My Mother’s Tongue
My mother’s tongue lingualized
long before the acid mine drainage
long before the dewatering Witwatersrand
came upon its knees.
My mother’s tongue lingualized
long before the forced removal act
inside my mother’s womb.
My mother’s tongue lingualized
with textiles from exile
rigorously speaking of
her traditional philosophies.
My mother’s tongue speaks
all dialects and ascends them
in descending order.
My mother’s tongue
stuck in the diaspora.
My mother’s tongue Alhamdulillah
then black magic erupts.
A Black Hymn
For Mzuzephi Mathebula
after he had delivered a eulogy in Shalambombo
The magma and stature of lava
that leaks from his eyes
are tears of solitude
that have met its maker.
Disposed,
died and
multiplied
incarcerated
multifaceted, with a machete
mutilating vowels
the black boy from Moliva River
speaks in tongues
at the Peninsula
lungs burdened by the smoke
inside
the dark hole in his heart
bared by his bruised ego
barefooted,
carrying a load of soulless pain
silently enduring through pains of knobkerries.
Bloodline Aligned
An ode to those who came before me
From the Nile river
to the Jukskei streamline,
the thirst of the Kgalagadi desert
whispers vocabulary that radiates
and ululates its radioactive clan names.
Extended,
from the depth of debris
that leaks from the Serengeti.
A root of the family tree
emerges along the rainforests.
The rainmakers from Mogadishu
to the Okavango Delta have arrived.
A long line of matriarchs
that have escaped extermination.
Evaporated,
from the plains of the golden savannah
scorched from the black soil of Kemetburg.
Hambukushu.
A Spillage of Vowels
After mob justice looted the kraal of vocabulary.
I spit the vowels
on the floor
then split them
apart, in no alphabetical order.
My mouthpiece a segment
it will cast a spell
upon you and
your tongue
will twist.
You will speak
an unsung language.
Consonants will run
away from your
mouthful speech.
Finally, idioms will lurk
the edge of your
mouth and
your brain will exhume itself.
Hazardous.
An Archaeological Poem
A eulogy of an ancestral ceremony
A toyi-toyi in motion
intriguing as gravity
Witwatersrand in disbelief
radiologists protesting outside the
grievously misunderstood cemetery.
Archaeologists threatening to
carbon date our ancestors inaccurately.
So child, now you must catch
your tongue before it departs,
for your mouth an Orion’s belt
in the Milky Way.
They will seek your vocabulary mercilessly
you will be assimilated.
You will reek vocabulary,
but you will be mute
you will not say a word.
Leave now.
A Steatopygia of Vocabulary
After the remains of Sarah Saartjie Baartman were shipped back to Azania
I hold double-edge sword
from the stone-age wasteland.
I patiently wait for the Dutch-East-India
ship at the tip of the Cape shore
Teleported
from Pangea village to the city of Antarctica
Himalayas to Maropeng,
hijab covering her face
She has climbed mountains barefooted
she has moved them with ease
Then hiked on them
hiking but as poetry
She reached the peak.
She conquered this mountain
So her fossils are my ancestors.
