Your smile fooled them

They say you do not look happy
They cannot see the world on your shoulder
Your smile has fooled them
They can not see cracks on your breaking soul
Its hard as it is
It is even hard for you
Yet you have worn your smile
Like a crown amid rugged terrain
Your smile has fooled them
They see a smile in the dark
And when your eyes don't smile
They say you do not look happy
Even though you smile
They cannot see the world
Heavily weighing you down
On your shoulder
Your smile has fooled them
They will never know
Your cried at dawn

Closer to me

To many, you are an illusion
But your name is written in my heart
Whether i prosper or flounder
I keep you closer to my heartbeat
Because when all fail
And many are nowhere to be found
I know i will find you
Deeper within
Closer to me

Closer to my struggles
Closer to my pains
Closer to my tears

You are there
Deeper within

1994

Yes it is a dawn that has come
Yet Azania is still in darkness
But the light will come here also
For it is a dawn that has come
As it has come for all of Africa
Never failing
As it has come for Ghana
Never failing
As it eventually came for Zimbabwe
Never failing
But when that dawn will come?
Of our emancipation
From fear of bondage
and the bondage of fear;
that is a secret

(adapted from he last paragraph of "Cry the beloved country" by Alan Paton)

untitled

Don't touch a soul
That has not heed the Voice
for time comes
When it cannot hide
When things fall apart
Don't fall with them
For they will fall
Like dew before dawn
Set to whither away
For time is a thief
It will rob those
Who marvelled too heartily
When butterflies
Colored the spring day bright

Take me back

Take me back to the darkness
To the deepest of your wicked heart
For I cannot bear the light
To stand naked all alone
It gets colder each day
The warm spring
Hardly warms a pulse
I was happier in the dark
Locked in your cold embrace
Now I stand alone
Not even a shadow a bliss nearby
Who opened your eyes?
To the evil of your ways
Who called you to light
A place without a room for us

Love (but not too dearly)

Dont hold on too fast
To a warm hand of a lover
Dont walk too slow
Through parks and valleys of life
Don't write her name too deep in your heart
Though she loves truly
And your love is true
Tomorrow is an untold secret
Where you walked together
You might wake to walk alone
Her name might vanish with the wind
And cease to mean anything
Love but not too dearly
A stranger you have met
A stranger you have loved
But dont love too much
Lest you walk alone

Zondeni

You fought in silence
For the landless people of Africa
You lived a life of sacrifice
Suffered endlessly
Yet your life was a service to Africa
You did not need the spotlight
You lived in silence
You fought to the end
Though your name may not
Be mentioned with big occupied name
You remain in the hearts
and souls of landless people
They know of your undying love for Africa
They know you served
They know you suffered
They know you Sacrificed
For Africa

That Boy

That boy
That boy you see on the street
That boy you see roaming
Up and down with cheerful friends
He goes home to a empty house
He goes home to a family of strangers

That boy
Though he is cheerful
His day and night are shells of emptiness
He is fatherless

That boy
You know him
He has a mother
He has a sister
He has a family
But not a father

That Boy
He has a name you know
But it is not his name
He has a surname you know
But it is not his surname

That boy
That boy
A fatherless boy
Has a father
I am him

Father

A friend might be for a season
A lover for a reason
But a father forever

What then when all that remains
is a faint memory of the hey days

Is he still there?
To love and protect?
Even when seasons wither
and reasons fade with time

Is absence in another name
Not an absence

Does he see when he is gone
Watch over our hopes and dreams
Or does he cease to be when he is absent
A father

Doomed (Prison)

To give myself up?
Would it appease you?
To give you my red-bloody heart
Would you set me free?
Its me and only me
No one but myself
If i walked myself into prisons of your thought
Would you wake me up?
From these sleepless nights
Mindlessly thinking of the better days
Before the day i met you
If i surrender my all
can i walk?
If i forsake all i have?
Would that free my soul?
Or am i doomed
What is it?
What can i do?
To free myself from this nightmare
From the sun and the moon
That set my day and night ablaze
Heartless
Selfish
They say
But there is no sign of freedom
I can't walk
I can't walk away

