance will be
a whirling prayer of grace

Music Selection:
Fela Kuti & Afrika 70, Zombie

jbm
3/9/12
Oakland
Geno Cattouse Sep 2014
Old as creation. THE CRADLE.
This is Africa.
Musky and dank.THE GRAVE.
This is Afrika.

Vast as eternity.THE ECHO.
Echo.
This is Africa.
Verdant and green.
All points between.
STARVATION.Rampant.
This is Africa.

Machete vicious.Zebra and Gazelle.Heaven walks into hell.
Afrika as well

FREE UNTAMED.
And T.I.A
This
Is
Afrika.
Die môre groet jou met ń nat soen
En ontplooi haar goue gloed
Oor jou fynbos en Olifants-oor
Die wind ween oor die rykdom
Wat jy deur jare van sweet en bloed, vir jouself terug geëis het
, maar streel deur jou grashalms
Met die harmonie van hoop wat deur jou are pols...
Pols, wanneer 4x4 en ossewa spoor oorkruis!

Hier timmer jy aan my
- lê die hoeksteen van ń graniet gebou

Ek sal strewe om jou te eer.

Suid-Afrika , ń ode aan jou.
johnny solstice Jun 2019
The world's a funny old place
There used to exist wondrous civilisations
in south amerika, north amerika,
afrika, australia and asia

Brown eyes in asia
Brown eyes in afrika
Brown eyes in the amerikas
brown eyes in australia
Brown eyes in asia.......

In europe, old Blue eyes
with holy laws got us tongue-tied
and gave us Blue-eyed apartied
You gnow this lyrik can wright
words come out free-flight
set the "truth" alight
enough of this pirate *****
robbers and looters take fright
I am the holy grail's "white knight"
a rhyming flea-bite
the verbal gun-fight
of a poet's loaded tongue
singing the praises of the unsung
crying the cry of the dumbed-down
dissin' the excommunicated klowns
this is the patriachal showdown
religious apartied must shut down
exorcise these cabbagetowns
time to make the vampires frown

Time to make your blue eyes brown
see through your brothers eyes
read through the lines of lies
recognise the world wide spies

"Apartied is dead?"..."Mandela is free!"
but not for all aboriginees
the nomads of the desert
and the people of the trees
and every kind of refugee
I don't see no Comanche presidency
in the land of the Brave.....
.....or the land of the Free
All I see is economic slavery
and god-fearing hypocricy
a full-on global tragedy
too much HE and not enough SHE
too much US and too much THEM
divide and conquer again and again
Sanity sold by CON-men
Truth dished out by AD-men

"so help me god" AMEN
"with god on our side" AMEN
"in god we trust" AMEN

who burnt the sisters at Salem?
how did it start?...and when...
...........will it end
this truth I defend
I come again and again
check my refrain
to remain LOVE MUST REIGN
feel this and you feel no pain
to remain LOVE MUST REIGN

They've played their game
the more things change
it's always the same
using pens to rob your brain
telling us that we're insane
well here's a lie from the outsane
your system stinks like your house-drains
your blue minds are chemically stained
your self-worth's imprisoned in fear-chains
no kind of killing is humane
all prejudice is ingrained
the vultures are driving the gravy-train
supremacists carry a blood-stain
blue-eyed apartied is soul-shame
the HIStory of victors is all that remains

In the last hour 2,000 people have died of starvation......
2,000 acres of rainforest have been destroyed.....
half a ton of toxic chemicals have been released into the atmosfear
50 plants and animals have become extinct

SO!..what do you think?
does it stink?
are we the weakest link?
are we standing on the brink?
of a precipice, sheer........
......with no bottom
all our gains are ill-gotten
this system is rotten
we've all but forgotten
.......how it was before!
the slamming of your doors
can't keep me out
conscious lyrik I'll spout
we must bail out
sort the wheat from the chaffe
sort the good from the bad

let me ask you.......who's SAD?
McFreudian....Babble-onian...
seasonally  adjusted BAD
Chemi-cooly...orange-juicey....SAD

