"they say life is a struggle..i know what i know there is no need to convince you"

13. Messed Up Broken Home

This kingdom is a messed up broken home

Where indigenous people travel and live

As foreign slaves in their own native land,

And my people's dreams are like castles built on sand

To be eroded and washed by rains of corporate greed

People of this place struggle to meet their basic needs.

Four decades of independence are meaningless

To people who can't have their views openly expressed.

This kingdom is a place where my people are sold to Asian states

Lesotho is a rut that releases stenches of putrid democracy

Progenies of this home flinch from the truth because

They are scared of being whipped with iron “kopere”.

Lesotho is a messed up broken home

Where dictatorship and aristocracy are synonyms for democracy,

And this place is a global joke and a comic relief

As it fails to feed only 1.8 million people!

You can’t comprehend this poem if you are not

Compelled by major forces of life like HIV

To be a head of a family at the age of twelve

You can't relate to this unless you’re a child who lost one parent

During the 2005 textile industry workers massacre,

Or a parent who went through a loss of child

In the 2009 brutal shooting of NUL students,

Or breadwinners that sell sweets alongside

Maseru streets and get chased by MCC guards.

This kingdom in the sky is a loose broken home

Where freedom of speech is locked up in slavery archives

Freedom fighters are frightened with fire and brimstone,

So don't tell me to vote, if I do, what will it be for?

To vote for people who will only masticate the cake’s cream

Right before my eyes while I’m licking my desiccated lips,

With my stomach humming a sorrow-filled chorus of hunger

I can't vote for an indirect concealed colonialism!

© Knowledge Mpoba Monyeke

UJ OPEN DAY POETRY PERFORMANCE BY AFRO-ALPHABETS

SIR KNOWLEDGE

POERTY AFRICA 2010

Echoes of the streets

ECHOES OF THE STREETS

Echoes of the streets wake me from my sleep

Groans of kids sleeping next to garbage bins and under bridges

With cardboard boxes folded to form mattresses

Survival of these souls is nobody’s business

None is interested in their well-being.

Echoes of the streets wake me from my sleep

Pictorial view of this young boy sniffing glue

Feels rejected hence is subjected to drug abuse at this tender age

Death of his parents saw his life change course

He dreamt of being a doctor maybe an engineer

Unfortunately the streets became his destination

Now his fate remains unclear.

Echoes of the streets wake me from my sleep

Visuals of this young boy in tattered clothes

I poignantly gaze at his toe-out shoes

As he cautiously strides through the morning dew

Looking set to take his place at the corner of this store

Where he can commence his daily chore

‘Ke kopa 50 cent ea lijo’

The sorrow-filled song he’ll sing for the rest of the day.

Echoes of the streets wake me from my sleep

Reflected images of shabby looking kids

Distinct mindsets who share a similar story

The sad story of how they ended up in the streets

The story of being abandoned and neglected by their families

Yet now they are tagged with names, lihobo mekopa-kopa

Forgotten citizens of this country.

© Letuka Verbal Saint Qabalatsane

KUYA BHEDA

My linguistic daring has not always

been candid to the splendour and luxe

of emotional escapism,but the tables have

turned it's time for a revolution

The feeling of my recent vision has

got me staring at this pole that concealed

the goal from the earthlings of my soul,

my veins flow profusely to deliver but...

This feeling is bald,unsmiling and cunning

like a man who would sell an alibi to

King kong on the Empire State building,

as i lift my patterns of memory and push

down the invisible sleeves,something says NO

My visions slide across the walls of dry

lavender saying this words aloud:every

desire is fear and all success is difficult

to overseer

The devils bill is a buried treasure

and the vivid dance lits up his bones,

as the entirety of my skill grows who

am i not to be

To be that which transcends the shadow

of Africa lining between the path of my legs,

here i am with a dream inside shaking inside

of me,vum vum,feel the transport of my happiness

abound.Ha u fihla kea fihla.da principal

©Semy da principal Ralebitso

upon xenophobic attacks in May 2008 in SOUTH AFRICA.. xenophobia is evil all the time..just coz i have a dark skin tone and speak a different langauge from yours- doesn't mean im not human

1. war-torn mind- sets of African Black Seeds 

Black man where is your black horizon?

Black man where has your black pride gone?

Africans, are we still fighting for revolution?

We are so confused like a teenage girl

Writing each New Year’s resolutions,

But never living up to any of them!

We seem to be stuck between two

Supernatural walls, that’s why we are involved

In xenophobic attacks and civil wars,

Black man where is your black horizon?

Why do we have to turn our beautiful

Motherland into a war-zone?

Our atmosphere stinks of storms of violence

Africa is falling apart, yet we sit in silence

Enjoying painting rainbows with our very

Own sisters and brothers' blood

Truly, we need our forefathers' guidance!

We tend to embrace war like the pain

Of slave-trade, yet we still claim to be free!

Black man is brainwashed, his mind fed

With western life-type ideology

Neglecting his own black thoughts

And African living methodology

Subsequently losing his roots completely!

Insulting his black intelligence

Spitting over his own black inheritance

Why do we have to live in chains of violence?

We cross and swim in rivers of blood,

Children’s eardrums violated by vibrations

Of guns gazing, bullets piercing bodies

Like brutal words piercing souls we die in wars,

Think of Steve Biko, Oliver Tambo and other

African superheroes that fought

For our freedom, think of our forefathers

Who died during the slave trade era,

Black man can't you see this

Western ideology only reflects ‘pop-psychology”?

 

Black man, if we are truly free

Why do we have police protecting service?

Why do we have to flock at the police stations?

Why do we have violence as a talking-point on our

Broadcasting networks and radio stations  

Yes, we are civilized ugly nations with love

Of GOD out of the picture, peace and harmony

Sunk into oblivion, obscured by hatred

We are just oppressed, colonized African citizens

Segregated by boarders, political parties, national flag colours

But most sadly by our own skin colour

©MPOBA KNOWLEDGE MONYEKE

16 August 2008

POETS ALIVE CREW