Mxolisi Nyezwa

...

i cannot think of all the pains in men's breasts
without the urge to sleep, or to lie down, I cannot think
without seeing God's face in the child's smile,
or in the lonely cry in the night and in the sea.

i cannot think of all the pains that have come
and gone, pains in men's waists
and in men's shoes -
i cannot have relief proper, wearing a neat tie.

i run around in circles, like sprinkling water,
i can't have true relief, swearing out loud
and counting out the pains in my breast,
and in my pants.

i cannot think of all the pains and all the years wasted,
all the craze of lonely men in village rooms,
and all the bodies that lie out cold, in avoided streets-
i can't run out old, like a joyful child

and watch a sky pregnant with pain, or with turbulent rain;
i cannot think of the soil without lying down,br>
i cannot think of tears, lonely geographies
and the third world, without the urge to cry or to sit down.
...

the sea is so heavy inside us
and i won't sleep tonight.
i have buckets of memory in a jar
that i keep for days and nights like these.
...

for Seko



a man is defined by ladders,
by walks upstairs, or downstairs,
by skills acquired returning home
or escaping the rain.

the man known yesterday is not the man you meet,
forever, around the corner, in Brussels
or in the street, in York Road in Umtata
selling newspapers and coke.

that man is lost forever, like a packet of chips.
his feet supine and delirious when he sleeps -
like a felled bush in the forest
he is never known.
...

we had words in us that we never said.
we could stand in these waterless alleys
and march into the wet rain.

we smelled like starved rogues, we stank
like dying corpses
sailing the warm winds of our silence,
searching in reckless shelters to cool our lips.

we struggled begging conciliation
down the trodden tracks of cold hurricanes
seeking out lost igloos,
we had words within these day-long blues -

driven by cold emotions into the shades and shadows
of a dying land, we had words that choked to be said -
and we never said them.
...

for Malope



at least then, it won't be like this
it will be a totally new suffering
like when a baby sucks his thumb.

it will be a totally new experience
(for God and history has provided)
we won't have to blow our minds
about it.

it will be like a fresh song
from a sparkling songbird
it will be like that for us, as an old
woman sits neglected
on the chair of her memories
it will be fresher, more vital
for us… at least it won't be like death.

and like death we die
every moment of our lives
it will be a totally new suffering
it will be like a song sung free
from a careless heart…

(our failure will have its dignity.)
...