South Africa 

The sad bigotry,
Like stalactites,
Cold fingers, 
Paw at the caverns of my mind 

Phantoms, 
reminitions of my past, 
Await me, 
In cochineal cloaks, 
Those ghosts of yesterday 
To feed again,  
Extinguish the lights of my horizons 

I yearn to remove this cancerous growth  
Within my people, 
To lull their cynicism
Into perpetual sleep,
to subdue blaring headlines
And to reroute the meandering,  blundering
course,  of my history

I would draw attention to my beauty,  the sensual mysteries of my nights,
With swollen moons,
That keep a languid vigil
On my fertile lands
And the smell of the rain quenched savannahs,
Or the extravagance of my sunsets that paint me
In colours no Van Gogh could try to capture…

Bag of Skin

The sun shines hot and wet
upon the trees that look bleached and bent
And I am flat and drained as its scornful gaze
wills me to melt into the oily asphalt,
I wait, hopeful for crunch and squeal of tyres
To push me down, down, down,
To where my heart awaits the rest of me
weary of the fleshy, shapeless form I lug around,
All fish-white flab and patchwork dugs,
My flat feet wind their listless way around stilettos attached to shapely calves and vapid heads
My ears cringe,  become small, as they try and burrow back into bone,
The ceaseless grate of giggles and happy chatter,
Like nail on board and cotton teeth,
I want to scream but don’t,
I get the stomach-suffers, the vital smokes
To sooth this shell
And scurry back to the house I hide in,
To fold myself in damp decay
And wait for the familiar rasp and rattle
Of death’s return
And I am no more..