Poezja

(in answer to Ingrid Jonker)
 
The child is still alive,
his spirit nobody can extinguish,
the small fists of the child hits on its mother’s back
where she is carrying him
and out of control the child is crying
when his mother screams Africa and amandla
or like a Voortrekker woman with bare feet
try to find a way in the veldt to wild fruits
with snot that runs from his nose over his cheeks
where paper thin dogs run away scared
and a murderous crowd walks in the street,
but the child’s voice
is swallowed by the roar of the crowd.
 
The whole country is degenerating
with cities becoming hovels overnight,
in anger the child lifts his fists against his father,
throws bricks and stones that fall like hail
and his father is without a job,
while people stream in from other countries
to fill all the vacant positions
and people walk in mass riots
while they scream Africa and amandla,
the child has a blown up stomach and is emaciated
and smells of human refuse.
 
The child is still alive,
his spirit nobody can extinguish,
not in Soweto, or at Thembisa, or in Sunnyside
or Hillbrow or wherever,
everywhere his toddler sister is raped
to rescue barbaric adult males
from AIDS,
or for the medicine of witchdoctors
she is cut apart
and however the child is suffering
he still is alive.
 
The child is still alive,
his spirit nobody can extinguish,
and he grows rebellious
while education degenerates
to human rights and politics
where knowledge, own values
and religion is been unlearned
and the child realises
that he will have no kind of future.
 
The child hides in the shadows,
notices the civil service
see how these people act fraudulently,
how they steal from the entire country,
even in the highest councils
where suppressing laws are being passed;
the child is unseen but present
and he notices how people are being bribed,
how everyone is living for his or her own gain,
the child peeps through bus windows,
through the windows of shacks in slums
and he wonders when it will be safe again
to play carefree outside,
to feel the sun on his skin?
 
Each opportunity and even his freedom
is being stolen from him time after time
and cursing whores are on the street,
drug lords from Nigeria,
thieves and killers from Zimbabwe
that gather everywhere in small groups
and strangers steal opportunities
as if they belong to them.
 
The child that wanted to feel the sun on his skin
in due time grows to be a man,
and decide to forget his father and his ancestors,
to forget about their corruption,
has great zeal for a new place,
(somewhere on this continent of Africa)
where everybody careless and free
can lead a own life
and he moves from place to place
where he tells everybody about his ideology
until his followers grow to gigantic numbers
and continually everyone is searching for some answers,
while no starvation, robbery, murder and illnesses
does devour Africa.
 
[Reference: “Die kind wat doodgeskiet is deur soldate by Nyanga” (The child that was killed by soldiers at Nyanga) by Ingrid Jonker.]