INTEL-ectual-OTOMY
******­-monotony
Dot-com-fuckology
must catch a fire
dreaming spires......
.......and vampires
Ride the wire
we got to get higher
..............higher
higher than high

Try this for size
the slavemaster's disguise
is the mirror in our eyes
and it should come as no surprise
that life's greatest prize
is the life that you've got

yes life's greatest prize
is the life that you've got
ExtinctionRebellion OneLove aparthied
JAATC Oct 2020
Revival of a revolutionary spirit
What I represent?
The Motherland of wisdom
BLACK genesis
Check the pyramids
My heredity IS
God-man manifest in the physical,
And astral and mental
Been mastered every plane of existence
Whole civilizations who understood the Science of Living
Tens of thousands of years before any 'westernized thinking'
An enlightened people
Way before colonialism
How you gon bring democracy (now capitalism in disguise),
To Afrika where it was invented?
And dress ya pawns as 'appointed' leaders
Devil oppressors
Erased our culture, history, and identity
Spiritual genocide by 'Willie Lynching'
Karmically tied to these modern times
I gotz to watch my temper
Lost ONE,
Who found refuge in the Buddha to be most skillful
But what happened to my people?
I just wona know
My whole life,
I was ashamed of being BLACK and didn't know it
Guess it was sub-compartmental
But through practice with experience
Of accumulated virtue
I shed dem old ethers
And broke me down
Psychological brick by brick and rebuilt me
Na I'm ready for war
nana nilsson Apr 2017
Nu gør du det igen
Bagatelliserer mine problemer
Noget må du have misforstået -
jeg prøver altså ikke at konkurrere
om hvem der har det sværest
Jeg føler mig lille, meget erkendeligt
Og bare fordi andre måske føler sig mindre
bliver det ikke til noget ubetydeligt
Olivia Kent Dec 2013
Tonight the Robin flew.

Left the land of once was .

Now in eternal peace.

Walked into the light.

Flown legitimately.

Robin left the planet.

Set Mandela free!

And into the light he steps.

From non-religious English girl ..Goodnight sweet sleep and rest in eternal peace.

Slaap goed vader van Afrika-lande

(c) Livvi Kent!5/12/2013
R.I.P Nelson Mandela...I don't know why the caged bird sang but now he's free to fly x
"Nou wie is jy?"
"Ouma, my naam is Siyasanga,
Ek is jou dogter Lalie se seun"
"My Lalie, sy wat in Suid Afrika bly?"
"Ja ouma, ek het vir ouma kom keur"

I watch on as the spark of recognition lights up her eyes
Happiness flowers through the creases on her face like fresh rain through a Namib riverbed 
Her brow furrows as if trying to keep this revelation prisoner
The Sun continues its long journey across the sky
Her brow relaxes, and. . . . .

"Hello virtel my, my kind,
Wie is jy?"
"My naam is Siyasanga Ouma,
Ek is ouma se klien kind.
My ma se naam is Lalie"
"Lalie, sy is my dogter wat in Suid Afrika bly"
"Dis reg ouma, ek het vir ouma kom keur"

The spark returns
The fresh rain flows
The love warms my soul as we embrace
The Sun once more takes flight

Taking respite from the heat
I watch as she shuffles and shimmies and shuffles once more down the corridor
To the foot of the bare bed I've made my haven
Words like spun silk spill from her lips as she asks
"May I sit here my child?
"Ja my ouma, ouma hoef nie vra nie"
She shuffles and shimmies and sits down to read
What a beautiful life affair she has with words,
Even those from a magazine,
Whose pages danced that day at her touch
A letter whose ink for 2 decades laid dry
The name of the man she loved preserved in his evergreen book
Both retrieved from the vault that was her purse
Oh how she loved those words, and they loved her
She turns her head to look at me
With that spark in her eye
"Jy is my Lalie se seun"
I smile, my face awash with fresh rain
"Ja ouma, ek het vir ouma kom kuier"
Bra-Tee Jan 2015
Wanna know where she got the scars from? The answer is YOU...
See, just because she's good at keeping secrets doesn't mean everything that happened in the past doesn't exist.

