Within

Within nature I rest,
in the morning sun that awakens beautiful
creatures of the morning
in a harmonic ensemble.
I feel whole again
watching a petite, yellow-silked, feathered
weaver bird eat side by side with
an unknown human almost brotherly like

So small, tiny and fragile it is
But within the physical body
there is a soul so courageous and bold.
So determined to reach that single piece of bread crumb

It will fly closer and closer,
until it is a mere beak away
then swatted back like a
filthy deranged pest.

Some leave; ashamed at their failure.
The very few stay to persevere
and win nourishing success.

Motivate by this success
they return to lie in their own
intricately woven nests,
hiding away from prey and predator

they think…

Nightfall comes rapidly with
the pickling cold breeze
but withing the last few minutes of lights
the birds must hide from the rising shadows.

The predator set in to own the night
concealed in darkness to complete their deeds
and leave the bony scraps to unforgiving,
merciless but careful vultures.

The irony in which even the civilised of animals
follow the same livelihood as those of all people,
of Africans.

Bondage

When two minds become one

the consummation of the space between

leaves remnants of cold calculating desire

A desire that begins a set of dominoes

From childhood we are taught

that any form of relationship is

one that should remain valuable

towards the heart and soul.

But the say:

what looks simple to the eye

is complex for the heart

to a certain point that the heart becomes your eye.

In life we are bound to one another

not necessarily by choice at first

but by nature’s unforgiving destiny

no one can mutiny.

We are bound to each other

not by that bond which we say we are

but by that bond made in the darkness of night

that makes us cower from the sea of people in daylight

Love is that bond,

Love is that dream of perfection

Love is unexplainable but we

assume that we understand it.

It is a pack of lies

A pack of secrets that one pour out

to another.

That is what is bound to bind us.

So helplessly we are;

when those pure dreams are shattered

by the unprecedented truth that unveils

the true colour of oneself.

Journey

You're on a journey,
to laugh, to cry,
to hate, to love,
to live and die.

Over millennial
we have depicted a life
not worth fighting for
not worth dying for.

Our lives are construed
on the same storyline
as that of Athol Fugard's
Nongogo.

In the past the white men
were the Sam's
the black women the Queeny's
the black men the Patrick's
the Asians the Johnny's

Integration has mixed us
but even though mixed
we do not walk hand in hand
rather hearts in hands.

This journey you're on
do you ever wonder
why the rich keep living
and the poor keep dying

In this journey of ours
do you ever ponder about
why the women are regarded as home-keepers
and the men as bread-winners

Upon this journey of yours
did you embark
to fight for equality
to fight for democracy.

Africa has lived without it
dined with the devil himself
Charles Darwin's theory could never ever
be more evident than here in our home
Yet the world continued to revolve
into 'perfection'.

But there is hope, there always is
for perseverance paves a way
for those after us to walk on
and those before to shudder.

Weakness

For most it is seen as failure

failure to reach perfection

failure to succeed

failure to never fear.

But how do I grow without

ever learning to become strong

How do we become brave

if we never started with fear

They use our weaknesses

as a weapon against us

when we do not know our weaknesses

are our strongest assests.

There is no growth without improvement

into looking inside our own souls

and make concrete what was once

a weak hole.

If we let our own kind manipulate our identity

they won’t be the ones to take

our very last breath-

we will.

Fir although the murderous leopard

does not lose its spots.

It certainly grows into a more

conniving, cunning and cold killer.

Times have changed

so have the methods within

our different communities

but the essential goal remains the same

Most of us

are instilled with the mindset

that for one to succeed

the other must be weak and fail

It is not so,

look at bean plant

which grows alongside bacteria

all in symbiosis.

A lesson we need to learn from mindless.