Poem by: Mandi Poefficient Vundla

                                             UNTITLED

(In a land where we are declared free, we need to be able to speak freely)

A shack can’t afford a plot of land to stand on corrugated feet

so homeless houses plant their struggles in gravel gardens

where rotten apples grow seeds

that run away from starving

only to grow hungry on the streets

the black rose from a bed of thorns

that left our petals torn

the roots of our mother shoot to kill our fathers in Marikana

the grass is dead

our roots no longer live there

My kind

mine bread crumbs beneath the surface of the breadline

nothing new under the white son

black absorbs the heat

and we are still burning

The incense has lost its scent

our ancestors their strength

coz we blacks have become too damn scared to unlearn apartheid

That school rings a sensitive bell

when the 2nd period of oppression is a language

in Afrikaans, you must pass

for varsity to give you a chance

it’s how multi- racial schools you in class

rooms groom a generation of bantu English fools

where wrestles motherless tongues aren’t pruned

colonized wombs bearing jungle fever baboons

they call your cocoon

like it grew in the middle of the great Karoo

then a native land act swept you to the zoo

endangering our species

we’re nearing extinction

So black child vuka

your dreams seek to serve you proper breakfast

not just fat cakes

cost effective food is only effective for as long as it keeps you full

Freedom is the right to choose what to eat

the comfort to excrete

without landing you feces on the streets

The long walk to freedom constipates my feet

coz it’s a white lie

sold to a black child

with a burdened heart

coz daddy is a security guard

watching buildings instead of building a better man of his son

mother cleans the white house

no presidential pardons

for these children of the slums

so text books get dumped

Young ones

no longer raised by their grandma’s

me I want a white matron

she will serve my kids bacon

in a greasy old apron

They will call her aunty

throw tantrums when they are hungry

then we can talk about this equal opportunity

when my garden boy is white

my garbage boy is white

all those on strike, on a go slow

are as white as snow

we can then bow to this nonsense of a rainbow

when the farmer can’t stand to be called BAAS JOHN

so the farm boy simply calls him JOHN

Tell me

when the CBD rocks Jozi streets to sleep

what’s the colour of the skin inside the broomstick

sweeping hopes and dreams

passed cnr Sauer and Bree and desires to read

past the dust outside the Library gardens

so dear white son I beg your pardon for declaring clear

white skies to my black rainy eyes

when you claimed to have never met any who feel inferior

The graffiti you left on my Facebook wall

doesn’t change the fact that you are who are

because of us

The bullets you aim at my raging tongue

wont murder the truth

you’re an inheritant of your fathers sins just like I am of Eves

Yes, you weren’t there in the struggle

I wasn’t there in the garden of Eden but I bleed

your apple doesn’t fall too far from my tree

yet you fail to believe in white supremacy because the government is black

I’ve watched some of you turn your backs 360degrees
still burns us blacks.

By Mandi Poefficient Vundla