And just like YOU, I'm also disappointed at Her for sleeping with the whole Nigerian soccer team. And that dress she had on lastnight, matches the colour of my bed sheets...
And the reason I keep calling Her a ***** is to remind YOU that Afrika is surrounded by a Beach.

But let me stop wasting my breath because the word "NO" doesn't seem to make You stop... And the only time I ever heard Her beg is when she was begging somebody to get ontop of Her body...
Take the blind man's advice: Don't believe in love at first sight
Sean Achilleos Aug 2020
Oh beloved country
Why do I cry for you
I have been told this is not my home
But how can this be
When I was born on your very soil
Country of division
The cry of the wild
Can we not sing one song
Sing in unison
Like a dry, barren and cracked piece of earth
We long for rain
Hungry for peace
And a reign without prejudice
Where all men are equal
And we **** no more
The ground has seeped up all the spilt blood
It has kept record of every innocent life lost
Until one day it will offer up the dead
And every sword shall be held accountable
Written by Sean Achilleos 07 August 2020
https://www.facebook.com/SeanAchilleosOfficial/
The big
Giant serpent
Is still chocking Africa
To a slow
But imminent death
It can not be denied
We are not progressing,
Giant snakes
Take life from us
Our politicians do nothing
But telling lies
Saying
"We are all good"
As if Africa is ever free,
They are being used
As shields
That distort the true events,
We can not be free
Unless we see
The binding snake,
Afrika wake up

Taetso Jojo.
tlhago Apr 2015
I'm the one with the golden horn
Speaking the truths of our forefathers buried under our feet
Having died digging gold for the white man

I believe I was born to teach
Teach the Afrikan child of their history
For to face your future
You must embrace your past

They labeled us the dark continent
After they had forced us to dig up the glistening black coal beneath our homes
Which covered our bare backs like the oil they were draining from under our homes
Our homes they took us away from and ran to the ground
To make way for their stone and steel castle

We still work like slaves we once were
To buy back our gold, silver, oil and souls

They buried the idea of us being nothing but slaves so deep in our subconscious
We have lost our conscience and fallen for their ways
We see a fellow child of the soil as a nuisance when they are begging for scrapes of food and warm clothes

They placed Afrika's offspring behind metal bars with the apes, hyenas, gazelles and watched from the distance with crocodile tears at the suffering "aborigines"

Listen to the song in the wind
Your ancestors are singing underneath the oceans they were thrown in
Your forefathers are singing underneath the soil beneath your step
Listen
Child.
.lets make everyday Africa Day
poopoo Aug 2019
Crude brown-plaster'd brick walls
Layed without proper solder or
Mold or mud or water
A pit of curdled old-heavy blood
And sinewous joint hinge-pins
Of hard goliath, giant's muscles
Heads seemingly shrunken
But blimped to a surley saturated to an
greater-than original size
Their skin peeled off long ago
Bones meaten'd down and scaled-up
The center of this gore-pit
their hellish home
Butcher paper and amish quilts
Thrown in to produce
A dense coagulate
Fine milk-colored, powdered substrate
Bone-meal and motor oil
Plasma and marrow
Worm-wood
Genteel feathers
From a bird that poisoned
The creek-water of a now-lost
But powerful mexican tribe
Jigger meal from a child's feet
And an old mans
In Afrika
The skin dead and leather'd
The insides rap't of those terrible
world's tiniest insects
Macro-scale germs, most toxic fleas
Coca-Cola boiled down
Into a solid black ichorous
Malleable glucose material

