Spit in my Left Eye

   "Rebecca the child will be a freak.  Give it up or do away with it.  It's not even human yet. I never wanted a child, I told you to take precautions so that we would never end in this kind of mess.  Honey, you know I love you.......but I can't do this".  I can't have a "Downs Baby”.  Think about it, he will be made fun of and bullied.  How will he cope? It will drive you mad"!  He seemed to have the future all worked out.   5 Years of love had ended as if it had no value........and perhaps it didn't.    "It not even human yet".  Tears rushed to her soul and spilled onto nervous hands trying to convince her to end the life she carried.  Guitar hands.  Her  baby was no freak.  Nothing was going to change her mind about him.  They would find their way back home.  He was all human.   They connected in the most incredible ways.  She felt him. He was her baby.  He felt, He spoke. He sensed and knew.  Ah yes, the world and science would d

Humans are unforgiving, ungracious to the one who falls, merciless even when he rises  The same human will cast a casual glance at teacher's whose lives deny; at Politicians who wave big dreams; Preachers who preach lies and sport fraudulent hashtags, fake healings and scams. The human indulges scandal that divides churches and corporations; The Human advocates gossip that tears families apart; persecutes the smoker, the cannabis grower but drinks till drunk; raps nonsensicals in his stupor; The same stones the adulterer but eats till stuffed and rotund a Lady Chatterley's lover, or is it blubber - take your pick. Deception jails the swindler  but buys Mercs and Bentleys from the widows fund. Pride refuses the street child  but from the pulpit pleads for his ministries - like a cunning skunk. Oh ye hypocrites Brood of vipers Soothsayers and cheaters When will your ay and nay be as it should. Pluck out your eye Cutoff your limbs Snip your tongues Don sackclot

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

I was not crafted from your soil.   My feet cracked not from walking miles in your shoes. this is what you say - yet my heart laboured as it poured it's blood for your ebbing life. My eyes dried like autumn leaves as it dreamed your dreams stared into your vacant spaces and watched the darkening of your sun. Bony fingers drained of sleep; my convictions seeping into yellowed scrolls; squeezed through prohibited portholes I'm not like you - our southwestern, eastern northern borders crisscross, but our skin and kin are not same that's what you say, though the matching molecule of life flows through our veins, our fears and fight intricately woven in our mothers womb. The soil we tread is hers; borders cannot chain my purple passions. I have eaten from your wastelands and tasted the bitter wines of servitude that now burn inside my belly, Is the red you breathe not mine - Are we not the Africlan who cheer our liberation from the cup of a bloody savanna that feed

Zimbabwe 1984 - I was a young girl who had a relatively easy and privileged upbringing in a middle class suburb in South Africa. We walked into a water crises - a system shocker. We bathed in each others water - whites, blacks, Indian. The team. We represented various nations of the world - the Zimbabwian rifles did not enjoy our presence - I was introduced to political strife as one regime positioned itself to overthrow another. It was my introduction to war outside of my own countries borders. We were hated and I didn't understand why, because our message was one of love. I sat with a "man-servant" (as they were called then), and heard his dry mouthed anxiety for the future - bread and butter; His next job; unwittingly a victim of a socio-economic alcatraz. A little blonde-haired girl crawled onto my lap and asked why I had such curly hair - Amongst my black sisters my hair was "white". Indians embraced me more because they saw my gra

My prayer. .. Another Tuck Magazine insert. ... poets in unity - http://tuckmagazine.com/2017/11/03/zimbabwe-we-want-poetry-campaign-10/ #jambiya #1000poetsforpeace - Zimbabwe #tuckmagazine