PENCIL MARKS & ATHA adventures

I know you know this... it is to love... I could say I know you well enough to pick the hems of your silence until a seam rips open, and BOOM, your warm heart implodes in my closed hand. I think rather be deaf than blind, what use is hearing you if I can't lay my eyes on you?

2011-10-04T12:59:00.002+02:00

what? (unedited)

2011-02-03T18:38:00.002+02:00

I think of the many things I do not share on this platform...and the things that end up on this "blog" ( doesn't the word sound crass and make you think of silent moments you have in the bathroom all by yourself?) anyway... I was thinking since you are well endowed in the speech department and seem most at ease paddling your opinion/s about.

What about this?

"I can smell the rain" the girl opposite me just shouted to herself, as though she's surrounded by sense-less bodies that cannot deduce this simple phenomenon. Behind me the internet cafe owner is just standing there, happy to fill the barrel-of-useless-and-pointless-observations with his "It's raining".

Another observation.

I'm sitting at an internet cafe on Parliament Streeet, my mind still troubled by the folded pamphlet bearing David Kato Kisule's studious face; his nose balancing a pair of black rimmed reading glasses- which lend him, a modest journalist, an intellectual aura that is only conveyable via a simple matching of a four-in-hand tie knot against a white banker's shirt. Not a typical image of a journalist.

The news of this journalist's murder were quickly submerged in the wave of apathy that surrounds such politically motivated cleansing-killings, if I should call these acts that, the timing of this incident though was not unpredictable as say- the revolts in Egypt which understandably enough have overshadowed what is going on in Uganda thus drowning the coverage and reportage of this low key massacre. I irk at the idea that violence
is strongly entrenching its grip on the hearts of the feebly minded, the lazy, the hungry, the drunk, the powerful- convincing us that barbarity,ruthlessness accompanied with 2 or 3 pints of the victim's soul, the trouble is solved.

Let it be known I'm not an activist nor defender of homosexuality- but the circumstances of David Kato Kisule's murder need to teach us a lesson about 'democracy' and at the very least, the aspiration toward being universally human.

In the vein of the yellow t-shirt donned man behind me and the yellow scarf draped lady opposite me block by the monitor into which I'm piercing into.... let me add my banter to the empty silence that hangs lumpishly over the patrons of this internet cafe like a bloated cloud of delayed rain- "its wet outside" I say to myself only pointing out the obvious. Seeing that its 11 minutes and 32 seconds before my hour runs out... I thought let me head back to the thoughts about my love and share with you a facebook post from a few days past. It's about you and it reads...

"your presence is poetry, whirling like strands of hair from beneath your silk turban, your absence keeps the anvils of my heart busy, kneading phrases, mixing colours in attempt to paint a portrait of you... how are you, I haven't laid my eyes on you today. To love?"

the coming of love (unedited)

2010-12-28T13:57:00.001+02:00

I had a deadline for a story (due on the 15th of December 2010) for a sleazy local pop-wesbite... which I decided to extend without informing either of the editors who invited me to submit a piece for them... I have my reasons...in this here story lies that very confession.

Ignore the title, it's an empty placebo, a gimmick- a bit like having Zuma for a president or Manto for a health minister, its a bluff- or rather what I would normally call 'the dentist cospiracy'. With that said, be cautious not to totally dismiss the importance a title, especially one this useless. Title by virtue of their boldness can be likened to end-of-the-year- resolutions/conclusions/closing balance statements... Titles merely exist as a legal afterthought (more about that in future articles- however if you have ever entitled any compositition as "untitle" like D'Angelo did with his naked hit- then you are versed with the 'intricasies" {is it an 's' or a 'c'} of banners, markers or better yet Titles.

>><>where am I going, with these contradictions you may ask?><>
>><>- The same place you refuse to return to! (biatch!!!)<><>??

My clattered mind, of late has been exploring three things; Oops,Bumps and Hairs...which was the title of the aborted story.

Come with me back to beginning of the month before the the red sympathy candles were lit and the red ribbons adorned; I got an email to an event scheduled for the first Friday of December- which I eventually graced albeit for a brief moment, it is there that I meet the earlier referred to sub-editor of the magsite, whom I met at the staircase of Booklounges basement, where they ususally host their readings and serves cases of vino and figure snacks to starved types like me. The kind fellow who searched me for ideas and thoughts- finally decides to test me by inviting me to "submit something for our site".. I take him up on the idea- but more importantly, Ooops, Bumps and Hairs, is born from that encounter, mostly a hybrid of conversations with/and brain picking by my kindred angels. (whose main question was what makes a man tick? rather what makes me tick- boobs or bums.) In the comforts of my prison cell overlooking Devils Peak, and after much brooding and musing with my mirror reflection, I realised the ladies excluded a crucial aspect of heterosexual 'courtship'- hair!

Coming of love? Ooops(boobs), Bumps(bums) and Hair(her)?

>><>Pass me the tissue please<<>
ok my luch is over, I'll come beack to finish thsi stroy in a minute...

soaking in your comfort

2010-10-01T13:08:00.001+02:00

this here marks another turn
hand in hand
with god

my hope clutched in your hands
my aspirations held firm by your kindness
my dreams soaking in the comfort
of your presence

is this the love?

9x19 Parabellum

2010-07-20T12:38:00.001+02:00

Smith & Wessons .38 special.

'anti afrophobia' are we?

2010-07-12T18:32:00.000+02:00

Feeling sick are you?
the promises you gulped down like beer
are finally spinning you around and spilling over your wits
a gall of nausea streaming through your thoughts,
Is this what this is?

First, we delve into the vault of pornographic images
dig up the vilest
to beguile me into "action"
Nothing about the person on the image
just a prop to grab attention
Abort reality from its context
Because
yes, we are doing something
What exactly?

WE ARE DISTRIBUTING PAMPHLETS!

Information, disinformation or misinformation?

At various points in the history of mankind
Africa or Afrika if you prefer
has been the aggressor, the coloniser, the conqueror
Remember Hannibal of Catharge?

Remember my friend
but don't just remember selectively
collective memory is not to be raped
for the sake of short term interventions

"We knew no hunger, no divisions,
we were one big Black family"

I know hunger for truth.
I know I must separate the lies from the facts
so I draw a line
to construct positive division.
See my vision?
See the global as one family!
See through myopic pigmentation of the skin!
This, which you paddle as advancement is not the Consciousness
whose spirit you claim to espouse,
If anything- this Black is transcendence
but you must stop with the tribal trance
Africa is not homogenous
[and for rhymes sake]- that doesn't take a genius
to compute
The truth who can refute?