Hunted

Its a muted pursuit for happiness
Sometimes i climb mountains
Walk on pitch dark thorny paths
Only to look back
You are on my back
Flashing blue lights
Am i an animal?
To be chased
And hunted
Don't lie to the world
In my hunger
In my distress
I am still a home to my blood
When this night is over
I hope you are there
To see the sun rise
From a place you despised
I hope its not too late
To see that in the mute pursuit
You became a nightmare
That made a dark night even more evil
Let the children come to me

Fast

Fast?
I wondered why??
A man walking fast earned a name
Not knowing it wasn't the speed
Of his walk but his brain
So fast
He was ahead of his time
His rhymes at times
Beyond our comprehension
At the mountain top
A fusion of rhymes and rhythm
Never made it out of the village
But he left anyway
So fast he never came back
Gone without a trace
No perfect pictures only memories remain
Of Fast

- for Humbulani 'Fast' Chibase

The Muted Pursuit

Sometimes you sit and ponder
Wonder if the mute pursuit ever ends
Is there a home for a disposed soul?
You wonder if the weary day ever ends
If the dark night ever give way
To diamonds and pearls
To rays of sunshine
That rises from afar
To a place beyond
A pursuit is not a walk
Its not a fun run
It is a weary toiling
It is a thirst that rises at dawn
And never find sleep at night
Sometimes you walk
Sometimes you run
There is no fun
Unless a pursuit is to happiness
That can last longer than lingering moments
Of bliss here and there and no more
When you have walked
Do you walk some more
Or do you find a tree
Embrace the tiresomeness
It is ok after-all
To be tired

Broken (What breaks a man?)

What breaks a man?

Is it the sun that doesn't rise?

Or is it a winter, that comes too early?

When a man who walked tall

Now wobbles aimlessly 

Is it the road?

Is it the journey?

That breaks him

What brings a man to his weakest?

is it a heart break?

or a heart that never got broken?

Confusion runs deep 

When i see him who was strong

With a heart build of bricks 

Slowly crumble to pieces 

What happened?

What breaks him?

What breaks his heart?

What breaks his soul?

Did he love and not find love?

Or did he hate and found love?

Why such misery on him?

What breaks a man?

Will he break again?

Or is he finished?

Pieces II

There is a poem called Pieces
It's an echo of a shattering heart
Written in the mind
Of the heart that is no longer
Of a soul that is no longer Godly
Pieces are falling
Wrapt in sweet red rosey affection
A glue that couldn't hold it together

Do you love and leave?
And hope nothing shatters?

What if it's a heart full of gold?
And not just the locks

Do you let gold shatter?
And watch as pieces fly

There is a poem called Pieces
It tells of gold pieces
It echoes of gushing blood
A golden heart torn apart

As they say, love was the motive

Nomzamo

Don't take her home too quickly
She never left us
Don't rush her home
She is at home with the people
Soweto is her home
Sweet showers from heaven
Not a curse but a blessing
Her race is complete
Dont rush her
Let her stay a bit with us
Another minute
Another second
She is our mother
(On the day of the funeral of Winfred Nomzamo Madikizela-Mandela)

This thing of ours

It's beautiful
It's taboo

Say no more of Robert Sobukwe

Say no more of Robert Sobukwe, He is alive

He refused to rest in peace

Until Africa belonged to Africans

Until every child of this soil 

Was the rightful owner of every inch

He is alive

His voice still hidden

But his ideas slowly finding roots

In the brains of every child of this soil

That yearns for what yesteryears robbed him

A Land to call his own

A Land given to him

Sobukwe is alive

In the Students who are hungry to learn

To be of service to Africa

Sobukwe lives 

In endless cries for Land

Sobukwe Lives 

In the endless yearning for Azania 

Say no more of Robert Sobukwe 

He is not a distant memory

He is in every breath 

That seeks to liberate Azania

Live Sobukwe Live

Rise Sobukwe Rise

Shine your light on Africa

Morocco to Madagascar 

Africa for Africans

Africans for Humanity 

Humanity for God

Sobukwe Lives, He is alive

Right (Rose)

