An Irish barber’s tale by Martin Lochner

On busy station road you will find an old barber shop with red chevron pillars and a small retro signboard depicting a male with a pipe. The little shop is no bigger than my apartment living room and is snuggled between a ruffian biker bar and a pawn shop. With rowdy fist fights on the left and drunks selling their last possessions on the right you could go to Uncle Sweeney’s for a decent crew cut and a story.
Uncle Sweeney survived the D-Day battle in Normandy but lost all of his family due to the war. There was famine in Ireland and he felt there was nothing for him to go back to. He was allegedly standing at the Southampton harbour and received two voyage passages to two different countries.

United States was the one destination and South Africa the other one. He allegedly flicked a coin and the toss would decide where he would find his pot of gold. The result put him on the vessel that sailed for Cape Town.

He would later recall that fortune was on his side when he tossed that coin because New York was already crowded by the Irish and that the Limerick Gang were looking for him due to an outstanding bookie account. When Sweeney made the advance he was convinced that he would not survive the battle and therefore spend the “little amount” on the brothel and drink before the eve of the battle.

Arriving in Cape Town he had only two Service hair cutters he stole and concealed in his army back pack with a nifty scissor and shaver set he removed from a dead Nazi on the front. Feeling some gratitude for the allied forces that taught him to cut hair, he decided to make it his trade in South Africa.

When you enter the little shop, the smell of spirits, powder and Jojoba oil lingered in the air and the old Panasonic played crackling songs of Frank Sinatra and Billy Holiday. The walls were crowded with yellow stained pictures of old and dead heroes of the past and the magazine closest to my chair reported the big flood of 1977.
Uncle Sweeney’s assistant looked at me while finishing a small boy’s hair and said” The old man died in his sleep last night but his wife left a small note with a bottle of Jameson for you ”
“Martin, it seems Sweeney had premonition of his death and wrote this letter with a bottle of whiskey for you”
Sweeney’s note with Poem:
Ah my lad...you knew me best! I return your poem back to you with a bottle of the good stuff and for god sake no mixing it with Coca Cola! I have no regret and love you from my Heart of hearts ...find yourself a decent barber that knows how to cut sheep’s hair!

My friend Sweeney

the roaring laughter
ridiculous tales
sold as the truth

he was unstoppable

those evenings at the hearth
we exchanged views
between a bottle of whisky

as the mellow drink settled inside us
and the last red embers died

I saw his face damp and the heartbreak
of a thousand Irish families in it

rubbing he complained about allergies
telling me a limerick and cracking the seal
of another good label

Post Script: Funeral speech
10 Life lessons old man Sweeney taught me:

1 Home is everywhere you go, it is right inside you.
2 Every job is noble and worthwhile when done with passion and gratitude
3 Accept the hardships of life and compose a Limerick for each disappointment
4 Enjoy the good in your life and toast every happy event with a tot of good Irish whisky
5 Live as if there is no tomorrow and if the next day arrive run like hell!
6 Never lose a fight against a woman but if you win than God must help you!
7 A man without a tale or a song is no man.
8 Dishonesty is not good but if you must: lie the truth
9 Be true to yourself and be of the same cheerful mood every day.
10 Make the most of the little resources you have and help others.

the aliens by Martin Lochner

It felt like Christmas in my suburb with local choral groups parading the streets, singing gospel songs and waving candles. The churches were full to the brim and plastic chairs were put on the lawn for the unlucky ones that could not get a seat inside.

A big screen television was mounted outside and a Pastor delivered a booming speech about the book of revelation and the end of all the sinners. “This is the fullest I ever saw the St Thomas Evangelist church.” I thought.

Driving was extremely difficult with whole families walking in their pyjamas and crowding the streets. They were armed with family bibles and were probably going to join up with the singing or congregate at the church.”So mother were right about the craziness that was occurring here at home”

I was pulling up at the garage when father ran from the porch towards me” Come in! The streets went nuts when they made the announcement this evening” As I walked in I saw the neighbours curtains was closed and no sign of John that usually watered his garden at this time. “Where is the Gillian family dad “I enquired from the old man that was now pushing me into the front door?”

Mother was standing now in the corner of the entrance and answered me weakly ” Dick ,we heard shots go off .” Father chipped in “ it was gun shots ....I think they killed themselves” Did any of you contact the Police “ I asked and they looked at me blankly .Mother was tearing up and said dryly “ Does it matter Dick ,in 48 hours life as we know it....”she then collapsed unto her knees and was sobbing.

“Jesus Mom ,they could not confirm it definitely and they are still investigating if this piece of junk in the sky is a hoax....come on let me help you up, we need to pack ,we are leaving the city “ I am not leaving my house for the looting bands to plunder “ Father said picking up his Lee Enfield and waving it. “ For fuck sake listen to me ! We were fleeing from a looting gang that ravaged a whole city and the radio said that they were on their way to the affluent neighbourhood of Goodwood .It is a score of at least 500 heavily armed men coming to rape and plunder ”

2

“It’s not a good idea Dick leaving like this, the Police Commissioner said that we must stay at our homes” Dad said from the back seat. Mother nervously looked at Dad for support and said “ They also said that if these things saw us fleeing then the changes was greater for them to attack us” Feeling growing irritation I stopped the car and turned around to face them “ My dear parents I am taking you to the remote desert where we will be out of the centre of attention. Mother removed some knitting work out her bag and dad sang the chorus part of the final countdown that played on the radio.