Choice.
The current state of affairs
is by no means a mistake
It’s a choice, we all made (directly or indirectly)
a bitter settlement- a negotiation of sorts.
Just like you choose
as you do; that "The enemy is the White settler"

Your lapse of judgment and critical evaluation
condemns you
and sad to tell you this
it also indicts you with the very same crime
you claim you are against;
swopping enemies is not the problem here...
Look into the self first
before you prescribe a notional pill
that can induces mental diarrhea...
lest we stain the soil with floods of crimson lifewaters.

whether you are making a claim for hands you don't have
or for treasures of the earth
(which I'd rather keep hidden in the belly of the earth)
or against competition from other businesses
creating a political myth doesn't address your reality

be industrious
you are!
be creative
you are!
be not a victim
you are victorious!

What you condemn as a country
that "caters for a settler minority"
is what
you again call "our country"
Are you reinforcing the same borders you want to eliminate?
You too, like the men of the spear, the wheel and the stripes
lust after the fruits of oppression?

The past is alive here
it throbs and pulsates with each step we take
toward an elusive future
We are slaves to whose thoughts?
Whose venom must we imbue
to carve a real picture of this dis-ease
gnatting at our hearts
boiling our veins with frustration?

Is money really the source of our despair?

I pity you my friend,
you whose freedom seems to have been sanctioned 16 years ago
It must be infuriating standing by the wayside
As the Mabenzi's make a meal of the weird cup
building you sandcastles instead of schools
paving their walkways whilst ambulances
cannot find a route that leads to your door
to deliver health services
to your injured self

Discuss a way-forward we must.
And you are free to brand me a coward-
I still have the memory of a burning impimpi
in my heart -
I'm not joining any attacks
against anyone.
I witnessed the political violence in the Vaal
too young to vote
but matured enough to note
a diet of manufactured enemies and Malema'esque diatribes
isn't conducisive for peacemaking.
The will come a time
when you too hopefully
will realise that you cannot rewrite history with dogmatic catechisms!

Act you must
but remeber You and We and I and Them and Us
are human- if that counts for anything at all !!

Ribbon in the sea

2010-06-23T19:30:00.016+02:00

You.

My dear, your name dances back and forth in my heard

Anxious of the pain that you might inherit-

A loss for words - at a loss for words.

What a loss for worlds...
when I shake my head nonchalantly for NO.
and nod maniacally for YES.

words, what use are they when you look at me as you do?

Like a ribbon, this tune

wrings itself around my thoughts

embellishing fantasies of you-

crashing upon elegant rhythms
and mint flavoured syncopated breathes

Frequent thoughts of you,

are styled with curious stares,

stolen glimpses neatly tucked behind my eyelids...
Your elegant poise and perchant for the avantgarde

thrill me like a torrent of melodies gushing through arid veins-

hence invigorating my illdiscliplined sense of hedonism.

Offishly flicking away your glare from mine
and bending your eyes toward the hungry ageing sun

like Uyama's ribbon in the sea*

carelessly surfing empty skies..
Meanwhile your fingers
are reluctantly seducing unkissed cigarette butts...
As you decide which stick to draw next,

I am lured into you-
As you remind me how brief these moments are...

a dream is unfolding before me

You?

Clues for the reader:
*inspired by Uyama Hiroto's Ribbon In The Sea from the album A Son of the Sun released 16 July 2008 by Hyde Out Recordings

Remembering Sidney Chama

2010-05-22T15:42:00.006+02:00

A letter to the organisers [unedited]

2010-05-13T11:24:00.006+02:00

Dear Sir

I write to you on behalf of my nameless organisation, I'm trying to find an appropriate name for it, as you know , you founded this auspicious institute and I'm feeling lusterless trying to figure out how to define it for you.

Some say you are black. Some say you are an African or Afrikan. Some say you must hoist your tribal crest high above everything else in this world. Yet again and again many define themselves by the colours found in a standard 12 piece pencil crayon set, like those free stationery packs we used receive in Sub A when I started primary school in 1991. Some claim their tongue is their identity, it unites them, it defines them others even swear that their tongues never slip nor slide, let alone stumble upon myopic pluri-syllables like- "national consciousness" or even the popular "black consciousness" and the ever medical "unconsciousness" or Freud's "subconciousness".

Some I know swear by their Kings, Chiefs and Princes... anyone with flavoured blood and an ostensible appetite for luxury and riches, but even here too I gather that blue is the flavour of the month, anything skyward really earns people's trust and sometimes even a penny or two.

Some swear by their German made motif cloths, as their authenticating stamp, of "This-ness and That-ness," without a Made-In-China logo stitched to your thoughts, I'm sorry but your chances of globalising are as thin as the spreadsheet documenting Africa's exports to its neighbours.

Talking about skyward, apologies if you find my ideas rather backward but could you explain to me the actually difference between elections and selections? My knowledge of politricks is rather infantile indeed, I often scratch my head when I visit the local school and I find children who cannot read nor mould their thoughts using 26 Gregorian letters.

Sir, you know I dwell in your mind. I am a permanent tenant of sorts albeit I'm always at odds with your thoughts, you are open to even the strangest of ideologues, some are intrepid evangelists of mythical dogmas, some are clean shaven marxists, others are bearded capitalist, stubborn reformers, and funny fundamentalists... some as I tried to explain earlier baffle me, I do not have as yet, a suitable pigeon-hole for them, yourself my esteemed Excellency are included as well. Can you imagine how heinous a crime that would be to exclude a narrow minded pigeon like yourself from his dedicated hole?

This Africa Day business, what does it seek to celebrate, commemorate, what does it highlight or perhaps what is trying to detract attention from? I too attempted to buy a set of colouring pencils with my vote lately, but shops seem to carry the official government issue of 11 languages in a national set with just four colour options available. To my surprise even the so-called coloured are colourless, deemed tongueless.

Efforts of trying to flip this one-sided coin, fell flat like a one dimensional line. With meticulous hands, I managed to lift this topic off the ground before that invisible landowner threatened to have me arrested for slow development and trespassing on his property. I retorted by claiming equal citizenship he back-slapped me with a titled deed bearing King Leopold's II grand master plan. I fell to the starving ground and died. He proclaimed himself a longstanding citizen of this earth; he too was an African with multiple passports varying from Australia to Austria.

Sir I meant to ask, what is this Africa business, who dare define it ontologically? I have faith in your university education, you worldly experience, your temperament for tongue drying explanations and cryptic jargon.

I trust this letter finds you well rested and mentally alert, because I know I'm tired of these grand schemes, forms and norms, columns and colons, commas and dogmas, happy birthdays and Africa Days.

Yours sincerely

Dr Hambard

The Dentist Conspiracy  revisted

Book 6
Volume XI
Chapter 2: Unfinished business

Like words for weapons

2010-05-03T16:52:00.001+02:00

Samm Farai Monro is a take no prisoners protest poet, lyricist, social entrepreneur, who runs Magamba Projects, a grassroots movement aimed at improving the youth of Zimbabwe, and leadsinger of Chabovdoka.