And the umbilical chords
Of Two hundred fifty
New borns
Steamed and broken down
To a mushy substance
With a feathered appearance

To the tactility of even the most calloused and rough

Digits
Whether human

or proto-, pseudo- or neo-
hyper- and pre-
Hensile

The seeds of a million poppies
Cowardly, feverishly tossed into this

Horrid ***
Milewed down into a fine
Addition to the general rot, of this
Yet another putrid addition
The ***** from the second stomach
Of a calcified pterodactylus
And a dragon's mouth below the drain
In the center of this certain,
Gross sess pool
Lies a carv-ed Dragon's skull
To catch this sacred druel
Made out of greenheart
Black ironwood
And for the teeth, obsidion and
Caspian tiger bone
Together spliced and mal-formulated
To create a most
Septic funnel
Cone
All if it drains and
Gurgles down

Into a forged
Glass-Vial
Made in ancient, archaic
Olden times
But for this very abjectly
Evil trial
And he throws the switch!
The gurgle wrought
By this very motion of the level,
The level thrown by most
white un-sunned
Wizard-Warlock hand
It travels down into the vial
Mixing through emerald-hoses
With arsenic
And tainted possum spit--
--infused with cud
From cows thatnot
Even Cherised, prideful
India would permit!
And so a mustard-seeded gas
Also thrown into the mix
Clashes, bonds with
Stupid fluids

Made from the umbilical plugs of anencephalic and

Profound Down-syndrome
Czecho-kidnapped
Stolen'd infants

As their bones rake and smash through
The grinder that eats ANYthing
It goes down a rifled fluted core
Of Balsa-wood
God permits!!
Slimy
Messy

Filthy
Nasty
Hole in the witches den
From which spells are NOW born
To take the world
In a sanguine
Magick-whirl wind!
Matt May 2015
Here comes Rommel
And his Afrika Corps

Capturing Brits
At half past four

By Mid April
He had driven the British back
His Africa Corps were on the attack

He prepared to besiege Tobruk
The Luftwaffe were called to drop bombs
My how the ground shook!

But his success did not last
Monty struck hard and fast!
Nikita Tshawe Apr 2021
Azania, malibuye izwe lwethu.
Mayibuye iAfrika, izwe lwethu

Africa, where have you gone?
Africa, what happened to you?

We breathe poverty.
27 years into liberty.
Yet, not much has changed.
The black man remains estranged.
No land, no wealth.
No access to health.
The black man is educated and unemployed.
His voice is meaningless and void.
The black man is a criminal.
Not a trustworthy individual.

Azania. Libuya nini izwe lwethu?
Ibuya nini iAfrika yethu?

Africa, where have you gone?
Africa, what happened to you?

Where is the black child's fortune?
When does he get to sing a happy tune?
When does he move out of the small shack?
When does he get his ancestors' land back?
No one will hire him, he doesn't own a car.
He lives too far.
He's below the par.
Where he's from, there's no tar.
His shoes pick up clouds of dust.
Victim to a system so unjust.

Azania. Libuya nini izwe lwethu?
Ibuya nini iAfrika yethu?

Africa, where have you gone?
Africa, what happened to you?

Our mothers know nothing but pain.
They wipe kitchens spotless, all in vain.
Our fathers toil in the gardens.
Prayers have become burdens.
Government officials care for nothing but their pockets.
While we cry tears filling buckets.
Is this the Africa we fought for?
Is this the freedom we fought for?
Africa is singing a burning weep.
Her sorrows run deep.

She is asking, "what about my children?"
"What will become of them?"
She can't bear to see it.
Unite Africa with her children.
She longs to see them prosper.
Africa loves her children.
They don't deserve to suffer any longer.
From the hands of the ruthless ruler.
They are her pride and joy.
She wants to see them enjoy,
Her rich soil.
Profit from her natural oil.
Her pure silver.
Her dazzling diamonds.
Her excellent copper.
Her soft gold.

