Jabulani Mzinyathi Poems

when you sing the sweet melodies
mine will be the discordant voice
hold you by the scruff of the neck
repeatedly shaking the conscience
...

there is a poet
embedded in every prophet

taste the caustic poetry
...

the village torn apart
incessant quarrels everywhere
the village head drunk
his wife picking quarrels
...

bits of betting cards
strewn on the floor
like confetti
bits of fractured dreams
...

hear the beautiful tapestry
woven from the consciousness
see the images of freedom
that undulating beat
...

in the trenches together yesterday
burying comrades in shallow graves
burying kith and kin in shallow graves
the tree of freedom by blood watered
...

thought we were in it together
thought we were our own liberators
thought you were driven by altruism
did not know of latent mercenary tendencies
...

bereft of dreams
dreams bashed by truncheons
dreams under the jackboots
jack boots of the philistines
...

the demonised drum
speaks to my soul
soothing my african soul
sweetly caressing it
...

and when the artist speaks
through the deft brush strokes
on the canvas
through the chipping chisel
...