648 police deployed,
4000 rounds of ammunition,
4 mortuary vehicles,
It was neither an accident,
Nor the act of an angry God,
It was neither a miscarriage of duty,
Nor the act of marauding ancestors,
They planned to **** us,
And indeed they killed us,
Like in the Sharpeville massacre,
On the Marikana soil of our livelihood,
Despite that our hands were up in the air,
Begging and running for our cheap lives,
Mission accomplished,
Typical of the filthy barbaric apartheid engine,
In a modern democratic South Africa,
Mission accomplished.

16 August, 2012,
Today, we speak,
And today, we act,
We are tired of working like animals,
They stressed,
We are tired of being treated as such,
They asserted,
Today, all that will end,
They declared,
Indeed “today”, all that ended,
As like animals, “today” they were slaughtered and recklessly,
On the soil under which lay their livelihood,
Away from their comfort zones,
Away from where their naval cords were buried,
Subjected to undignified deaths that had no honor,
While politicians and capitalists farted in their comfortable seats,
And like animals, they were forgotten,
The grandchildren of Black ancestry,
The poor hardworking breadwinners of their poor families,
Plunging their lives into sheer deep insignificance,
Shame Black men of honor,
Shame!

They have now gone far too far,
So many names they have called me and many a time,
A multiplicity of a multiplicity of names,
Time and again, I have ignored,
Forgive them Lord, for they know not what they say,
I believed,
No matter how demeaning and painful the names,
At one time I was called a dog and others,
At the other, pig and others,
And now, Trash.

I refuse to be associated with savagery,
I refuse to be associated with downright human life disrespect
I refuse to be associated with ******,
I refuse to be associated with blatant inhumanness,
I refuse to be associated with Donovan Moodley or Patrick Wisani,
I refuse to be associated with Shrien Dewani or William Nkuna,
I refuse to be associated with Sandile Mantsoe or Oscar Pistorius,
I refuse to be associated with Jacobus Oosthuizen or any of such Satanic barbarians,
I refuse.



Judge me for what I have or have not done,
Not for what Sandile has or has not done,
They are sick, they are crazy,
They are dramatic and narrow-minded,
Seeing me for what William Nkuna  and the others are,
Indeed, they are what they are,
Brutal, inhuman and diabolic,
Barbaric, heartless and savage,
But I am neither either of them nor trash,


I am a man and a very proud one,
I am a man and very proud to be one,
Was yesterday, am today and will be tomorrow,
Despite where their reckless utterances deposit me,
Despite their misguided and narrow-minded judgements,
I am a responsible and caring man,
I am not trash,
Never was,
And never will ever be.

Like dogs they lived,
Like dogs they worked,
Like dogs they earned,
Like dogs they died,
And like dogs they were forgotten,
The Marikana heroes.

The dark cloud of that day still hovers over us like a stubborn ghost,
A dark moment, sad and excruciatingly tormenting,
Democracy was plunged under a huge and portentous threat,
Just like the lives of each and every miner in solidarity,
Every miner that felt they had been uproariously ***** and beyond measure,
Lives being disparaged and sacrificed for money,

Some fat ugly capitalist politician proclaimed them criminals,
To impress his blood ******* immigrant masters,
The brutish British multinational super exploiters,
The stinking atrocious colonizers who stole our land and our humanity,

And as criminals they should be treated,
Declared the egocentric mercenary politician,
Indeed, as criminals they were treated,
And as criminals of apartheid, they fell,

Heavy machine guns roared,
And the whole environment smelt heavy of burnt gunpowder and blood,
The whole place depicted a war zone,
With bodies lying everywhere,
And the police force claiming victory,
The dead, really dead,
And the living, really leaving,

This is the Marikana story,
A story that has neither beginning nor ending,
A story that is told with very sad and shocking connotations,
A story that is neither a cause nor an effect,
A story of a high disregard for human life,
A story of split unions,
A story of greedy and hyper-selfish politicians,
A story of police brutality,

But above all, a story of innocent lives lost like garbage,
And fingers not pointing at no one,
The Marikana story.

Default African,
Yes I am,
And a disgrace for that matter,
Yet African with Katekism,  
I am supposed to be,
Come rain, sunshine or high waters,
I have betrayed you Africa,
I have 'back-stabbed' you in the face,
And spit rotten phlegm in the wound,
Giant mother,
With this badge of slavery I now proudly wear,
**** me.  

Never have I washed my father, Or mother,
Never have I washed my grandfather or grandmother,
Neither of these have I ever dared looking after,
Yet today,
I assume total custodianship and curator-ship,
I take care of some grandfather and grandmother,
Somebody's father,
Somebody's mother,
Somebody's grandfather,
Somebody's grandmother.  

Only yesterday I was told,
Your father and mother passed away last year,
And so did your brothers and sisters,
And they were all buried like dogs,
Their burials were the talk of town,
How could you let that happen,
How could you,
And I am these enermies' comfortable door mate.  

My grandfathers were colonised,
Because of our rich land,
And now I have been extensively colonised,
Because of their pound,
Because of wanting to be a Westerner – overseas,
Away from you,
Continent of respect and dignity,
Continent of dance and song,
A continent pregnant with untold tales.  

My sick mind has been colonised,
Graduating me into a nefarious modern commercial slave,
Just but an echo of an old tune,
A worse slave than my ancestor,
The Kunta Kintes,
I am a cheap voluntary slave,
Who has been gratuitously deserted by his values,
The African values.  

I stand accused before myself,
I am a cumbrous culpable default African,
An African who has lost his ebullient Africanness,
A charlatan ******* African on a detour,
A dismantled, shameless self destroyed pimple,
A nauseating counterfeit second hand African,
An extraneous stain on Africa's underwear,
I am of as much value to Africa,
As is an over- used ****** to a  filthy growth point *******,
Regrettably, that is the African I have become.  

How I wish I washed my father and mother,
How I wish I washed my grandparents,
How I wish I took care of them,
The wish is killing me badly,
I may as I have  run away from you Africa,
But never from Africanness,
Litres of your blood flows in body pipes,
I am because you are,
I am a default African.

A little bag of bones and ***** skin crawls lackadaisically,
Looking every inch like a moving mass of biltong,
With one arm weakly clasped on the protruding belly,
Looks for somewhere to lie,
Some water tank explodes from inside of her,
Writhes in unimaginable agony,
Screams the screams of death,
Spreads her bony legs sickly,
Out comes an object,
Yes, a baby is born,
In extreme poverty,
It cries and cries,
The shallow cries of a newcomer,
It cries the cries of not being well,
It opens its tiny eyes to a new world,
A world extensively pregnant of poverty,
It dies in the weak sickly mother’s arms,
Veins-wrapped boney powerless arms,
The death of a missed call desperately wanted,
Ended before it even started,
In extreme poverty, it dies,
Just like it was born,
It is eaten by starving dogs,
Dogs in extreme poverty,
Perfunctorily torn apart like a rag doll,
As the mother helplessly watches,
Too weak to do anything,
Born and died in poverty.