We arrived at the desert and we drove to one of the old missionary stations that were left abandoned after they gave up on the pagan Bushmen. These poor believers did not yield one converted Bushmen for the Kingdom but rather followed these little men into the bush to learn their shamanism to the outrage of the church.

“ It seems other clever folks already beat us for the best rooms in the old building” I said when I saw activity and vehicles at the camp. Mother dropped her knitting and said staring into the glaring distance “ It seems they are sending out a welcoming committee because cars are coming towards us.”

As the blots increased in definition it was the National defence force vehicles and they were hooting their vehicles and some of the troopers shouted at us.” What is their bloody case and look that one soldier is aiming his canon at us ! “

Boom! Boom! Boom!

The vehicle explodes when the bullets hit the body of the vehicle.Dick somehow survived when the impact of the projectile violently ripped him out of the car.

Almost completely paralyzed he tries to lift his head to see if his parents survived but is unable to do so and can only hear the screams of his father” I am burning ,oh god help me” A shot goes off and dad fell silent.

A soldier stands over him saying “ What the hell are you doing here !” Dick somehow pulls himself up slightly and observes in the distance big mounted missiles. Crying Dick says “ Should you not focus on rather killing the aliens that threatens our planet, you fucking murdering bastards!

The Soldier smirks and says “ there is no alien’s man...the image in the sky is an illusion of light and image and the media reports are all false. Those missiles are intended to reduce the total of the undesirable human population on earth . Certain ghetto towns, scoundrel countries will be wiped off this earth”

Unfortunately you now possess privileged information and must be terminated. The sound of a 9 mm echoes and the countdown starts :

10

9

8

7.........

Flash fiction : Desperate measures :

There were no harvest.
The swollen crop turned black.
Like gangrene the gold left the flesh of wheat and died.
It all just gave up in a bloated fit,
It was the absconded rain of last year that came earlier this year.
The flood of life drowned tons of swaying second changes.
The revenue washed away in a deluge of debt.
They needed to pay the thirsty overdraft of the bank and a hungry advance from the Agri.
Pending payment to an inherited John Deere, a new Massey Ferguson with a blown gasket made this strong farmer as defunct as his broken tools.
The seasonal pickers with bundled babies and wages stood in those cursed lands and prayed.
All of them prayed now.
The Misses of inherited acres knows the hurt and damage to seven generations of shattered morale.
One could say that God worked contrary to the expensive forecasts, wishes and happiness of the farmer.
The farmers wife looked at her man and taught him to eat from the forbidden fruit :
' Fatten the livestock with the dead crop and accelerate their growth with hormones'
' Slaughter earlier ' the farmer said and the son wondered about the consumers and his art tour in Europe later the year.

Poetic Justice on the hard streets :Crossbow Annie by Martin Lochner

L&L is a second hand dealer that purchases insurance write offs from the scrap yards. With a few ingenious methods they somehow fix these fatal wrecks with excessive amounts of putty, reinforced chains and heavy detergents. The last scratches are hidden under a thick layer of polish wax and chips are blotted away with nail polish. Road worthy certificates are easily arranged with a case of whisky and a night at some Russian lady lounge that always promises lipstick smeared orgasms.

The salesmen are gold teeth brokers from hell and sell these wheeled coffins at a profit margin of at least 200% a unit. Everybody is approved every time and even the blacklisted customers get credit with a ridiculous payment plan that can never be honoured. The pride of the lot is the repossession team that looks like a cross between the Universal soldier and the terminator. Fierce chinned Uzbekistan chaps that break down doors and crack kneecaps to return property to the lawful owner called Spider.

Spider was the local Russian Mafia that ruled main road and had territory marked off from Maitland station to Woodstock plaza. Dealings in pawnshops, second hand furniture stores and a few other illegal ventures made him a fast millionaire in these cut throat parts of the city. He had a huge collection promotional coffee mugs that he displayed conspicuously and once cut of his tea ladies ear when she made coffee in one of the mugs displaying the queen on it.

That tea lady was my mother and she felt no gratitude when he surgically planted her ear back on her block. One day she mixed epoxy glue cement and sedatives in his porridge and somehow this concoction completely disabled him to helpless watch mommy in silence with a crossbow:

This is what she said:

"You wasted my man in one of your bars one evening when he spilled vodka on your trouser and you killed one of my children with your drugs. Let me read you one of his poems just before he overdosed. "

Hard Streets

Heroic Crusader thoughts

Fantasizing the libido chest

Walk the ghetto

Find your dragon

Smoke it or knife it

Find your princess

Pay for her or beat it

Nothing is stranger than fiction

on the hard streets

She looked at him and started reciting squirming Spider's last rites:

Judgement is coming to all you and there will be a gnashing of teeth and those who do not have teeth will be issued with teeth but by the wrath of god there will be gnashing."