Abantwana base Afrika mabaphile.
Inhlupheko yase Afrika mayiphele.

iAfrika mayibuye.
Mayibuye iAfrika.
I really talked at large before
twenty six stolen years were actually stolen,
shots in my mind,
A hero’s wound gunned down
and I captured every scene
Brilliant! If you never ask me.
But who can write of give and take if
timepiece took what was given,
Must not all themes at last be puked up in lineage
Like a template of What is and what will never hold fairness
What should occur and what not to occupy our vacant heads
While we Recite recycled absent memories
Aren't we all clones of different races
Or a moving image of looped events ?

A "Book of  Good News" declared we should still hope
Till Ama-Afrika conquer what will never be;
Even if it does exist!
But who is there to argue such with a right mind,
and pretend not to see the absolute lie
given The complexion of politics is stolen but never be sold
And is our logic to outweigh
every becoming that will never be,
Are we Addicts of false orders ?

How could fantasy not imagine
while the engineering of fate still watch
Every Second with a third reference
For those new years Misfortune have never defined,
Only in True logic or on the fingertip of a hardworking
that I came to learn :
Getting ourselves out of our ways will get our means out of despair.
The Present Past and the Future is a present,
Surprise!
Time Mastered to interfere with our give and never-take
Is this A dialogue between fear and failure ?
Yenson Dec 2018
Chemical brothers on One too many mornings
think we are all made the same in Chemical beats
Talk of age like No Path to Follow
I tell them It Doesn't Matter

Send your scrubbed mamas here and Let Me In Mate
I'll sing a Song to the Siren with my My Mercury Mouth
Tell her it's Time for Livin so Get Up on It Like This
If You Kling to Me I'll Klong You like no tomorrow

I have no chemicals in my blood no **** Up Beats
We no crack like Morning Lemon on ****** Prescription Beats
It Doesn't Matter what place or time we're Lost in the K-Hole
Hey yo mamas Got Glint and hot just Surrender and Dream On

This Hot Chocolate will show yo mamas The Diamond Sky
with Power Move and Galaxy Bounce from Base 6 to Cloud 9
It Began in Afrika were the best come from to Galvanize
Hold Tight London We Are the Night ready for A Modern Midnight Conversation

So Chemical brothers Dissolve and Wo Ha tell papa to Leave Home
Yo Mamas gonna be Under the Influence and Out of Control
Age is young with a big hard bamboo an Hot Acid Rhythm 1
**** Nights Close Your Eyes All Rights Reserved The Rock Drill
Chillies, Inner Calm, Positivism, Natural strength and a ******* good heart.
Hahaha....they cant get it up, they think every body is like them....hahahaha
Gledam neku seriju na Netflixu "Black Earth Rising" o genocidu u Ruandi.

Pitam se sta tebe vise privlaci afrika ili japan?
Mene definitivno afrika.

mh
Revisit the past good laughs no blood baths war rage paths
No sweat to math money is the common vocab I stab
Pens to paper crusader claw my critics double S Vega
Couldn't slay a samurai let the sweat drip from my third eye
No sty hang with only with the wise guys let souls fly fry
Into another dimension strengthen grips with no tension
Put em in suspension hope you listening glock seasoning
Cook ya flesh I can attest **** the rest say it with my chest
Been made to die that's why I keep my ears pierced to the skies
Summertime rituals make for the best burials pictured murals
Of me granddaddy mack OG sitting on the painted walls comfy
Good times good rhymes rolling off the ills of a pill hang time
Like jordan placed up what the **** up in the cut gangsta strut
Cold brew sipper watch the honey drippers she's a stripper
Never tip her let the 9 inch wide hummer ride slide n glide
In between her thighs amazing grace temptations raced faced
With agony earth angel mentality been ready to D-I-E
Like Biggie naturally or through barrel of nine staring at me
Rupture soul out of control see invisible scrolls death row
Name on it let me spawn it certificate of my death wanted
Fond on a memory rejoining my baby Lelei I see thee
Sitting on the seven golden hills spliffin off of the fake reals