It was during this year’s World Economic Forum that the rulers of “small people” convened on the snow capped city of Davos in Switzerland to ‘rethink, redesign and rebuild’ their economies after 2008’s financial market catastrophe. Zimbabwe’s powerless prime minister; Morgan Tsvangirai attended the summit too; to plea with the heads of global financial institutions to have mercy on his broken country.

I contacted Comrade Fatso a poet and social activist and founder of MAGAMABA Projects and bandleader of Chabvondoka who is also internationally renowned for blogging for CNN’s on the ground coverage of the controversial 2008 Zimbabwean elections; to gauge his attitude about the current power sharing arrangement and his opinion on the political climate in his country.

The dreadlocked son of English community organizers, Samm Farai Monro as he is known by his parents, has toured Europe, America and the Southern African states performing his version of toyi-toyi poetry from his banned House of Hunger album which was released two years ago and is yet to be aired on Zimbabwean state controlled broadcast media since its banning - the very same year. Monro’s socially conscious and politically piercing lyrics have earned him the fluttering comparison to the pioneering Thomas Mapfumo by most art critics who have written about him. He doesn’t seem affected by this comparison because Fatso is sticking it up toyi-toyi right under Mugabe’s hitleresque mustache.

Fatso is a writer endowed with a peculiar dry sense of humour and sharp wit that differentiates his writing from his contemporaries… perhaps its due the bitter political environment, that his live performances are riotous, loud and fervent as a toyi-toyi (a protest ‘dance’ made popular by the anti-colonial movements of Southern Africa)

* * * *

Unathi L Sondiyazi: Considering that this April, Uncle Robert will be celebrating 3 decades at the helm of Zimbabwe’s throne. Does our world need to be improved and who should bear the cumbersome duty to “rethink, redesign and rebuild” it for us?

Comrade Fatso: People need to rebuild the world. Politicians only shape it in their own image. Our planet has reached a tipping point where climate change threatens the very existence of humanity. And this massive shift in our climate is due to the greed and never-ending ‘growth’ dogma of politicians and corporations. Should we give them the power to redesign the world? Should one give razors to a suicidal maniac?

Your album’ title House of Hunger, brings to mind a towering silhouette of Dambudzo Marachera to mind. What does Marachera’s writing and legacy mean to you?

Dambudzo challenged authority. Always. Everywhere. We need such anarchic minds in modern Africa. Minds that won’t lick the arses of our nationalistic ruling classes or foreign oppressors. We need to encourage free-thinking, autonomous beings.

Listening to your poetry one can say you weave your words like a weapon to smash at Mugabe’s façade of democracy. What do you want the world to know about living/working conditions in your country especially since the banning of your album House of Hunger?

Living conditions have somewhat improved since the creation of this so-called ‘Government of National Unity’ but only somewhat. The poor are still poor. The rulers still rule. Expression still ain’t free. And my album is still banned from the airwaves. So we’re in a weird situation where the opposition is ‘in power’ but our airwaves and papers are still choked with ZANU PF nationalist propaganda. So we continue using our words as our weapons.

Creatively where do you draw courage from, by that I mean who or what motivates and inspires your creative flame?

I’m motivated by my people, my comrades, my surroundings, my history, my family, my beliefs, my desires… I’m motivated by everything that can possibly, collectively inspire someone to be arrogant enough to live free in a prison while laughing.

Asked about the experience of being white in Zimbabwe…he replied:

It’s a biology fault apparently. Both my parents are white and by some freak of nature they produced a white baby. I’m still dumbfounded by the whole experience actually. But colour of skin is the least of my worries. I’m fourth generation African and am arrogant enough to believe that I belong and that I’ll fight. No hang ups.

Check out his album House of Hunger on www.comradefatso.com

This article first appeared on Chimurenga online

read the fine print too

2010-05-02T14:36:00.009+02:00

The Dentist Conspiracy revisted

Book 2
Volume VIII
Chapter 347: Swagger this
edited by Prof. Yazi Hambard [updated edition with forward by the Esteemed Dr. Otlaenyela Swagger]

"how to mack a deaf sexy lady, how to stand when you actually want to sit down, how to walk when you can't walk away, how to sit when you cannot stand the situation, when not to speak if you really have something hurtful to express, how to drink if you don't intend to swallow, how to eat and never be full nor gain weight, how to enter a room when no is one around to eye you, how to exit the premises if all exits are barricaded and you just torched the fucken place, when to start and end a relationship (generally), how to fart in public and confined spaces such as elevators, light aircrafts, taxis and buses and even during procreation, how to clear phlegm off your throat and spit it right out without splatters or saliva trails, how to spend money impulsively, how to accumulate debt pandemically fast, how to be single, how to attract the opposite sex, how to act stupid, how to disguise your ugly face from yourself, how to lift a 42" plus-size model off your lap and off your bed permanently, how to dodge a bullet, how to negotiate with a prostitute, how to con a taxi driver for change, how to dissuade desperate robbers, how to answer a telephone, how to master selective listening, why her hair matters even if its not hers, how to eliminate incriminating evidence, how to rob an armed unit of police officers, how to be pepper spray resistant incase they retaliate, why you never get it right when you take it with your left hand, how to flush a toilet, how to curse without being offensive, how to mix powdered water, why exporting soil is such a big business for survivalist entrepreneurs, why you shouldn't have just 200 nicknames, how to not have problems, why diamonds are owned by poor people only, how to build a successful pyramid scheme, why you must always take money from the collection plate during Mass, how to survive a suicide attempt, how to cross national borders without traveling papers or bribe money, how to make bail using an empty pail, why you cannot smell your socks, why smoking prolongs the life of an asthmatic person, how to adapt a mob mentality as your own, why television is good for your cheese textured brain, why gangsters don't hang with gangs, why you must wear a pair of white shoes when attending gospel concerts, how not to run after a bus, why you shouldn't carry an umbrella when its pouring cats and dogs outside, what is beef real beef, how to fly for free with South African Airlines, what is the shelf life of a food preservative, how to be a virgin again and again and again, how to explain to the president of the country the economics of poverty, who is paranoid - me or you or me, how to smile back at white people, the complete rules of pussy stealing, why if they ask you should tell (the first shit that comes out of your mouth), why this text is in fine print, how to never apologise, why traditional healers should advertise medical aid schemes..."

my swagger seeking friend; these are just a few Lilliputian things I can't make you understand but you must know god has a lawyer too. Now that's swaggerful!!!

On the run

2010-04-26T22:15:00.001+02:00

something for the journey... click on "song" link to download

this must be my favourite song at the moment.

original source

who lied?

2010-04-16T19:49:00.004+02:00

Christina by Ryan Mcginley

Is the female body such a conundrum?
An inviting maze that leads you only to where you want to go?