"Die !" and she shot him.

Read more: http://www.articlesbase.com/fiction-articles/poetic-justice-on-the-hard-streets-crossbow-annie-4922453.html#ixzz1ZLN8xArF

Under Creative Commons License: Attribution No Derivatives

The farmer by Martin Lochner

Eternity surrounds the ancestral porch where he sat

chewing on the memories of men before him

framed and existing with strict eyes in the living room

he sat there and only moved with the rays of the sun

khaki lizard with pipe tobacco and fingering nostril sniff

with mint eyes he stares into this shimmering mirage of land

“50 years I fought this ridge back bitch of soil” he said

cutting through his back, chewing on his spine of boulders

Grandpa stared at me as a cart load of grain came past us

The donkey moaned and he said “toil is in our blood”

A few points from a wise ass by Martin Lochner

1 .Do not explain the esoteric workings of the universe .I cannot see how you will succeed.

2 Do not accept the esoteric theories of others. You are setting yourself up to be disappointed

3 Because of theories we lose direct transmission of reality and the communion with that reality others call esoteric.

4 Be silent with all your sense on high alert.

5 Take all of life’s experiences into your being and do not create a comfort zone, nor must you run away.

6 The result will startle you, discovering how vulnerable and insignificant you are.

7Feeling every stab and perfume of genuine joy, the sun, moon is yours without any screen distorting your vision.

8 Express yourself without tedious cliché and still you will feel the contradiction between yourself and your work of creative expression.

9 But that tension may combust in its own transcendence and secure your immortality.

10 Ignore point1 -9.

The modern surburban tribe and their way of life :Khoisan Vagrants by Martin Lochner

Franz the vagrant came past my house as usual and greeted in good spirits. Every morning he collected a cup of hot coffee and few empty bottles for deposit. One day I asked him how he could endure to stay a vagrant and to live such a desperate life.
He smiled at me and said” Boss before the Settlers landed here my ancestors roamed this very land as nomads. We learned their ways but the untouched wild turned into your cities and deprived us from our normal way of life. We adjusted ourselves to survive in these modern times and still try to continue our tradition you call a homeless way of life”

Franz spoke authoritatively and with a slight Professor frown and said” Let me give you a basic understanding of how organised we really are”

1 When you start your life as a vagrant on the street find membership with a local vagrant community.
2 Find you a wife and marry her at the local Magistrate court at no charge. Shoplifting for a custom jewellery ring is acceptable or a key ring will also do nicely. The tie you can purchase for a few rands at the Salvation army store.
3 The community or suburban tribe consist of at least four married couples and a leader with his list of house rules that is unquestionable and strictly complied with. Failure to comply can get you an Okapi knife in your back and an unmarked municipality grave close to the sewerage yard
4 The rules are mainly about sharing and dividing the day’s takings and the duties to upkeep their daily domestic routines and chores.
5 The couples start their day before the sun comes up and even earlier when the garbage trucks is scheduled to collect bins.
6 Each couple owns a trolley they snatched from the supermarket and they customised it with bells, streamers and even a registration plate for the sake of creativity and individual expression. Woolworth’s trolleys are the best in that they are moulded out of recycled durable plastic and are lightweight.
7 Each couple is assigned daily to a designated area for inspection and collection of cartons, plastics and glass.
8 One of the reasons for marrying was that he/she assists with the loading and the meticulous separation of the specified waste.
9 With the trolley filled to the brim the couple depart for the recycle yard where the load is weighed in and the amount usually does not exceed twenty rands in remuneration.
10 The money is used to purchase uncut Boxer tobacco and a litre of mark down cellar cask wine. This is the minimum requirement to prolong your stay in the community.
11 Begging is used to acquire food, second hand bedding and clothing for the community.
13 An open fire is made in the Jan Burger recreational park and the woman will busy themselves with cooking a meal out of the morsels they collected.
14 The men will run to get the 19h00 park sprinklers open and take a shower splash with their children. The chuckling laughs can be heard from far away as the children plays in the sprinklers.
15 Drinking will commence and tobacco will be rolled into a cigarette and the sheet will be newspaper.
16 Heated discussions will start about last week news in the paper and old Khoisan songs will be sung by the woman that further entertain the men with a special dance called the “ash foot dance”
17 Heated and flustered with the drink in their bodies they will remove their bedding out of concealed places in the park.
18 The insulation will be cartons on the hard earth and plastic around their blankets to prevent moisture during the night.
19 Lying all in their beds the vagrant captain will says the Lord’s Prayer and ask for tomorrows blessing.

Finishing his cup of coffee Franz said “Got to go Boss, early bird catches the worm”.

12 The day’s takings in drink, tobacco and other stuff is put together and divided between the couples according their seniority in the group.

