I read the news today

June 25, 2013 by 4 Comments

I read the news today

I read the news today
our press is gloomy
sending the world
a pessimistic image

A pessimistic image
no-one has as yet won
the war on poverty
(R500b leaves Africa yearly)

I read the news today
foot-in-jaw politicians
puckering up for elections
(a ‘people-orientated leader’
denies a R100,000 kickback)

I read the news today
rarely do we hear of
active democracies
hale and hearty citizens
who can read and write

(perhaps it is in parenthesis
secreted inside of digressions
by the enemies of the nation
awaiting the reputed rainy day)

And violence against women
is on a high especially in Africa
(1 in 3 women victims of partners)
(did our Finance chief get that)

But that is just
a little bit on the side
in the grander scheme of things

Gender-based violence makes the SAFM radio’s Weekend PMLive programme, in an interview with a Medical Research Council doctor,Sunday evening 23 June 2013 (see “One in three women victims of partners”, Cape Times, June 21 2013); whilst “Gordhan scorches ‘gloomy’ SA press” (Cape Times Business Report, June 20 2013).

“Africa loses R500 billion a year to illicit outflows – Mbeki”, and “Minister denies R100 000 game farm kickback claim” (both in the Cape Times, June 18 2013).  By the by the line “I read the news today” comes from the Beatles’ ditty “A day in the life”.

(Photo Credit: David Harrison / Mail & Guardian)

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Love thy neighbour (or not)

May 5, 2013 by 1 Comment

Love thy neighbour (or not)

Love thy neighbour (or not)
Zambia’s vice-president
sheds his load about us
we who are the bees-knees
(or so we too oft imagine)

Love thy neighbour (or not)
right next door to you
here partners keep killing
the women in their lives

(where fire, rain and global warming
put our poor at risk first)

Children too at risk
in the early grades
reading not fostered
too few reading books
in classes and even
fewer school libraries

Backward we are
so much trouble
we have caused
in this southern neck
(we now the new imperialists
the old wolf dressed up
in democracy’s clothing)

Not yet decolonized
we think we are special
effortlessly emulating
our previously-advantaged elites
at the sushi-feeding trough

Love thy neighbour (or not)
turn your other cheeks
in the name of Africa
and that elusive African unity
(patriotic hand on your own)

Love thy neighbour (or not)
you watch behind your back
and we’ll look after those
who scratch ours

“Teachers not fostering reading in the early grades” and “Partners keep killing women in their lives”. And we hear that ‘South Africans are backward’ (all in the Argus, May 3 2013).

 

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It’s in the genes

April 20, 2013 by 1 Comment

Brenda Rhode and the Young Authors’ Club

It’s in the genes

It’s in the genes
we hear of youngsters
crazy about books
and reading too

It’s in the genes
and not their jeans
I must add as I have
my mother’s English
tea-drinking habits

Crazy about books
and reading too
like their parents
and their parents before

(might we lionize them
rather than those
who tyrannized nations
colonized people
and played apartheid sport)

It’s in the genes
and not their jeans
or trousers, if anyone
still uses that word

(Did they honour
World Read Aloud Day
by reading up a tree)

Crazy about books
and not shiny objects
and brand labels

It’s in the genes
crazy about books
and reading too

Aren’t you

A social media tale (or “chronicle”) courtesy of Brenda Rhode – she of Young Authors Club fame and fortune – gets my chromosomes going, sometime Tuesday 17 April 2013.

David Kapp

(Photo Credit:  Young Authors’ Club / Facebook)

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Never so (few)

March 10, 2013 by Leave a Comment

Never so (few)

Never so (few)
says our emperor
on the very same earth
(no second one yet)

Never so (few)
giving the country
a bad name through
their violent acts

It’s a minority
the majority is not
(we are peace-loving people)
(is poverty not the worst
form of violence in your town)

We are peace-loving people
apartheid was sustained
through entrenched violence
(we have the moral high now)

We are peace-loving people
a woman or girl is raped
every 25 seconds down here

(Was the brutal gang-rape and murder
of a 17-year old Bredasdorp girl
an extreme example of ourselves)

Femicide is the order
women brow-beaten and besieged
sexual assault the daily custom
(though this seems not to count)

At least our emperor did not
resort to the dodgy tradition
of we are all so pious
and even religious too

Never so (few)
Never so
Never

An Editor on SAFM’s Sunday morning The Editors programme wonders what planet our president inhabits: “Most South Africans peace-loving, Zuma tells opening of house” (Cape Times, March 8 2013). The said “house” is the National House of Traditional Leaders in Parliament.

 

(Photo Credit: Zaheer Cassim / DW)

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Women continue to fall (victim)

March 7, 2013 by Leave a Comment

Women continue to fall (victim)

Women continue to fall victim
conceivably a Freudian slip-up
that menfolk typically make
on our toiling earth-planet

Women continue to fall
victim to their males usually
as is expected out here
(femicide is the order)

Women continue
to fall victim
to a force inefficient
and a service often inept

(are they keeping you
safe from blind faith
sex and colour TV)

Women continue to fall
victim to the savagery that is
human and everyday-familiar
(boys wear blue girls pink)

Women continue
as the girl child falls
socialized and programmed
afore the cradle on
(know your place)

Women
continue
to fall
victim

(And will continue
to observe and celebrate
International Women’s Day
come every March 8)

A veteran anti-apartheid journalist articulates “An efficient police force is the first step to curbing rape, violence” (Cape Times, March 5 2013); whilst a local civic-minded person’s Letter, “Men, change your views”, does the Freudian bit (People’s Post Athlone, March 5 2013).

