Confessions of an Albino: “freedom is
a very simple idea
this explains why
it can be so easily lost”
Blackness is not a psychological complex
Or complexion
But a positive state of mind
Whoever is racially discriminated against
Is Black
It’s the West
v/s
The rest of us
Thulani Sifeni rise from your grave
And bear me witness
Past collaborators and former traitors
Demand free tenders
To extort the revolution
A re/union of priests
And witches
But the struggle carries a price tag
Whose throat will the revolution slit?
‘Cos betrayers
Make radical noises
And the right slogans
-the fake rights & the true left-
My calloused feet show
Their true colours
Now I’m working the talk
Kill a doer kill the former
tiktok/ fork-fork
Cuban guerrilla-doctors
Braved heavy bombardment and died
On African soil
International solidarity beyond rhetoric
Fidel took not a cent
For the thankless job
But the remains of his fallen
Sons & Daughters
Comrades-in-arms falling side-by-side
Across vast stretches of the savanna
An outreach programme
Is not to bury your head in the sand
Like an ostrich
Or to chirp pseudo-leftist noises
Like a hatchling of a partridge
My pen is the sound of cartridge
I’m the sniper
Going out for the viper
Doors of the Empire are locked
Wide open
To keep the hot-head
Outcast poet out
Mbongeni Khumalo is a revolutionary poet and author of the poetry collection Apocrypha