Pushing Pimples by Martin Lochner

He was dying, fading away and not even fighting it. Looking at me in disbelief and tears rolling of his cheeks he said “You pulled me in front and they shot me”

03 months earlier:

1

The humidity was like a film of glue between skin and khaki and any attempt to clean up only made it worse in the West African jungles. The clean odour of skin invited mosquitoes and parasites to suck on your blood.

Our losses were grave with our section reduced with another three men. Two got missing and one was dragged away by a tiger. The real enemy still remained elusive and discreetly picked off our men with expert sniper shot in no man’s land.

 A two week assignment became a three months struggle to extract an important family that got stuck in the kill zone where republican and rebel troops were butchering each other. The price in body bags was not really worth it anymore but we were obligated by a contract of service

 We returned back to base for replenishments and fresh reinforcements were awaiting us. It was kids standing with MP3 players and IPods, acting cool while staring at us as we passed them by. Slipknot was screaming in their ears and their shiny eyes were looking for experience and   bloody adventures. 

One kid was assigned to my group that covered reconnaissance. On the morning just prior to heading out the boy furiously scrubbed his face with Clearasil and combed and gelled his spiky hair.

He was a real handsome guy and it was funny to find him here and not between adolescent girls on prom night or the football field scoring points for his team.

2 – Fatality

Fucking Marine! ...I am a fucking Marine he was chanting and I told him to shut his trap as we entered the contact area. The Kiddo started turning pale as he smelled burning flesh of livestock and humans, he was sweating profusely as he saw dismembered men and disfigured human limbs strewn around after a mortar attack on the village during the night.  

Death was no X-box simulation game and the fun ravaging lyrics of his sadist artists were vicious. The real scenes sickened and crazed him in the long grass. He lost it screaming and urinating in his pants. Blowing our cover, I knew that contact with the enemy were now inevitable, I smacked him and said

“restrain yourself or die today child “

The enemy came in floods and what a macabre scene, they were dressed in woman’s clothing and their faces were concealed in primitive death masks. The Machine gunner cleaned five belts of ammunition and maybe killed a score of an hundred cannibal soldiers but the adversary total were only increasing. I prepared myself for death and instructed bayonets to be fixed for a fight to the death.  

They Shot cousin brother John through the skull, Staff sergeant Willis through the mouth and slowly our totals reduced in bloody waste. The boy was still screaming without end and we were starting to lose the left flank when I pulled the boy in front of me to take a hail of bullets intended for me.        

I was sole survivor concealing myself under his dead body. It was a close call when one of the rebels heard something close to us and picked up the kids IPOD that were still playing that raging music I heard at base.

The rebels in their satanic appearance danced to Slipknot, firing their AK 47 guns and celebrating their victory. They were in sync with this devil music and the dead American kid lying in his blood seemed peculiar to it.    

“Does your mother know you are here” I said to the kid as I was preparing his body to be moved 

3 – Mercenary conscience

Feeling a vague undefined guilt I buried my old veteran comrades and decided to only take the youngish body with me during the night.

Putting him on the mortuary’s stainless plate I noticed for the first time that a pimple was pushing through his tender skin and that the Clearasil was not so great in the tropics.

Memorial Day    

father leaves home early

not returning

mother fears the worst

father talking the previous evening of death

stroking the border scars on his body

crying “why did we die in the war!”

mother sends me to the military graveyard

walking the numerous rows of white crosses

revealing the loss of 17 years old boys

finding him asleep on an adolescent grave

 I wake him, tell him to come home.

Commentary:

I was a mercenary soldier out of choice. A psychological theatre of war was already occurring inside me since the day of my birth and the horror of an unhappy childhood. I was not merely shooting down real man during engagements but also my demons. Protect your children’s consciousness at home and never send them to fight wars. The shattering and scaring of their consciousness is permanent.

   The survivors

     The dead fortunate in their forgetfulness!

     the living cursed with the blemish of memory!

     their souls trapped in barbwire dream catchers

     forever reading damned oracles of fear

     Trying to dismantle

     they tear and cut themselves

     in endless strands of despair

Eightball by Martin Lochner

Mel the Orphan was the local pool room champion for the last ten years and delivered set piece victories against the toughest adversaries from all over the country.

She was also the modern suburban Socrates that survived from her wit and skill with the chalked stick. Mel offered her complete life teachings she derived from the causative effect of the game while she cleaned the table.

The list of her wittiness was inexhaustible and for a few coins in the slot a rarefied knowledge was yours:

“Keep your fortune close to your pockets” (Bring your balls close to the holes)

“Start difficult, end easy” (Play the obstructed balls first)

“Life’s curve ball can straighten out to hit the hole”

“A soft hand also gets the ball in”

Waving the eight ball after giving you a beating she would always say “Remember what I told you, it is all in the finishing game-make it count “

One sunny afternoon coming from school I saw the Pool hall surrounded by Dennis fire brigade trucks and ambulances. A bystander whispered to another curious lady that a fire broke out due to defective electrical wiring in the roof.

