Colour Boundaries Poem by Sir Tshiamo Modise

Ghetto the sea of shacks & sharks the sweet-hazard that has my lifeline written upon
Leth’imali! Sounds of the sharks appearing from the pitch-black shade of shacks
Knifes, books, crime and penitentiary rehabilitation, to live these are the ropes we got to hang on
SOWETO, my mother's nest. So-where-to asked forefathers that had our black backs

Bright got charmed & fell in love with what she used to fall asleep on.... His hands
Hands once used for tsotsi deeds in kasi, but again these are the ‘burbs
Phat places in South Apart-freakier & varsities yes, yes multiracial & multi-everything lands
Lands where lurking prejudice caused the spark we had to be caught in cobwebs

Will the world understand that what we have is poetry?
Love, which knows no colour, love as blind as citizens of this country?
World please understand and leave the rules of the past at the cemetery
All I ask for is liberty; emancipate this beautiful country from this colour boundary

Love tries to give life to what colour boundaries and race ties kills until love itself dies
Arise South Africa; whether black, brown, white or pink we are one
Let this be the answer to the knowledge drought & thirst that couldn’t be quenched by ancestors’ tears
I’m done before your eyes & presence but let not these words adhere to absence when I’m gone