 

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The ticket to ride

January 7, 2013 by 1 Comment

The ticket to ride

I now have the ticket
to improve my life and
one day be able
to take care of my family

So says Asanele Swelindawo
an orphan who managed
to get three distinctions
in our much-maligned Matric

She is an Ikamva Youth member
a by-youth for-youth
volunteer-driven initiative
just up your street

The ticket to ride
at the end of it all
a stairway to heaven
folks would have it

(Zero to hero turnaround
out at Peak View High)

Though experts have it
that our matric ticket is one
loaded with mediocrity

(quality over quantity
the new post-apartheid
standard grade of life )

The ticket to ride
in the context of
our country gone
to the (pampered) dogs

(our girl-child illiterate
and barefoot and pregnant
out here in darkest Africa)

The future is in our hands
says Ikamva Youth

Is it in yours

An email missive tells it all: “IkamvaYouth learners from township schools achieve 100% pass rate with 91% eligible for tertiary education” (www.ikamvayouth.org); and the Argus “Zero to hero turnaround” and its Comment “Quality over quantity?” (Friday, Jan 4 2012).

(Photo Credit: Jon Pienaar / Daily Maverick)

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Read Study Work

October 22, 2012 by Leave a Comment

Read Study Work

Read study work
(pardon my punctuation)
jailbirds all equal
in their prison-orange

(Adult education courses
will be compulsory
ABET from levels 1 to 4)

Read study work
pardon the spelling
and the homophobia
of a tweeting Hawk

Remember your Vaseline,
Jub-Jub, quips he,
unaware apparently
of sexual violence inside

A fresh-faced musician
hip-hopping his way
guilty on murder charges
(what example is he
to our fresh-faced youth)

Read study work
rehabilitate yourself
and the homophobes
wherever they masquerade
(befrocked, veiled and the like)

Rehabilitate yourself
so that you may join
the world outdoors
of your particular prison

Read study work
in prisons transformed
into schools (where matrics
go through the rites)

Like we didn’t know
of the school called prison
and their myriad graduates

Student of life – and French-speaking too – Hawks man McIntosh Polela says sorry for tweeting ‘in poor taste’; whilst Jailbirds to ‘read, study, work’ (Cape Times briefs, Friday Oct 19 2012).

 

(Photo Credit: Readucate)

 

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This is not Limpopo

August 23, 2012 by Leave a Comment

This is not Limpopo

This is not Limpopo
WH Auden in ashes
amongst other books
out Elsenburg way

This is not Limpopo
a municipal hall burnt
inside almost beyond
human recognition

Crude obscenities
mark the walls
what beasts here
did 1994 come
and go too quickly

This is not Limpopo
smouldering rags
torn out pages of books
on the blackened floor
of a community resource

This is not Limpopo
though two worlds here
scenic slopes and dales
lodgings Dickensian
and work seasonal

(A pristine building
up yonder, on a hill
seemingly far away
comfortably numb)

This is not Limpopo
though a text book case
of something unfulfilled
a number of youngsters keen
despite all the odds against

Politicians not yet
kissing-baby election time
development planning
Uhuru not yet Elsenburg way

 

Out yonder in the not-so-picturesque rural quiet of Muldersvlei-Stellenbosch, Western Cape, South Africa, the week of August 14-16 2012.

(Photo of the Elsenburg Community Hall provided by the author.)

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You are not alone (Metrorail style)

May 8, 2012 by Leave a Comment

You are not alone (Metrorail style)

You are not alone
between your place
and the next in life
in the middle of

You are not alone
at the mercy of
the public transport system
between Metro stations
Ndabeni and Maitland

You are not alone
in hearing no apology
for any inconvenience
this may have caused
(and no journalist is in sight)

You are not alone
commuters evacuate
braving the quick drop
from carriage to ground
(many do a cancer-stick first)

You are not alone
me now Bellville-bound
in another cattle-truck
a Book Launch out UWC-way

(“Feminist Popular Education
in Transnational Debates”
trying to change the world)

You are not alone
a differently-accented traveller
now at the raw end of
Metro’s Protection Services
checking commuters’ tickets

What might scholar-activists
and adult and popular educators
reflect on life Metrorail-style
“in the grand narratives of revolutions”

You are not alone
or are you

(I wend my by now weary way to the university campus, courtesy of what is politely called a “public transport system”, 5 May 2012. A journey of Lifelong Learning, I suppose!)

(Photo Credit: YouTube)

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Hopelessly devoted

February 27, 2012 by Leave a Comment

Hopelessly devoted

Hopelessly devoted
actually utterly hopeful
and positive, they are

Hopelessly devoted
the Earth Children
from Rustenburg Girl’s High
(passionately green are they)

Hopelessly devoted
right here down South
in their vegetable garden
recycling at their school

Hopelessly devoted
an assortment of girls
enthused with their earth work

Hopelessly devoted
to their healthy vegetables
and farming worms too

Hopelessly devoted
eating flowers
reducing their carbon footprint
and fund-raising for our rhino

Hopelessly devoted
doing the each one teach one
(a collective consciousness)

Hopelessly devoted
might they re-energise
all of us out yonder
in the material world

[Hopelessly intrigued am I by the Earth Children down Rustenburg Girl’s High-way (“Earth Children passionate about all things green” – Tatler, February 23 2012).]

 

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