Mel died in that fire and sacrificed her life to save two minors and her last heroic words to her students were:

“It’s all in the finishing game-make it count”

The graveyard is now adorned with a massive eight ball tombstone that is inscribed with her best sayings.

The pool place has ever since become a shrine for pool enthusiasts and philosophers. Mel will remain in our hearts and will stay our town’s peculiar and uncommon sage.

Railway blue city by Martin Lochner

I was born very awkwardly in a small railway town in South-Africa.

It was settled in a harsh region called the Karoo.

It was a settlement that rose out of this rough, flat bushy country.

A community that sloth fully struggled to subdue floating tumble weeds in mainroad and returning growth of fauna on its pavements.

I always felt that we did not belong here with the extreme test of weather to discourage us.

The winter froze up our water in the copper pipes and our children got sunburn under the Poplar trees that were incidentally also the only skyscrapers of this village.

We did not belong here but the Railway company was insistent that it wanted its switchpoint station here.

A community of blue collar men waited for the next seventy years to service bleeding and broken trains that came from the cities.

The semi desert landscape that always seemed to echo the screeching and rambling of on coming metal coaches and steel grinding steel.

----------------------------

Teljoy: flash fiction by Martin Lochner

Like Jazz, poverty improvises.ML

In 1987 I recall that father got a promotion and we were all happy.

Father still not earning enough money hired a black and white tv from Teljoy.

He entered the house like a victorious roman emperor on a rainy day in May.

Not having extra cash around mother fried some potato skins and four boys huddled around the box watching Heidi.

I loved that animation and colored the alps,Peter and old grand pops with my imagination.

Like Gaguin I learned that the palette of my dreams were always going to be brighter then my circumstantial reality.

The next month Father took a heavy blow and got retrenched.

I returned back to my old habit of watching my shows through the window of my neighbor.

It was a color tv but the colors were not so great as the old black and white.

Scream: A brief history of Oppression By Martin Kalahari Lochner

Please read this carefully and wait for the conclusion before you start with the crit...I want to thank Marion with the help she has given me...this is then a brief history of South African turmoil in the eyes of one South African called Martin Lochner.

Scream: A brief history of Oppression

*1*

undaunted by mountains and rivers
and plains and predatory death
a defiant people made a great trek
in search of freedom lost

the settlers’ plough
smelted and moulded
to work a farmer’s dream
breaking stubborn ground
metal sparking darkened rock
struggling against Africa’s stronghold
battling through weeds and reeds
claiming our acre without shame
frustrated inch by bloody inch
cutting with blistered sweat
and burning toil to deliver the spoils
to a majority indigenous race

the granaries are now full
the cattle and sheep have been fattened
and now the call is for the defeated to rule
take our ancestors chipped tools
nationalise the wealth you deem ‘stolen’

embrace the misery that rages
from the Nile to the Limpopo
your promises remain promises
labour suffering as usual with

Aids/hiv
tuberculosis
overpopulation
lack of education
etceteras of corruption and crime
the eclipse of the continent blots
the sun again.

Malema’s revolutionary call: ‘shoot the boer’
the reviled boers ripped from their farms
go to catch the midnights express
leaving this land of travail saying

 when you have starved your people
get Mugabe,
Kaddafi or the
Eurasians to farm it again
leaving here is pain
nothing more to gain
flowing blood
that makes khaki stain



*2*

accusing hard-working farmers
encumbered by debt
who combed and levelled thistles and thorns
subduing stubborn veld to create

 symmetrical crops and grain fields
who keep the mills grinding
bakery chimneys smoking
between four wired borders
they called their sloth their own
rising before dawn
walking alone into the fields
worries about hail or rain

succoured by a simple
leather bound faith in providence
believing our suffering to be
in proportion to what we can bear
that God controlled our fate
and that of our fragile harvest

red- eyed
sunburnt
we prayed and meditated on an unforgiving land
that thought nothing to miscarriage a good harvest
our way governed by a few non-negotiable principles:
1. do not discredit our God
2. do not deprive us of our land
3. do not disrespect our wives and abuse our children
4. do not touch our guns and never ask to drive our cars

 but our generosity to complete strangers is immense
opening up
our koeksister and moer coffee kitchens
inviting them to our dinner tables
warming them with homemade brandy

and percale linen and blankets
sending unknown men and women
from our porches as lifelong friends



*3*

freedom was never offered to us
like a good-hearted man flicking
a nickel to a homeless beggar

we paid for it dearly, fighting
majestic and terrifying tribes of Z
ulu warriors
who wanted only our torture,

 chanting ravaging foreigner death
of the fair-
skinned
honourable contracts and verbal agreements
for land and a right to exist
earned Piet Retief a crushed skull and
a permanent good bye

our forefathers forgot us on the big
old toe of Africa, as they fled back

with east Indian company ships
to pursue occupations growing bulbs
and maturing cheese
while we remained
meeting the barbarian hordes
who organised
themselves like
sworded red ants and no conciliatory words
to prevent the bloodshed coming

the pastor prayed:

 if it is your wish dear lord,

we will perish courageously
but grant us victory in the shadow
of death and we will unify as
new peoples in this heartless country

