Daughter of the soil,
Bathed in gold,
And clothed in black foil,
True beauty that only a real artist can mould,
Shoulders broad,waist slender and curves broad as the shoulders,
The hourglass figure in place.
Knees darkened by hard work with no boarders,
Smile that brightens her face,
And a presence that spells comfort,
A woman ; love replica
Beauty is default,
Flawless is the woman of the soil,the woman of Africa.

you said i was exotic,
and i said ooo
what do you mean?
exotic like a fruit?, like
i don’t know what tropics
you think i came from, was
imported from, but you read
my skin like the label
on a flavour of coca-cola
you had never been
offered before and i
was refreshing, and
different. and you liked
the way my coke-bottle
curves felt beneath your
fingertips, said you’d never
tasted caramel
like me before,
you said i was exotic.
like i was a work
of west african art,
even though my mother’s
from the east, like
i was from a storybook like
1001 african nights, like,
you saw my cover and you were
hooked, never did think to
look beneath the jacket,
just wanted stories like the
ones scheherazade sold,
i was your sheba
and you my solomon.
we rode lions across
the sands, your kiss
was salt on my lips,
i needed to quench
my thirst and you offered
me the brand new flavour
of coca-cola.

you said i was exotic,
like a pretty foreign thing,
some mail-order thing,
special delivery
just for you,
a flavour of coca-cola that you
had never tasted before.

For 21 days I saw changes wrought
by the freedom of 22 years  
Secrets of razor wire straight and taut
Speak of those who continue to fear

I saw nature’s beauty in land and face
As black heel continues to rise
Via school, ambition they prep for the race
Even as secretly despised

What’s changed in Soweto? I did not live
But photos and newsreels survive
Pictures of shanties bulldozed to give
Whites room to extend their hives

Now malls; monuments to white retail
Built on Mandiba’s words
Polished chrome and marble hail
“Happy” workers in a black-faced world

Monuments ringed with vendors tribal
Carved goods for sale and cheap
The rands they make do not rival
What multi-nationals’ continue to reap

Happiness is shallow until sundown
When the curtain of decorum lifts
Showing reality’s new shanty-town
Where space and plumbing are gifts

I wonder if He would be okay
Seeing his people so used
As pawns for labor with little say
As black is seldom excused
  
The young know the time is now
As old hatred’s in shallow graves
To be unearthed by book and plow
Keeping dreams from stunting and fade

And Isaac went out to meditate in the field at the eventide:
and he lifted up his eyes, and saw, and, behold …
GENESIS 24:63*

You remember, oh Isaac, the face of the bride

From the Genesis foothills of dreaming’s beginning

Arriving with dusk as the sunset was bringing

The camel-bells music, the end of the ride?

The nomadic return of a hope that had died

Like a riverbed flooding and suddenly greening

A promise fulfilled, flowing into the evening

The song and the rhythm of life undenied…

I remember the landscapes, the names, the dark faces

A golden Havilah of biblical places

the handclapping chants overcoding a mystery.

Timeless recurrence; eternity imminent

Israelite graves I beheld on that continent;

Songs of Rebecca: the morning of history.

The missing path
It is netwok-less
Darkened with night colors
Dulled by Insects cries
To break the rough silence
Vegetation, piercing through our wheels
Reclaiming its defrosted house
Dancing unholy
To give story of its lonely mood
And deny us our welcome cake
Dogs, barking for ***** bone
Buying it with,
Descrimination
To confirm our illusion
******* our juicy fruit
And a fragile
cheating our muse with fear
Listen
It was all a lesson

from a wonderful night
she came alive
oh my country
obscured in her gloomy might
her love seemed so right

the feign of her tattered story
she bears the burden of Africa
the reign of her battered glory
her body abut and juxtaposed Madagascar

I wish that I fly away
from my path
I might not stray
from the start
I was taught to pray

my dreams to soar in beautiful array
as the nation saddles in its own barrage
lamentations of 56 years' blink
I see on eagle's wings what victory brings
the joy of 36 shining gold rings
too bright to look at
naming and counting one for each

and when twilight was reach
in plenteous joy and happiness
to the people my heart outreach
compensation for years lived
in wood and ash

Imagine waking up on a filthy, uneven floor -
light coming solely through the flimsy wooden wall.

Imagine trudging through the mud barefoot -
mud merged with remnants of God knows who.

Imagine breathing in thick layers of sooty dust -
the colors sullen, lifeless and dull.

Imagine smelling the scent of faeces and decay,
of diseases and of death every single day.

Imagine your belly gurgling with hunger and distraught,
sniffing glue - the only way to delude.

Imagine walking on rickety bridges -
a step amiss and drown you will in these murky watery ditches.

Imagine wearing the same old rags - all tattered and torn,
being beaten and battered, no rights of which to call your own.

Imagine having silly daydreams of going to school
but there's not a penny to spare - not even for a worn-out book.

But alas, imagine no more for such children exist,
with ghosts clouding their starry dreams
And death hanging heavy upon their tiny, little feet.