Spit in my Left Eye

The trauma of injustice fertilises our souls till we are but a shadow of our former selves It is the red that stains the hands that scalp law breakers  Vigilante justice has destroyed our humanity; we have forgotten how to feel Too wound up in fierce despair and blind ferocity to listen. Our eyes seek tabloids and newsworthy columns but our insight is as a cloudy lens,    contaminated by hate and calcified logic.   we are too tightly strung;  stuck to a mental rung in arbitrary frenzy to unseat the dictator. We can be healed of this madness but only if we start to feel; really feel the fear of those who travail through the same troubles we do   we must learn to reason not as fools but as the freed not as slaves but as saints - to  fight as victors not victims for surely he who fixates on death is already defeated.   If we are consumed by vengeful obsession to rip the heart of the cantankerous viper are we too then not as he is?    Our free

Thula was 6 years old but already mother and sister to her 2 siblings, 3 year old twins, Paco and Ponine.  Boys were hard work but she tried her best since their mother died of aids 6 months ago - their father worked the mines far away.  That's all she knew.  Adults had a way of telling children nothing.  The village of Mbizana had many women and all pitched in to help raise the 3 children. Thula however was their big sister and mother. That's just how it was. The 3 were always hungry.  Thula often wondered why mines didn't pay her father a wage because no money was ever sent home. Neither did her father return after her mother's death. They survived on the cabbage and carrots that Mr Abujan dropped off each Friday. The twins were malnourished and often cried in their sleep. The hut creaked and the holes were illuminated in the moonlight that hovered overhead. The African plains  - the big 5 and safaris that brought giggles to children were a far cry from Thula'

"I see that every white man is an enemy to the black, and every black man an enemy to the white, they do not love each other and never will." King Dingane to Richard Hulley, February 1838 Can it be that when Van Riebeeck erected the Almond Hedge and starved Autshumato and his people, that like Cain and Abel, their blood boils inside the veins of the generations; the cursed hedge that remains firmly rooted in the heart of a tainted people. The Verwoerd stamp. On 27 February 2006 the body of 11-year-old Dane Darries was found stabbed 14 times in the toilet of his primary school in Cape Town. 2012 Marikana Massacre was the greatest political atrocity next to the Sharpville Massacre. In October 2016 Lekita Moore had been savaged. She was stabbed 98 times.  Her nipples and genitals had been cut off, a bottle was shoved up her vagina and her face was badly slashed. She had been stabbed several times in her throat and stomach.  Her mutilated body was found the next day.

They gag on our flag -   the old was "better".  how was it better being thrown off beaches;  out of trains,  buried in drains - barred from restaurants;  forced to enter side gates;  fed 2nd rate education;  kicked from our homes;  forcibly moved and  imprisoned for crossing the  "immorality act";  beaten and tortured;  murdered;  kicked and head-butted  for not having a pass;  playing music in secret places;  stealing away to indulge in the arts;  punished and  whipped when caught;  earning painful salaries;  called supervisor not  original designer; transferring your skills for nought.  How was it better  when bodies went missing;  domestic workers raped and harassed;  mixed babies born; not by men black or brown;  how was life better when we couldn't move beyond our space after 6. what joy was derived when  unable to fulfil your desired ambition because your colour wasn't right

We try.... we grind. We cry .... despair. ... each day a plea..... God help us this world's aflame - Humanity rots before our eyes We pray We plead We despair hope flickers falters falters fades We try Grind cry despair Lord, exterminate this scourge. (C) Jambiya "The power of words".