mothers moulding lead bullets

children loading muskets
fathers dodging spears and keeping
the laager intact by
shooting and knifing the adversary
till the last battle cry echoed

andries Pretorius
believed moses
visited the slaughter site where the river
ran with blood tainting the fish eagle’s water
the price of our freedom was the death
of the pagan thousands strewn
and forgotten in the long grass
like a naughty child’s domino tiles

 our dead are
buried
wounded are tended to
farming commences


*4*

plumes of smoke drift over
the karoo land
limpid blue skies
turning
grey and flaming red


one kommando farmer
seeing the smoke near his land
races his horse with a rabies mucus froth
to find his life’s work

scorched and burning
and a note dangling
on the front door

 scorched earth policy,
children and
women
detained until you swear allegiance

to king and country
swinburne soldier poet compares the inmates
to whelps and dams of murderous foes
but the rednecks do better

keeping them in coops like
stray dogs or pathetic stray kittens.

bright eyed children burning with consumption
tormenting guilt of mothers failing to quench

the thirst of the young and the old,
losing their minds and feeding babies
their lacerated blood.

death camp moaning
as gangrene rots
inside tents and coverings
agonised screams as
legs and limbs are amputated.

 kommandos overlooking those camps

weep over the suffering
of our loved ones
62000 die in those gentleman’s death camps
and the queen gets the cullinan diamond
for her successful campaign

fearless warriors who use att
ila acumen in the field
bring
the great empire to its lion knees
shooting them down from horseback
simple men that fight
out of a simple conviction that our land
is not going to be sucked dry
by the colonial leeches.

guerilla warriors crawling on proud knees
relinquishing their spirit
for the release of our families
the rednecks relishing the squirming
of a stubborn boer

dirty tricks succeed where battle has failed
to defeat these
fighters on the fields of war

 bloemfontein decorated with the tombstones of the
albion people and their wealthy exploits


*5*

increasing feelings of insecurity
english law prevails and traitors
die in front of firing squads
and hang on the weight of their corded necks

elevated gentry smile in bronze
shakespeare
invading every street and boulevard
children receive the victorian rod for
failing english reading and grammar
the civil threats of “if i ever
hear
you speak afrikaans you will be expelled”

english aristocrats reach our shores
build mansions and elegant homesteads
along the scenic south ridges looking down on
the misery of the peoples feeling the sting
of taxed oppression and social crimes.

 leaving the cape colony to claim
independence
we open a diamond encrusted hole
mining and working our wealth
a sense of pride returns

news from the witwatersrand tells that we have
found
a vein under the ground that

spurts golden blood and that
we could finance a government for free men.

trooper ships landing after hearing of inland fortunes
the reds marched,
echoing gongs
and drumming like captured monkeys.

my scottish brother did you forget the freedom cry of sir william wallace
my irish compatriot did you forget the yearning sighs of saint patrick

generals chatting up a storm
with old roman sophism

 over tea with honey
become offended and declare war
using their wealth in their favour

as far as her majesties sun rises

polished button troops escape
that horrid island taking in the sun

and learning their safari trip entails
more than seeing the big five of Africa

friedrich engels notes the successes

of the industrial revolution
the power loom and spinning jenny
ransacking and mangling the bodies of
cheap laboured work house minors and woman

working them 16 hours a day in low,

damp ceilinged factories
a lack of running water and sewerage,
misery increases
manchester becomes a place of cripples and amputees

 an empire clothes it’s young ones
in helmet and uniform promising them three
square meals and a few pounds to send home to
welfare families starving in english towns

*6*

we serve a cucumber sandwich queen
giving our lives in two wars

when the northern hemisphere turns mad
bi polar churchill sends us to die
in suicide missions in caen and tripoli

independence given after enough blood
is spilled and king george visits our shores
giving folk the royal wave and a practised smile

pennies and pounds beco
me rands and cents
afrikaners control
our destiny again
never! we cry
under oath
will the boers submit again
we would rather die on our feet

 than crawl on our knees seeking mercy


*7*

apartheid codified, promulgated and entrenched
diseased act of our leaders to neutralize
and destroy any neurotic threat
fearing to become slaves they enslave a nation

boers exchanging khaki
for cotton lounge shirts and polyester suits
enjoying the image of the master in their gilt-edged mirrors.
black framed frowning officials zealously planning group areas
and keeping the best prime property for the new found afrikaner elite

one morning coming into district six
with earth moving machines
the army and the police smilingly
do their enforcement work
relocating complete communities
and planting them in shacks in the
dust and grime of the cape flats.

 fair-skinned coloureds applying for id cards
officials testing their ethnicity by asking them to say thirteen
failing the tests they relegate them to garden ‘boys’
and kitchen girls for the rest of their natural lives
smiling subserviently for a sjambok hiding
and weekly pay that consists of half a litre harvest wine
living on ‘the book’ they never will repay the debt
to fill their stomachs and to raise their children.

