by Raphael d'Abdon
in marikana
i have seen black children staring
at their fathers’ lifeless bodies
on their way to school.
stale blood clots under their
perfectly polished shoes.
at school
all the teachers were in their place.
cosatu did not call no general strike.
what for?
the english teacher was crying.
the math teacher was drunk, as usual.
the history teacher spoke about the new constitution.
the geography teacher spoke about the richness
of south africa’s soil.
in the nymex
the platinum futures shot up
to unprecedented levels,
still
most kids at lunch break
had no food in their scaff tin.
with empty stomachs
they all sang nkosi sikelel’,
then went back home.
their fathers’ corpses were still there,
just a little colder.
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ABOUT THE POET ~
Raphael d’Abdon (PhD) is a poet, scholar, editor and translator, and the author of four collections of poems, "sunnyside nightwalk" (Geko, 2013), "salt water" (Poetree Publishing, 2016), "the bitter herb" (The Poets Printery 2018) and "Selected poems/Poesie scelte (2010 – 2020)" (Besa, 2021, bilingual edition English/Italian). He has done readings in South Africa, Nigeria, Somaliland, India, Italy, Sweden, Canada and the USA, and his poems are published in journals, magazines and anthologies in South Africa, Nigeria, Ghana, Malawi, Singapore, Palestine, India, Italy, Canada, USA, Australia and the UK. He is the poetry editor of the literary magazine BKO, South Africa’s representative of AHN (Africa Haiku Network), and a founding member of ZAPP (The South African Poetry Project), a research group of the University of South Africa (UNISA) and the University of the Witwatersrand, whose chief aims are to create innovative poetry teaching methodologies, and to instill knowledge, understanding and a love of poetry in young learners.
Last updated September 07, 2022