A riddle like Poincare's conjecture that is graced with abstractions?

Is the female concept a body, a mind, a god like me?

Is the female concept really that complicated to grasp, such that it requires exploration from all compass points?

Is it the female mind perhaps that I'm grappling with?

Art is overrated!
It too like other fields of human pursuit always defends itself against it's short comings... agaist the humane thus creating a paradox, a contradiction even. This duplicity does not end here does it?

With an ever increasing list of questions and dwindling patience, the failure of words and ideas as a principal currency for knowledge exchange is receding fast as it is becoming increasingly clear to my slow brain, that the best way to misrepresent a person is through images, ideological moulds, antropological caricatures, varieties of communication and silences, but habouring and projecting expectations is the worst form of banality.

How do I escape the allure, the trivial sexualisation, the melancholic glare defending itself against my insincerity?

Spinoza comes to my immediate rescue with this obscene conclusion...

“Only that thing is free which exists by the necessities of its own nature, and is determined in its actions by itself alone.”

Again I look at this image...

Last Summer

2010-03-18T10:48:00.002+02:00

the book is a worthy tribute to the memory of Barney Simon.

Mose Tolliver

2010-03-08T10:27:00.001+02:00

"...We have come only to sleep, only to dream. It is untrue, it false that we have come to live upon the earth. We sprout like grass of the springtime. Our hearts bloom, our hearts open their blossoms, our body becomes a flower. It gives a few flowers and then withers." Nezahaulcoyotl

Dictates of the tender

2010-02-23T17:35:00.012+02:00

The story of South Africa's student revolt is... well... well I'm left for words trying to configure a picture for you. Since the world has only Sam Nzima's image, of that rebellious Wednesday, firmly clenched to the concept of "Soweto's student riots" against the Afrikaans Medium Decree of 1974 and J.G. Erasmus's 1 January 1975 announcement to inspectors and principals. In his is speech, the Regional Director of Bantu Education in the Northern Transvaal declared "Afrikaans will be used as primary medium of instruction... and Indigenous languages [limited only] for religion instruction, music, physical culture."

I'm not going to recount the events here, however I will give you a rather boring background into this interview partly about June 16 which is generally commemorated under the cloak of Youth Month - a campaigning cliché like Black History month... If you want more information about the day, "you can find these ideas [information] on the internet, if you got the right address".

In June of my tumultuous and drugged out 2008, the Free State Youth Commission and Free State Tourism Authority had an idea to invite a sizable group of youth from across the Free State province and give them a mini-tour of the Province's cultural tourism they intend to sell to the wandering 2010 Fifa World Cup itinerants.

The two day hiatus involved a tour to the Motouleng Caves, located outside Claren's Surrender Hill - a historic site revered by traditionalist pilgrims, followed by a short journey to BaSotho Cultural Village, a resort made famous by the television series Mopheme. We drew the day with a keynote address, delivered at Qwaqwa University, by Prof Mathole Motshekga, founder of the Kara Heritage Institute.

Now baby, I was lured into the trip by the dictum "the best things in life are free" and a little nudge on the ego from my comrade Serame Makhele. In short, I cannot take sole responsibility for this interview, Icebound and I worked jointly on this interview including the never published 32nd Youth Month commemorative magazine, from which this conversation with Kgafela oa Mogogodi is culled.

Fighting Ancestors

Kgafela is a spoken word contortionist, thinker and author of Thy Condom Come (2000) an anthology of poetry jewels

As an artist what relevance do you place on Youth Month and its presumed revolutionary history?

[Kgafela oa Mogogodi]

What revolutionary history? We continue to be victims in our stories. June 16, for instance we have made a fetish out of the picture of a dying child in the hands of a fleeing youth. Our memories of 1976 are largely filtered through the famed June 16 picture of a dying and fleeing race. Have we resigned ourselves to being a nation of mere victims?

The official approach toward “Youth Month” is thin of revolutionary content. Where are the other pictures of June 16? Where are the songs that paint pictures of heroism? Who designs our heroes? Who curates the monuments we build around victimhood? It is hard to speak about a “revolutionary history” in the absence of uplifting stories where we are protagonists instead of mere agonists. I personally prefer stories where I am the one who beats up everybody who stands on my path. It is not enough to write about our scars. This kind of writing can only inspire pity. I write my victories on stage.

But look at the films that we celebrate as national treasures. What is the difference between a 1960s movie, Dinkgaka, by Jamie Uys and Tsotsi by Gavin Hood. At the end of each film there appears a good white man who has the advantage of understanding the natives. The good white man steps in to save the natives from murdering each other, and they lived happily ever after. In Yesterday it is the good white woman who saves the poor natives from diseases and ignorance. The colonial imagination is still at work.

Why do you think America loved the film Tsotsi? It served their appetite for the return of savages on the big screen. In the story, ultimate authority lies with the White policeman who commands, and the tsotsi’s savagery comes to an abrupt end. This is reminiscent of Tarzan’s command over the African jungle.

And it is known that Jamie Uys acknowledged the influence of DWW Griffiths the maker of The Birth a Nation, a film which has apparently founded the template for racial stereotypes around which Black characters took shape on screen. Believe me, much of the films that are made in this country still follow Griffiths’ template. And, recently, our President (Thabo Mbheki) and his army of ghost writers conceded to this thinking with a blind celebration of Cry Freedom at the Biko Memorial Lecture. What revolutionary history is there when we celebrate things that demean us?

Recasting June 16, is probably a relevant exercise. But the youth need more pictures.

What's your opinion on the relevance of Indigenous Knowledge Systems and how can we best incorporate this knowledge deposit into the mainstream education systems?

[KM]

I will support initiatives which serve to make history relevant to the present. Even knowledge about the sciences and the spiritual wealth of the continent must be deployed to serve the present. It is probably a good thing if the ideologues of Indigenous Knowledge Systems have intentions to overhaul the current system of education. A critical dialogue with mainstream education must be sustained at all times.

In his speech Prof Motshekga was lamenting to the youth on the need for an “African Mecca”, he noted that Motouleng Caves were one such "holy place where all Africans should congregate for regular pilgrimage". Do you think a pilgrimage is a good idea for reviving one's relationship with the higher inner-being?

[KM]

If this is about the inner-being, why do we need any public pronouncement of spirituality? I am never certain about wholesale and public rally approaches to African spirituality. Or, maybe there is a purpose to all these public gestures. I will also concede to the idea that mythology is as powerful as sight for truth claiming.

Prof Motshekga is, arguably, a knowledgeable man. Alongside the late Prof Koka, they were associated with founding what they explained as, the Kara; a light of knowledge. But the harbingers of the Kara have since differed about the nature of the light and took separate paths. Some of their teachings about looking into Africa for cultural, spiritual and scientific inspiration tend to hold sway among underclass youth within underground cultural movements. These are youths who consider themselves as outcastes of the current system.