A wrong so right

It's like thorns on a rose

Pricks delightfully

Amidst aromas of beauty untold

This lines cannot tell

Of an honest wrong

That is everything but wrong

it's a right

It cannot be stopped

Its beauty is eternal 

It lurks through the ugly 

To shine like a star at dawn

A right so wrong 

Wild like a rose 

Bome pome

Asi bome pome
ndi bome pome
Ndi lunzienzie ali lali
Ndi khangala khanyise
Ndi lumbile mbile ya Nevondo
Ine u viiwa ya beba mbilanana

Vhanwe vhe ndi Magupta
Vhanwe vhe musetsho u Nkandla
Hupfi asi zwone ndi Duduzane
Vhanwe vhe ndi Gigavha

Ho sala bome pome
Na vho Ramaphosa avha zwikoni
Wotsa na bada, muthelo wo ya
Wo swiswinwa ro sedza

Ho sala bome pome
Vhanwe vhe ndi ANC
Minwe i sumba i songo sumba
Ha sumba na ya vhaloi

Khea mabunyu
Asi hevhe hevhe ndi hevhe hevhe
Vhaamba vha sa fhedzi
Ho nwalwa na zwirendo
Hu imbwa na dzinyimbo
Hone vhungoho he ndi bva vhubvo
Ndi bome pome

Not a poem

Don't write a poem
for a hungry child
Don't sing a song
For a landless people

Their agony is not in verses
Their pain is not in rhymes

Don't write that poem
from a table set for steaks
A hungry child will not eat your echos

Don't sing that song
from a mansion of opulence
Landless people won't be sheltered by your high notes

Don't write a poem
Don't sing a song

Beware the wings

Beware the wings
Broken, life is an unbearable chalice
Don't marvel
when you see wings broken
They break a soul
They break tomorrow
Into fractures of hopelessness 
Beware the wings
Broken, reduced a King Eagle into a squeaking birdy
And a blissful flight becomes a drag
that drips with sorrow and tears
Some fly away
Some wither with the night

Dont blow that trumpet

(For Hugh)
Don't blow that trumpet
HE is emancipated
Through the vistas of time
The dejection and the kick of HIS trumpet
carries with it an incessant memory
of the melody of protest
of the melody of blackness
of the melody of Africa and the world in one
Rise in Power

Did our brothers have a choice? (Marikana)

(Based on the poem of the same name by Essop Patel for Staffrider Volume 4 April/May 1981)

Did our brothers have a choice between
families drowning in hunger and
 a meagre R12500.00 in wages?

Did our brothers have a choice between
A raging Buffalo charging for platinum and
the solitude of poverty stricken shacks?

Did our brothers have a choice between
going home to their hungry kids and
leaving without goodbye?

Did our brothers have a choice between
the thorn of the barbed wire and
the sting of the R5 bullets?

Did our brothers have a choice between
stopping the gushing blood out of their bullet wounds and
staring death on the face as it trumps?

Did our brothers have a choice between
Home and
Heaven?

Did our brothers have a choice between
The platinum-hell miles and miles underground; and
The hell 6-feet under?

Did our brothers have a choice between
A walk in a park
and a deadly run to a bullet hail?

Mystery

Strangers
In a strange way
They make you look
And before dawn
There is no memory of yesterday
A new day is come
And you look foward to a moment
To a time
of untold mystries
To a blissful end

Timeless

What if our world is timeless?
Years, months, hours, minutes and seconds
Are nothing but phantom
Social constructs of delusion
Secretly locking us in moments
When we are, at out best
Soulful gliders walking soaring in timelessness

What if our eyes opened?
And we saw time without beginning
Time without an end
Would we dream of infinity
Would we step into it
and embrace it's never endingness

What if we woke up to reality?
Could we see beyond shadows of time
Beyond yesterday and tomorrow
Or would we be stuck in disbelief
haunted by a never ending time

Would we need another year?
Beg and plead for another day?
In the absence of time
Or would we float
Like nothing