neither black nor white they centre
on the humiliation that they exist
creations of prohibited enjoyment
after inter racial copulation of boer and bantu.

never really supporting the boer mandate
never integrated with the fate of the blacks

floating about and fitting the puzzle
never finding the piece that will connect their identity
in the bigger scope of things

feeling the desolation of indifference and subservience
teenagers become despondent, forming gangs
drugging, fucking and killing themselves
into a stupor and hormonal hysteria
crying in bloody t-shirts that they also want

 to be doctors, pilots and engineers

hopeless coloured boys robbing their elders on the railway bridge
sweet sixteen mommies
with clinging snot-nose babies found stealing in shoprite
dixie boys and american gangs fighting
the system against each other and afrikaner cops
coming to despatch them from this earth

wastelands of people staying in subsidized pigeon holes
overcrowded cubicle flats of cockroach misery
blocking the sewage
tripping the electricity

breaking fathers’ spirits
ogling the depths of a beer bottle
emptying a week’s livelihood
gurgling it down at the station
going home and handing small change to feed the kids

breaking mothers’ desperate hearts
working victoria street fishnet style
or getting it behind from dry dock china sailors
feeding her whelps after a night’s buttocks drilling

 rubbish collectors singing operettas
maids reciting homers iliad
boys replicating god’s finger
holding a nokia on council walls
all going to a bloody sorry waste
of humane opportunity
genius is skin deep
and the bronze on you does not fit buddy

power never shares
the english taught us well

psycho barbwire dividing:

the master and the slave
the victor and the defeated
the rich and the poor



*8*

 leaving rural kraals
to find work in the cities
leaving wives and children behind
promising to send a subsistence and some letters

going to hostels and townships
working the mines
dying of asbestoses
buried in unmarked municipality graves

walking through afrikaner suburbs
looking for gardening or ironing jobs
stopped by police to check the ‘dom pass’

checking the time
running fast for the last train,
the clock rule prevails
otherwise a good beating and a night in the ping
going back to paraffin shacks
winds ripping on oil skin roofs
cold frosting and heat perspiring
on cardboard box walls

 growing resentment of
whites only signs into banks, restaurants,
parks, beaches, and public toilets
verbal, physical, emotional abuse,
cursing their predicament

the neighbour cries as her husband is taken away
by the security police
beating him into a yellow service van
for anti government activities

activists sent to robben island for twenty years hard labour
tortured to a mental fry... cleverness rocking in psychiatrist ward
despatched from life in pretoria correctional facility
the wife vainly enquiring about the whereabouts of her husband

plaatjies forms the african national congress
awareness starts with steve biko dying violently in detention
bleeding empty for being a clever kaffir
resistance grows with walter sisulu
conviction increases with desmond tutu
nelson mandela cool calculator for freedom
takes the gamble for the collective relief of suffering
knowing the rivionia trial could cost him his life
not recanting he takes detention for 27 years of his
life...working ceaselessly in a confined space
to direct the apartheid theatre

 the african youth rises up in the townships, throwing
the bones for their futures
burning tyres, obstructing paths, with mere
stones they confront the military,
willing to fight to the death
in sharpeville the armed forces shooting
rubber bullets, then loading live rounds
shooting children in the back as they flee

poor hector peterson picking up the last brick
gets three in the chest and dies in his brothers arms
a journalist gets that award winning picture
and the world rages calling an end to this horror

fw de klerk having his cigarette in mandela’s cell
calls a truce and works ceaselessly to start the countdown
for the end of the segregation regime
he instructs the release of nelson mandela.

outraged silence prevails in the suburbs and joy
sounds in the ghettos.

 *9*

south africa decides the fate of the nation
through democracy leadership goes
to former freedom fighters and power
belongs to the poverty stricken population.


*10*

father leaves home early
not returning the evening
mother fears the worst
father talking the previous evening
of death
stroking the border scars on his body
crying “why did we die in the war!”

mother sends me to the military graveyard
in maitland walking the numerous rows of white crosses
tombs revealing the loss of 17 years old boys
fighting the communist insurgents on the borders
of namibia and angola

 finding him asleep on my oldest brothers
grave i wake him, tell him to come home.

struggling with him i never saw him sobbing before
grieving the death of his child who fought
for country and cause
cursing himself saying that he pushed his boy
to protect the homeland
from the nation’s enemy
cutting his face with the pins
of the pro patria medal and crux honorius
he received for bravery
he cries
“for nothing my child, nothing!”

 *11*

the once fervent dutch reformed church
and national party, that indoctrinated the young
to support apartheid, change their ideology overnight
and instruct the young to have a forgiving attitude

and to ask god’s grace for the
terrible sins of the fathers

teachers filling the boer youth with angst
decrying the lot of our people
preaching our downfall
and the suffering and humiliation to come.
defeated talk of elders and parents
spitting bitterness and hopelessness about any future
the young denouncing their culture and inheritance
changing their names and learning english,
playing british

signs of insipid suicide in the eyes of tomorrow’s future
principles fading
and the overwhelming sense of being sold out
gall on the swollen tongue

 *12*

the wheel of power
turns steadily
the most stubborn of convictions change—
as does the constitution.

hardened afrikaner patriots
zealous former torture camp commanders
and the intellectuals of apartheid
cry and apologise for their iniquities
hug and embrace desmond tutu and his
righteous entourage of godly coloured men
and the truth escapes their lying bellies
to save themselves they bad mouth
everything that was worthy to be spared
slaughtering the spirit
of a culture that groomed

pierneef
leopold
cj langehoven
and chris barnard

 confessing how under the banner of segregated politics
they killed, enslaved and oppressed out of
sheer individual pleasure to hurt.