Some aspects of the Kara ideas found expression through the growing Rastafiri movement, the Hip-Hop scene and within the ghettoes and other underclass pockets of society. But that is not to say there is no debate. I am always cautious around churchical approaches to knowledge building. I don’t often agree with what seems to be movements towards evangelizing Africanity.

A time will come when we must debate notions about holy places. Who decides for Africans as to which places will make them feel holy? What’s wrong with the idea of the holy being everywhere. Besides, I am not really interested in holiness. My flaws make me whole.

In addition, where do you recharge your spiritual batteries (excuse the tired metaphor) and how do you prefer to recharge your batteries, if you'd like to share?

[KM]

Art is the dress my spirit wears. The process of creating a piece of art is spiritual. Each time one creates spirits awake. But I always enjoy conversations with spiritual types. I have learnt a lot about spoken word from studying the gestures and sounds which healers make when they throw bones. The world of their bones is revealed through poetic images. Even the way sangomas call the bones is pre-hip-hop. The musicality of bone reading is linked to dikoma or ingoma.

Before the era of Kwaito-storytellers and poets like Bouga Luv and Bricks, lyrics for a Kwaito song were usually one line texts, repeated in different tones and accents until the songs ends. The dancers would usually come into the circle to tease each other and the greatest dance move is applauded in call-and-response chants like “Abuti fa ngwan’o! … mo fe!” The circular and chant-like structure of Kwaito music and the dance circles that usually accompany the appreciation on this music echoes similar practices that come with a long-standing memory.

Around the world, music and spoken word have always featured prominently in spiritual practices. The writings of Asian spiritual gurus like Krishnamurthi and Osho echo a similar propensity towards linking artistic practice with spiritual possibilities. The emphasis they put on connecting to cosmic forces is found among the sangomas. Yet it is interesting how, for the Asian guru, trances are found in silence while among sangomas trances are found through drumming and singing. Yet the Asian also take to chants to aid their spiritual drives.

Miriam Makeba, in her autobiography, tells the story about how she was once lifted into a trance on stage after donning the cloth that her late mother (who was a healer) used to wear while conducting healing rituals

As a writer these conversations with healers and their music are a very rich source for metaphors. Hearing their stories is almost similar to experiencing the wealth of images one encounters when reading of Amos Tituola in The Palm-Wine Drinkard, Salman Rudhdie’s Haroun and the Sea of Stories and Ben Okry’s Famished Road. Check out the healers if you are into art. Some healers are great teachers of the word and great artistic resources.

Do you find a relationship between your artistic expression, spirituality and the struggle to which you are an heir (the struggle against imperialism and its flirtatious guises as seen by Marx, Fanon and Credo et al)?

[KM]

Marx, Fanon and Credo are not the same people. They are not cut from the same political cloth. How I am supposed to agree with them all at the same time. While he dabbled with Marxism, Fanon through his critical dialogue with neo-colonial African experiences reveals new insights about the nature of revolutions inspired by Utopian visions.

You will recall that the pronouncement that came with the upheavals of the fifties around what were, then, the Third World countries. African Nationalism(s) were born and there was a lot of talk about African purity. While some of these ideas were inspirational in some senses, the focus on digging for African purity meant that Africa lost sight of reality.

Most art that was created to perform our purity to the West has done a lot of damage, particularly with the tendency through which Africans characters are always located outside contemporary time, into wildlife kind of framework. This whole notion that “the real muntu” is to be found in the rural areas will prove to be a problem politically. Those of us who have not the fortune to be born in the rural areas are supposed to be tainted by the lights of modernity. And we are supposed to feel guilty and commit money to Galla dinners and conferences on the search for purity.

I am not into Credo.

I grew up on Fanon. Now I hear Chinweizu. There will be a time when we must speak about the possibility of fighting ancestors. Look at it this way, the bulk of Burning Spear’s music is about Marcus Garvey whom the Rasta hail as a prophet of resistance. African Americans in the U.S. have written so many songs, poems, books, films about Harriet Tubman. She is almost always painted with messianic images because of the role she played in the fight for the freedom of slaves. It appears that people will alter their spiritual geographies in relation to their material needs. Hence the rise of what we came to know as liberation theology.

Elsewhere, if you look at the Mau-Mau rebellion in Kenya, the oath that guerrillas took drew a lot on the local spiritual practices. Traditional practices were altered to inspire the struggle for land and liberation. And the ways in which struggle heroes get sainted, tends to take a spiritual character. We might have to revisit the sainthood of our heroes?

But now the religion of the tender has arrived. People are tenderized. Issues are driven by the politics of the tender. The poets too are tenderized. Even priests may be lining up for pulpit tenders. Musicians compose according to dictates of the tender.

I was recently reading, Manyobonyobo, a seventies Setswana novel by D.P Moloto in which he dramatizes comedy of a State which runs a system of patronage to silence its critics. Moloto puts it this way: "pounama di rokwa ka chelete.” Loosely translated, it means that people’s lips are sealed with money. It is interesting how Moloto’s story carries similar plot lines and character types that you will find within the current drama of power and money in our land.

But forces of renewal continue to survive.

Any word for young idrens, the Vrystaat broer and sisters still living in 1982 (I'm referring here to the four young men entangled in the 'Reitz Racism' scandal, who 'allegedly' fed Black Free State University janitors food that was urinated in, and had the audacity to film the incident) ?

[KM]

We must correct things.

End notes for the unfamiliar reader:

Prof Mathole Motshekga is now serving in the ANC government, we don't know if he is still giving talks to youths.
Thabo Mbheki was unceremoniously kicked in the mouth, and head butted off Tuinhuis by his former deputy. Luckily his sophisticated wife was not harmed, though his mother incurred the venom of the Young Lions.
The Reitz Racist Four as their fondly known in the press world, Oh well ... they received a slap on the wrist, from their respective parents and an apology from the rector of the university , I suppose it's for the inconvenience the Black people have caused.
Me, I've since submitted myself into an unaccredited rehabilitation programme, it works wonders. Year 8002 here I come Whooo hooo....:)

Edited by Unathi L. Sondiyazi

sneak a peak (I'm naked)

2010-02-08T14:43:00.005+02:00

Ok. It's like this. Somewhere in these pages, a man and woman lie exposed (look carefully and you might find more than just one couple). Shrouded in sheets of words and wonderful figures of speech. I usually try to liberally count each word that comes out of my succulently wet, thick, prune-coloured lips. Just as my mother cautioned me.

