Neighbours You Would Like To Miss Poem by Gert Strydom

I

The type of whites that camp out
on the sidewalk
frying their barbeque just there
with chops and sausage grilling,

enough for a huge feast,
talking loudly in order to inform
the whole neighbourhood
what they are saying

and with heavy beat music playing, partying
and dancing to early morning light
while their kindergarten kids
are pushing carts up and down
in the street, getting every
dog to bark all night long.

II

A bull of a black man
almost gigantic in size
who uses his pickup
to unload a huge black ox

in his back yard
and then slaughtering the thing
just there with it bellowing
to invite his ancestor ghosts to visit

the neighbourhood and his garden
while a witchdoctor is dancing
around the beast, singing and beating a drum
and then he tries to spit roast it
on a huge fire burning all the meat and inviting a squadron
of minibus taxi drivers to a feast of uneatable charcoal.