Stay with me
when the sun
rises
from a western
sky
with silver
spears lashing
at earth and our
youth
when the eastern
horizon
hangs smoke
as celebration to
a fading dream
will you take my
blistered hand
to a kiss?
That journey
between reflex
action
and conviction
where moments
flash
from substance to
emotion
and where we
count seconds as instinct
we live in times
where we are against time
and impulse rules
over us
as undirected,
unelected factor
we live cliché as
fact
and fact is
cliché
to the one beat
of change.
Will you stay
with me
when I have no
more hallelujahs
to your name
and instead offer
dahlias
to your anonymity
when my knees
refuse to bend at your beauty
but my eye of
growth
raises an altar
to your soul
that power that
dreams awake
the Brazilian
forest
or in its
strength of wish
re‑awakens
our dead
at Kassinga,
Biafra
or wherever your
heart lives
among the
innocent dead.
Will you really
stay with me
when I stand up
and sing to the
world
its magnitude
its greatness
for an ability to
turn itself
upside down
while the
inhabitants still believe
in its constance
Unaware
that their heads
are facing downwards.
Nowadays
they don't hang
you by the neck
till you die.
They dangle you
by the feet
till the blood
comes to the brain.
It's a high
feeling that makes you reach for sky
but touch earth
as limit
as ecstasy .
of reaching some
end
because some
journeys are so long
and much longer
when you live in
a dream forest
called poetry.
They say
it is not by
bread alone that we live.
I know.
It is by poetry
alone that we survived –
with poetry
dancing on our tongues
we wiped the
blood from our mouths
we charmed our
torturers
we dangled
freedom bells from our shackles
we made music out
of sirens
we made homes out
of prisons
we redesigned
parliaments out of corrugated iron
we petrol bombed
our angry past
we blasted our
martyrs out of our brains
and we made
shrines out of their graves
we weaved
forgiveness onto our T‑shirts
and with last
remaining droplets of blood
we tried to paint
peace on angry dark skies
we silenced our
solitude
we mated our
humility with our anger
with hammers and
chissels
we punched hope deep
into our hearts
we swam, we
danced and we played water games in our tears
and now,
now we wave flags
so bright
sometimes
brighter than our future
but stay with me.
Stay with me
when the jungle
has no tree
when the wind has
no breath
when the rain has
no sea
the desert has no
sand
the stars have no
eyes to see
God has no mercy
and the devil is
making barbecue out of the land.
Now, will you
stay with me?
Stay, so that we
sing
songs from
experience
we sing ideas
from consciousness
and let's cultivate
destiny
from the
barrenness of this,
this history
Stay with me.
Shall you?
Please?
-- Sandile
Dikeni