Do you know how embarrasing it is accounting for a slippery tongue or words that remain garbled and knotted in the channels of your unspoken thoughts? It's even more horrifying explaining that you chocked on a word, even a simple four letter word... but these things happen. So it happens somehow, strangely enough, in a moment of distraction precipitated by this young lady's worrying reticence, I managed to weave this untidy sentence to unblock the mood

"...do you have any secrets, you'd like to let me in on?"

I asked her, trying to peel the layers of our friendship... and perhaps earn a privileged glimpse into what she harbours below her skin.

She unravels her naked body and exposing her bare intelligence, with her wit erect like aroused nipples

she offers me this little sneak peak...

"...I don't have secrets. I have issues."

-END-

Unathi L Sondiyazi

Orbiting in Bofelosphere

2010-02-02T18:15:00.007+02:00

Amongst the growing youth of South Africa it is common to hear the name Biko being spat across coffee tables, or echoed endlessly at poetry gatherings by politically infused yippies and street prophets, and pretty much anyone with enough fingers to clentch an egg-sized "Black Power" fist. There seems to be a continued commoditisation of his image and a struggle against Stephen Bantu Biko’s legacy in an attempt to co-opt him into the mainstream, of current political diatribes. What does this imminent commercial cult of Biko mean?

This interview was conducted after the 32nd commemoration of Biko’s death with wa Bofelo. In a conversation via Facebook Mphutlane and I talked about remembering the man in whose honour the commemoration was held and explored the impact Black Consciousness has had on his political philosophy.

Mphutlane wa Bofelo; a former political prisoner at a fragile age of 17, whose matured to be an admired husband and father, a respected activist and ferocious poet/essayist working in KwaZulu Natal. Author of four anthologies: The journey within (2005); Remembrance and Salutations (2006); The Heart Interpreter (2008); Bluesology & Bofelosophy (2009)

Enter the Bofelosphere

(images by: Bofelo)

[UnathiL Sondiyazi]

I imagine you are reading this letter with yesterday's Steve Biko commemorative poetry reading still freshly lingering on your tast buds. I'm aware that this is not the first time you have brought such an initiative to the masses of your hometown inZamdela, Sasolburg, although you now live in Durban. Would you like to explain the motivation for such interventions?

[Muphutlane wa Bofelo]

It is pertinent that adherents of Black Consciousness should create their own platforms for keeping the name and legacy of Biko alive and for the articulation of the message of BC and ideals that Biko stood for. This should be understood within the context of various efforts to dislocate Biko from the Black Consciousness Movement in particular and political activism in general to portray him as some kind of pop icon.

Today Biko is spoken about as if his only claim to fame is being the author of "I Write What I like”, to depict him as an idle intellectual and social activist. The reality of the matter is that Biko operated within the framework of an organization, S.A.S.O. (South African Students Organisation), B.P.C. (Black Peoples Convention). There were times in which he was a leader and other times in which he did not hold any leadership position in the party. But liberals of all hues do not want us to remember this about Biko.

They want Biko without political activism and a Biko not related in any way to the organizations that were given birth to by and are embedded in the traditions of S.A.S.O./B.P.C. They want Biko as iconoclast; detached from radical politics calling for a complete overhaul of Apartheid-capitalism and advancing the ideal of an egalitarian society.

In 2007 I warned that the 30/30 hype was an attempt to remember Biko in order to forget him. I have been vindicated. Last year and this year’s Biko Weekwent passed like any ordinary week, devoid of the fan-fare that characterized the 2007 Biko Week. (Biko died in police custody on 12 September 1977)

[ULS]

And how has your persecution by the Apartheid apparatus reinforced your conviction in Biko's political validity and intellectual relevance, then and today?

[MB]

The role of activist like myself is to stand against the murder of memory, for indeed a people without memory perish. The one thing that the liberals and conservatives hate Biko for is the role played in reclaiming the right of Black people to think for themselves and to define themselves.

Even the interrogation and harassment in police custody was aimed at instilling fear in us and at making us to see the world through eyes other than our own. That’s why I came out of apartheid cells more convinced that real freedom is being able to define yourself and your own world.

[ULS]

You are a fervent activists and outspoken critic of the A.N.C (Afican National Congress) government's policies of servitude. You recently published a scathing critique on www.allafrica.com and it appeared in several other websites, this is but a single incidence that I’m referring to that shows your concern for humanity beyond just the concerns of skin tone. With this in mind, what do you make of the apparent "Arabization of the Sudan" as Chinweizu* calls it, which according to Dr. Jalal Hashim* has led to the massacre and displacement of millions of Black Sudanese?

[MB]

The politics of identity continue to be important in the world we live in today. But people choose to bury their heads in sand when they have to confront the issue of race and class in South Africa, Africa and the rest of the world. There has been for instance a lot of denialism around the happenings in Sudan as well as a great deal of trivialization that does not take into consideration the peculiarities of the area and the dynamic interaction and inter-influence between race, class and religion in that country.

Let’s talk about the question of "Arabisation of Sudan", as Chinweizu calls it. The prophet Mohammed (PBUH) is reported to have said that whoever speaks Arabic is an Arab. In the context of a Saudi Arabia in which the non-Arabs were a minority and were slaves or descendants of slaves, this was a call against the “othering” of these marginalized people in a heavily tribalistic and ethnicity-obsessed society. But in the situation where an African majority is made to speak Arabic, embrace Arab culture at the expense of losing their African languages and names - which are couriers of a culture - this is cultural emasculation that has more to do with power and resources than religion, but off course religion is often used to entrench various forms of the de-personalization of a people.

(images by: Bofelo)

[ULS]

Do you think that the racial attitudes and stereotypes of the past that still define today's class society can be abolished? And if so, would you dare prescribe a method?

[MB]

You don’t deal with issues of race and ethnicity by dodging them; you have to confront them head on. Anti-racism, not non-racialism, is the only approach that wills burry racism. We can use different platforms and mediums, for instance I as a writer I must try my best to weave in anti-racist discourses in my writing and everyday life.

[ULS]

You have published a number of anthologies and The Heart Interpreter, was received favourably by the mainstream media, are you working on any interesting projects or even another publication?

[MB]

I locate my writings within the broader struggle for an egalitarian and the particular goal of reclaiming the humanity, humanness and dignity of my people- who were subjected to vicious ways of denigration, de-humanization and de-culturization for centuries. I have just finished a manuscript of poetry in Sesotho, tackling contemporary issues. It’s my own way of saying our languages are not inferior. The literary-ness and aesthetic quality of my work as a writer do not depend on my writing in English.

With proper focus and effort we can produce great works of literature, philosophy and science, and so on, in our own languages. On the other hand I have an English poetry book waiting to go to print; it is called “The Breath of Life”. Currently I am putting together what I call an anti-poetry book entitled “Cover Girl.” The title comes from the poem: ”Black Madonna”

[ULS]
Thank you for your time.

