How can Love be dead?
And how do we go on
Keeping alive
This half life
In which we thrive
On borrowed time
Still haunted by these pale specters
In this dry white season
Defying nature’s reason
For why seasons come to pass
[restrict …]But Biko is dead and the nation is still bleeding
Love has fled and a people is still pleading
For a piece of the Devils pie
Mystified by the lie
Of the land
These paychecks
Our wages of sin
Our proof that we are democracies rejects
These salted tears
And wasted years
Mandela’s eternal smile
Our Taj Mahal
Yet Love is not for mahala
In cities, sprawling shack-lands and townships
Where gold stalks platinum down freedom avenues
Here where patriarchs sell their daughters
For blood-sugar-sex-magic
I want to scream
To the resigned melody of A Love Supreme
But the echo of Biko’s dying jolt
Chokes my throat
Until my song wails like a degenerate wind
Or a discarded God crossing the universe on a solitary boat …[/restrict]
Menzi Maseko is a socio-political and cultural activist who works as a librarian at the BAT Centre in Durban. He is passionate about creative writing, nature and spirituality. An avid reader whose essays and public speaking is influenced by Black Consciousness and the restoration of Afrikan dignity.
this article was
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