*13*

with nowhere to go
the once mute africans chant
for justice and feverishly threaten
one bullet one boer.

azapo screams
to drive the boers into the oceans

bombarded with documentaries
and anti-apartheid propaganda
walking head down and hearing the insults, apologies
and the accusations,
i wonder who is to blame
i am just a pimply teenager
groping already to understand
my hormonal pendulum moods

 one african boy approaches me and spits in my face
calling me a racist dog
keeping silent i make haste because the violent crowd
watches my every move and reaction
reason will not convince them
and death is close.



*14*
i also know discrimination
my father is a railway man
hard worker but really going nowhere
average mind and kind spirited

he does his best providing for his family
listens to the powers without question
humbly believes every word they say
good fortune for not being rebellious
teaches us the simple tenets of our inequality
unspoken rules about our conduct
if the ‘bosses’ come to visit
teaches us the tenets
that all blacks and coloureds
are inferior to white men.

 teaches us wrong but believes it through habit
he lovingly protects us and guides us
to fit in to the well- programmed machine
that controls all of us.

“do not speak to the blacks unless you want to go to jail”
“do not walk with the coloureds unless you want to get
a salt bath caning at the court”
the little railway town divides into four
segregated areas
the black township outside on the national road
the coloured location on your way to the town
the railway community on the outskirts of town
the whites in the affluent suburbs
the professional and mercantile community in the hub of the town

the blacks hate all whites and some coloureds
the coloureds feel a shy contempt for the whites
and hate all blacks
the whites feeling pragmatic irritation
towards the coloureds hate all blacks
the white railway workers feel subservient
to the upper class whites
the upper class whites feel superior
to the railway class acting snobbish
and just indifferent toward the coloured folk
the attorney’s son is always class captain or prefect

the banker’s daughter is spring queen of the town fair
passing with distinction
teachers predict my future
reprimanding me for thinking
i can become a medical doctor
a railway worker like my father
i will become

*15*

the new government fast tracks
evelopment in the workplace
initiates affirmative action on recruitment
and selection of previously disadvantaged people

matriculating, straight flush of distinctions
affirmative action, no bursary
affirmative action, no work
?
work as a car washer, car guard, security guard
no promotion, affirmative action
work double shifts, overtime

 cut back on necessities to save for my studies

study with difficulty
boarding with runny nose poor whites
passing cum laude in economics
no prospects, affirmative action
leave the country
flee affirmative action
make 7 million euros in a year
the government taxes me and calls me
privileged white aristocrat sitting on old money


*16 *
the land of the south celebrates
almost two decades of democracy
brags about the most progressive constitution
on the globe

but as old monuments are ripped apart
and street names are changed to honour freedom fighters
the country is thrown into hell

johannesburg becomes the most dangerous city
in the world to live in

 hijackings
robberies
murder
rape
and the etceteras
of hideous crimes erupt on the scene

government fraud, corruption and misappropriation
of much-needed funds for hiv orphans and the old
overflowing, decaying derelict hospitals
and deteriorating basic services
incompetent municipalities and sewage overflowing
into the main roads of communities
devastating strikes, riots and unrest engulf townships
pregnant slums, poverty increasing
due to lack of employment opportunities
stagnant home affairs department
scamming housing developers
bankrupt broadcast company

condemned to a freedom the world celebrates
this brief history of oppression gives me
meridian flight of thought

 *17*

recalling tolkien’s lord of the rings
power in the hand of any man
destroys himself and others
but who will be the burdened ring bearer
who destroys the root of all evil
dropping the symbol of power into the fiery fires
of mount doom

no more political utopia fancies for me
king’s noblest intentions do not save
the hunger of one starving baby
if he survives they give him a rally shirt to teach hate
and the boers will in turn be taught to hate back
because we are either oppressed or superior

conclusion:

i offer no solution
god forgive us all for the violations we perpetrate
against others and ourselves
this is not just a story about the boers it represents all the

 red indians
negros of the american south
rainforest tribes
mayans
street children of brazil
victims of apartheid
victims of idi amin
victims of atrocities in libya, egypt, iraq, afghanistan
victims of the first world war / second world war
genocide in rwanda and sudan
victims of fascist italy
victims of fascist spain
nazis of germany and the holocaust
genocide in bosnia
aborigines of australia
victims of communist russia
victims of communist china
victims of the pol pot
victims of the tamil tigers
victims of fidel castro
the pain of the tibetans

amen