This interview first appeared on http://www.panafricanspacestation.org.za/

Some footnotes for you:

*Chinweizu. Why black Africa should resist Arab domination of the AU. Paper presented at the Global Pan-African Reparations and Repatriation Conference (GPARRC) on 25 July 2006, at the University of Ghana, Legon, Accra.

*Hashim, M Jalal. Islamization and Arabization of Africans as Means to Political Power in the Sudan: Contradictions of Discrimination based on the Blackness of Skin and Stigma of Slavery and their Contribution to Civil Wars. Paper presented at the Africa Institute of South Africa, Ebukhosini Solutions, Centre for Afric Renaissance Studies in celebration of the 46th Africa Liberation Day with the Nubian People of Sudan and Aficans all over the world on 21 May 2009, at University of South Africa, Pretoria.

Unathi L Sondiyazi 14.09.2009

An imperfect peace

2010-02-01T12:08:00.002+02:00

You're here and I'm here too.
Quiet.
Dead silent.

Traffic is hushed today
because...
A peculiar peace walks these streets:
dominating each household, tarven and shop (even the mechanic's garage).
It winds up and down the entangled Boulevards
and makes its way into the mainroad.

With only a lingering whiff
of a breeze
steadily,
step-by-step,
trailing after this rather unkind peace.
It finally stops in my ears.
Whispers to me only what an erratic breeze can pronounce.

The silence breaks inside my head:
From my heart trying to weigh
this "alone-time" against "loneliness"...

Words change their colours,
and thoughts reshape their contours, even
Space shrinks its girth
everytime you are around.

But each time you fail
to open your mouth
the silence expands... and
the awkward peace strangles all
eye contact
and kills both of us dead.

Un8 31.01.2010

On a lighter note

2010-01-18T17:50:00.004+02:00

This writing is strange. Let me walk you through it, my unwriting that is. The records that I have been preoccupied with are “transcripts” of an interrogation between the 'Self' and 'Memory'; and some of them are featured in this article ‘Pencil marks & Other adventures’. My revelation is this... The self does not exist without memory.

Three weeks into the new decade I’m still wearing a sinister smile, whose origin I cannot fathom. The person who placed it there I can not identify. The person responsible for elongating and stretching it farther than I thought possible to make a person laugh without a reason, their face too is also unrecognisable. The other person responsible for usually ripping any smug grimace off my face, them too I 'can not' describe. By now you must take umbrage with my bullshit.

“Is your memory that fucked up cat?” I can hear you lambast me for withholding crucial gossip from you...

What the hell did you expect!?

Now tell me, what would you say if I were to tell you that they are all one person? That all these wonderful women are one person eventually... Would something be amiss with my recollection or my selective telling of the story? Let’s ask memory.

Memory, which I would like to consider as an ensemble of all known and unknown stimuli- can not be forsaken in some secret compartment of the brain. Memory is a living organ, like your eye, your inner ear, your tongue, your nose, the skin you are delicately clothed with, the innards we cannot see but we know exists...(unless ofcourse Love rips you open with a sickle and offers your heart to an angel who long-lost her wings at birth) Just as sometimes we can feel our guts revolt and at other times we’re compelled to expose our self to our innards and vice versa... Memory is merely an ongoing, an ad infinitum reflection.

‘Hahaha! That’s strange.’ I can almost hear you retort dejectedly, with caustic sarcasm, trying not to believe my promise.

'Strangeness' is not an entirely negative quality, but it is a concept imbued with social politics. This writing is a political expression of the heart. A distorted and jaded version of what memory is. Strange is urging forward when you must reverse or backslinding when you must charge ahead. Strange is this not talking with yourself; bouncing desperate glances on the uncovered page, romancing withering Time, and molesting easy-to-come clichés, and attempting to lure god into your bed, hoping to father her children.

On a lighter note though, the politics of memory can simply be described as unmemorable, hence the unwriting. Do you get me?

____________________________________________________________________________________

Motivated by James 'Jimi' Marshall Hendrix's The Story of Life

We will guide the light
This time with a woman in our arms

Unathi L. Sondiyazi

scented cents

2010-01-07T11:58:00.003+02:00

Scents and cents

From under a burning suit of flesh; glaring through the dancing iris – I feel a virtual smell of hyacinths delicately suffuse the olfactory instruments with the temptation of a scent of flowers in full bloom.

The air is sterile and rendered immobile by the cloudless azure skies, which seem – to the unsuspecting eye, to be multiplying the domain of the great waters.

The thirsty ground, peeled open by the hope for delayed rains, sows scotched pebbles, weathering stones, polished bones, stainless steel blades – everything including many a dead livestock … burying everything, like seeds with no access to nourishing water.

While we wait... the grass, the wild herbs, thickets, bushes, trees all heed the call of their simple destiny. Meanwhile the soil is bloated with the death it inherits from those species of fauna which consider the sun’s ultraviolet rays too cumbersome to bear.

The green peaches turn orange and are blush with red, from the blend of heat and warmth, benevolent sunshine and miserable daylight. I feel thirst in my throat – etching its presence like a drought. Subsequently my skin dilates, the water escapes, disguised as misty droplets… It is upon these endless pores perforating the epidermis where cilia of varying length stretch out to the world, where the Sun obtains its distinct character; the flesh and soul of man.

From under a burning suit of flesh, the “I” boils from sin. The sun reeks through my pores. And like burning desire I hide behind my eyes; in the flickering shadows of burning flesh. The invasion of scent through my nasal cavity and clogging of my skin with sun’s residue; the sweat reminds me, I like smell like the Sun.

Unathi L. Sondiyazi
XXIV. IX. MMIX

a late apology

2009-12-21T17:16:00.003+02:00

Below my carpet of hair lies
a sobering mind...
My dear -
a sober mind
is like a minefield
that has to be trodden expertly
in order not to detonate
any suppressed and unsavoury memories.

Beneath this tattooed wound
on the left-side of my chest...
My dear -
a thundering heart
refuses to go to sleep
lest I appease my upset conscience
by muting my injured memory
with these conciliatory words...

Not easy to utter
These words, my dear -
can make a poet stutter;
So I take in courage
measured with staccato bites of air.
Remembering it is the age
to apologise to those I have wronged
and grant mercy to those who spite me.

I formulated these words
Inside my unwilling head
In an attempt to be concise and unpretentious
Yet truthful to the spirit of the letter
But dear…
Then I conveniently forget how I hurt you
And I too tell myself “That was then”
What use are words anyway?

Then my tongue
pressed against my mouth’s hard palate
Unable to verbalize these knotted phrases
until these conciliatory words untangle each other from the grip of my ego
and make an escape through an old wound
patched above an unguarded heart;
unwilling to let go of my slaves
I lure them back to me using a naked page.

