Limpopo*
By Robert Anthony Gibbons
“a writer is a being in whose sensibility is fused, the duality of inwardness and outside
world, and he must never be asked to undergo this union.”
(Nadine Gordimer)
I am a colonial brother and this is not metaphor,
in our time, in our telling time, we have witnessed
the voices disappear from ink, did not have
a South African childhood, but the same rain
that would not quell the fires in the ghetto, be it
the fires of Soweto, or Kinshasa, the fires
of Sharpeville or Watts, we have witnessed the voices
disappear from the ink, did not have a
South African childhood, but what is in
a name not the gold mine of the Transvaal
nor the relics of old collieries, the huts made
of dung and mud but the transported muck in
my feet, north yellow cornfields, but the
apartheid of the sugar cane and the celery field,
the same peonage of breath, the same ruin of swamp
nor goats or donkeys, but the rain will not quench
the fires, and it has nothing to do with the lie
it is the name of another bush, of another time
to be romantic, or pedantic, and somehow
we know they know of the inequalities, the folly
of the burning countryside, the burning of the sugar
the displacement of the diaspora, the name changes
but the latitude connects, the dust clouds travel
equatorially, so I will remain a black shebeen,
a cinderblock, a subdivision of a neighborhood
and try to mimic real earth, in this berth of fire
so in our lifetime, the telling times, if you had
Mandela then I have Obama; the change of old
guards the shards of hate and nation building, then I am
can only be a political prisoner, incarcerated
by this apathy, this raft of background and for this
the forgetful left as a vestige, a colonial, on the other
side of the ocean an explosion of fires, ire of dirges,
merge into the creole and censor my mouth and heart,
but the part in spirit manumits, transmits into the level
for the ancestors and they do not have color, the festival
of lights just the necessary clause of a protest novel,
a short story when it comes to antiquity, a litany of voices
disappear and sphere into the utmost, a banned list of conjurers
and soothsayers, dream catchers, and life savers, without form
or fashion, torn from the quilt with their passion
in our time, in our telling time, reconcile with the
July people, the blues people, the orange and red people
the people of the goat path, in this time, telling time
the hypocritical becomes the political, the judicial
becomes the juridical, but the end is not yet, so we
look forward, with an inside eye, without sentiment
or laurel, without praise or accomplishment, in this
time, in this telling time, to archive, to provide,
the ink for the generation yet to come.
By Robert Anthony Gibbons
“a writer is a being in whose sensibility is fused, the duality of inwardness and outside
world, and he must never be asked to undergo this union.”
(Nadine Gordimer)
I am a colonial brother and this is not metaphor,
in our time, in our telling time, we have witnessed
the voices disappear from ink, did not have
a South African childhood, but the same rain
that would not quell the fires in the ghetto, be it
the fires of Soweto, or Kinshasa, the fires
of Sharpeville or Watts, we have witnessed the voices
disappear from the ink, did not have a
South African childhood, but what is in
a name not the gold mine of the Transvaal
nor the relics of old collieries, the huts made
of dung and mud but the transported muck in
my feet, north yellow cornfields, but the
apartheid of the sugar cane and the celery field,
the same peonage of breath, the same ruin of swamp
nor goats or donkeys, but the rain will not quench
the fires, and it has nothing to do with the lie
it is the name of another bush, of another time
to be romantic, or pedantic, and somehow
we know they know of the inequalities, the folly
of the burning countryside, the burning of the sugar
the displacement of the diaspora, the name changes
but the latitude connects, the dust clouds travel
equatorially, so I will remain a black shebeen,
a cinderblock, a subdivision of a neighborhood
and try to mimic real earth, in this berth of fire
so in our lifetime, the telling times, if you had
Mandela then I have Obama; the change of old
guards the shards of hate and nation building, then I am
can only be a political prisoner, incarcerated
by this apathy, this raft of background and for this
the forgetful left as a vestige, a colonial, on the other
side of the ocean an explosion of fires, ire of dirges,
merge into the creole and censor my mouth and heart,
but the part in spirit manumits, transmits into the level
for the ancestors and they do not have color, the festival
of lights just the necessary clause of a protest novel,
a short story when it comes to antiquity, a litany of voices
disappear and sphere into the utmost, a banned list of conjurers
and soothsayers, dream catchers, and life savers, without form
or fashion, torn from the quilt with their passion
in our time, in our telling time, reconcile with the
July people, the blues people, the orange and red people
the people of the goat path, in this time, telling time
the hypocritical becomes the political, the judicial
becomes the juridical, but the end is not yet, so we
look forward, with an inside eye, without sentiment
or laurel, without praise or accomplishment, in this
time, in this telling time, to archive, to provide,
the ink for the generation yet to come.
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