Spit in my Left Eye

Am I the consequence of poverty? a plaything that stirs a man's virility - a mannequin who boasts her lost virginity. Is this how victims are sold, like monkeys in a darkened cage alone? Perhaps hope will someday deliver me from this hell hole of candy-coated popsicles and dresses too tight for a little girl parading at night - her charred masked face displayed behind a glass cage. my soiled sheet exposed for all to see. What man would want a stained woman like me - Laugh you fools, you foolhardy pharisees who amuse yourselves with my plight - you who cackle as I fight for a moments respite; to breathe with ease. My pores implore you leave me to my own device, to confront this demon that has left me like a creepy crawly thing for life; MOTHERRRRR - other faces are caged not; come face my fate, sticky, seedy, slimy paws....STOP your paws! Laugh you cowardly vipers your day will come! Mother, what have you done! (an excerpt from the play, "RED" by Jambiya Kai/Beulah Kleinve

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

Am I the consequence of poverty or perhaps a prank gone too far? A plaything to appease a sick mind; 5 thousand rand for a mother's blossoming burden, where drugs speak louder than love. I am locked away banished to hell. Branded and burn't then led to a fold in the hills, like roaches in a darkened hole, Alone Days months maybe years? acid to my face has sealed my fate. That's how they do it - how they hold us here I no longer fight, and my attempts at flight become a whimsical notion Oh how I miss the golden shores of the Cape; the lonely windy hills of Macassar. What language is that I hear - Where am I, Uganda, Bangladesh, Pakistan? I live in a cage, I breathe air and see the sky only at night. I am lost Gone sold I am the dead breathing forgotten Unidentified - untraceable Perhaps hope will someday deliver me from this hell of a denatured face displayed behind a glass cage. A high priced collectors item. Laugh you foolhardy pharisees.

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