Left thundering rapturously
From a futile attempt to save them from reaching your ears
It is so, with a subjugated hand and a willing pen
I execute myself thus:
"Dear
I treated you rather unkindly,
betrayed the only gift worth receiving
and trivialised the very rare phenomenon that's hard to come by.
Mind you I do not regret the decision taken
Nonetheless I regret disappointing you as I did."

Then I conveniently forget.

Unathi L Sondiyazi

Self pity

2009-12-15T18:10:00.003+02:00

(a dialogue between unidentifiable non-persons as reported by the 'author')

Like a pet mongrel it watches you eat shit

Something akin to a rodent
If it lives in your kitchen
You need to kill it
Unless you are feeding it
Even if you are
It’ll gnat at your bread
Your burnt bread!

Baseless
Your thoughts wander
Thus he wonders
Wonder ...
As the homeless healer wonders about his house
...the country?

No wonder you fumble

Humble ?

Reflect!

Broken door handle
No access
He locked himself outside himself

Free the dog

Kill the rodent

...The door opened

Revolution spoken, written and lived

The hurting healer hurdled hastily...
Watching a pet mongrel watch him eat shit

Fumble.

Revolutionaries wondered along with the times...
A humble- fumble?

A great robbery of self identity!
Self pity?

Yes, self pity!

Unathi L Sondiyazi
17.05.2008

I have found another other

2009-12-07T11:49:00.002+02:00

Walking, actually strolling along memory lane…
a nonlinear path down memory of history
and history of memory,
a wide and literal canal for moving and transporting thoughts
between two destinations: Being and Non-being
both sum constructs of invented Time and un-occupiable Space.

I have traveled thus far
Knotted and curled by these post-colonial and neo-liberal formulations.
Always aspiring toward the source of all prime numbers,
searching for absolute truths,
Right and Wrongs to hold onto-
for fear that I may fall off this slippery ground
upon which morals, principles and standards are founded.

Here I am confronted with another other –
confounded by tribal identities, national alliances, racial codifications…
And a society whose moral apex is at the base of the proverbial human pyramid;
synthesising and carving new identities from ashes of Yesterdays’ tears.

A human other, the “I” - I seek has been
obliterated by thoughtless philosophies.
Where can I begin digging in this cemetery, where Time lays waste below an unmarked memory?

Unathi L Sondiyazi

hold your breathe

2009-11-18T09:52:00.002+02:00

71 weeks and 6 days
(dear friend/s hold your breathe for what you're about to hear stinks)

All along... they envy you
those few bystanders
who watch armsfolded
as you derail yourself
off the trail of your dreams

All along... they envy you
those previleged few
whose time you consort;
those like big Hugh the miller
from Oscar Wilde's The Devoted Friend
who silently urge you to your demise

All along
the trecherous rapscallion
is lusting and conniving
after your beloved soulmate...

How you must hate yourself?

now - Breathe

Unathi L Sondiyazi

undecided; about this love affair

2009-11-13T17:54:00.003+02:00

I wonder what will hold us together
once the body-fusing deed is done…
And our urges are satisfied
When my curiosity is quenched
and your lust is finally satiated?

I wonder what will be of us
When we wake side-by-side -
Exhausted
Out of breathe
Short of words?

I wonder what will become of us
when only our skin pores;
smothered with yesterday’s sticky passion
are the only witnesses
to our unsanctioned experiment with destiny?

I can not help but wonder
what will keep us on this dance floor
when the music stops?

When I have made up my mind
I’ll embrace you with nibbling kisses
I’ll assert my desires on you
I’ll thrust myself into the depths of your infatuation
I’ll visit your fountain religiously
I'll please you so long as it satisfies me...

I think I might just join you on the dance floor.

Unathi L Sondiyazi

so far away (an unhealthy tribute)

2009-11-10T16:57:00.006+02:00

I miss you… not

Some days are stranger than others. Sometimes words in an assorted lump of alphabets tumble onto my page without purpose but with sufficient momentum to morph [me] from a blank page into a poem. Perhaps then that symbolises my purpose as a creator - I was just slow to realise it? Once I had experienced the effect and impact of that incident, only then did I recognise the hidden through the benefit of hindsight.

I am so far away, from where we were - when I last spoke to you over the phone. The distance is both geographical and emotional. Fortunately the sudden estrangement has brought to my attention some very obvious blindspots, of which I was not privy to and I wouldn’t have appreciated them otherwise. They were mere ghosts, finally made visible. Their form, texture and size is intruguing and I’m indeed mesmerised by their existence.

Indeed some ghosts are stranger than others. Today, nonetheless I’m standing over the bridge, that keeps me nearer to you and leads me farther away from you- whichever direction I take, the effect is that of a zero-sum equation. I’m exaggerating as you might have noticed but I’m only trying to bear this cruel truth. This is my confession.

I have been romancing memories of you, summoning our shared moments at a wink of an eye; and my senses would instantly collapse under the deluge I have created. Submerged and unable to fathom the folly of being powerless to exercise selective-memory recall, I cannot gauge the danger of living under the spell your absence casts upon me. Hence when I first noticed the signs of my pending horror, your friendship was the first memory I assassinated.

In the immediate darkness that subsequently followed that deal breaking Wednesday conversation. I began purging off any reason that would’ve pursued me to walk into your presence on Friday, presenting forth an undressed truth wrapped in a green scarf together with an envelope that bore a naked letter with no words or embellishments… because what I had to say, was to convey a reality that then, I was not prepared to embrace...

In the thickness of that betrayal whilst pinned to the epicenter of that schizophrenic craze rolled between my fingers, I began pillaging away at portions of you that resonated and thrived within me, especially those that bound me to you during our moments apart. I shredded pictures, hid and buried anything that narrowed the six hour distance. I began ripping off all tenuous hooks that connected me to you. And in between everyday tasks during my moments of reticence I waged war with those tough hooks; that had become with time, incorporated into my lymph system like cancerous tumors do on their hosts’ bodies.

Indeed some memories are stranger than others. Yet the violence waged against you which quickly reared its poisonous wrath toward my longing and desire for you -broke its back in the face of the adoration that, for hope’s sake, I still treasured.

It is upon this bridge- I am standing; at the other end of hindsight, seconds after my frustrated outburst. Several weeks after my, emotional suicide… many months succeeding the rejection of love… an eon away from your tender grace… a wink of an eye away from my memories of our shared-life, an unkind love-affair, reckless indiscretions and generally un-reciprocated attention.

Some words are more devastating than others. Indeed some truths are better undiscovered; their enlightening delights undrawn. I have wandered back to where I first died; where I first lied. I’m trying to seal your memory away in an adverb called then along with many other festering memories and un-sharable experiences. Once more I’m rebelling against your lingering presence and its dictatorship of and crude license over my memory. I’m trying to forget you but I’m so far away… so far away it seems improbable.

I miss you.

Unathi L Sondiyazi