Check me once never twice crown seven chakra christ
What's naughty or nice? Keep mics to amps mad spliced
Coldest in the booth been troublesome since my youth
Hellraiser torn blaser
Shoot through my optics red hot laser stings like a taser
Make ya dance once the rhymes to beat glance chance
Ya very thought know thy will still tackle the thrills
Cold chills from the world feel the heartbeats of the unfilled
Scorn vessels night time day dreaming celestials
Is it god or the devils to test you what if they the same crew?
Ying and yang still jam Wu Tang suckas cant hang boomerang
Flows back and forth again
Sucker punch take ya money for ya lunch then have a gun brunch
Set tripping off the circuits we ripping let music within
Heals all ya sins before the massacre listen to Afrika
Was a slave now I'm the master joker state disaster
Can ya keep ya heat up naw cuz the cold temps rising up
Take over crossover deaths staring at ya shoulders it's over
Grow tips of the Saturn's wheel off the steel shark appeal
Oh so real outkast watch for the blast no ski mask task
It's the gods back to massage park bullets head in ya garage
No mirage heat summer collage this pain you couldn't dodge
Ram there I am I slams critics like a gravel dont give a  ****
Broke from sanity now I'm insanity dying like BJ before thirty three
ConnectHook Feb 2020
Chirlane McCray   (b. 1954)

I used to think
I can’t be a poet
because a poem is being everything you can be
in one moment,
speaking with lightning protest
unveiling a fiery intellect
or letting the words drift feather-soft
into the ears of strangers
who will suddenly understand
my beautiful and tortured soul.
But, I’ve spent my life as a Black girl
a *****-headed, no-haired,
fat-lipped,
big-bottomed Black girl
and the poem will surely come out wrong
like me.

And, I don’t want everyone looking at me.

If I could be a cream-colored lovely
with gypsy curls,
someone’s pecan dream and sweet sensation,
I’d be poetry in motion
without saying a word
and wouldn’t have to make sense if I did.
If I were beautiful, I could be angry and cute
instead of an evil, pouting mammy *****
a ****** woman, passed over
conquested and passed over,
a ****** woman
to do it to in the bushes.

My mother tells me
I used to run home crying
that I wanted to be light like my sisters.
She shook her head and told me
there was nothing wrong with my color.
She didn’t tell me I was pretty
(so my head wouldn’t swell up).

Black girls cannot afford to
have illusions of grandeur,
not ***-kicking, too-loud-laughing,
mean and loose Black girls.

And even though in Afrika
I was mistaken for someone’s fine sister or cousin
or neighbor down the way,
even though I swore
never again to walk with my head down,
ashamed,
never to care
that those people who celebrate
the popular brand of beauty
don’t see me,
it still matters.

Looking for a job, it matters.
Standing next to my lover
when someone light gets that
“she ain’t nothin come home with me” expression
it matters.

But it’s not so bad now.
I can laugh about it,
trade stories and write poems
about all those put-downs,
my rage and hiding.
I’m through waiting for minds to change,
the 60’s didn’t put me on a throne
and as many years as I’ve been
Black like ebony
Black like the night
I have seen in the mirror
and the eyes of my sisters
that pretty is the woman in darkness
who flowers with loving.

©1983 Chirlane McCray
McCray cites […] early experience with racism and bullying as part of the reason she began to write, using her poetry as an outlet for her anger. She also wrote a column for her school newspaper, in which she denounced classmates for their racism.
McCray enrolled at Wellesley College in 1972. While studying at Wellesley, McCray became a member of the Combahee River Collective, a black feminist lesbian organization, which inspired her to write prose and poetry.

(source: AAE Speakers)
Afrika native
they are used for cattle feed
the citrus melon

— The End —