"Talk", poem by Kwame Dawes

The Dosser

I saw you this morning at winter's
breaking point, half on your way out of here
already, your breath rasping at me.

Because I did not talk to you
you spoke Creole into my eyes,
and I went back later to find you:

what a relief not to have to bring and
haul you across my apartment floor.
What a drag that would have been.

Later, working the filing cabinets,
I upped aid money to a new percent,
the street red, green and fluorescent.

to a boer lady

you wonder, madam,
why so much hate,

this endless talk of
colonialism, apartheid.

has the fire of hope
ever burned your sky

to a slow sunset, and
told you 'don't you die!'

i cannot do it, mevrou,
i just can't delete

my past, my past is
buried on this street.

Francis Matyaka

They rush on horseback to you,
crunching stardust in their wake,
sparks flying from their hooves:
the blessed twilight of day. You
smile to no one in particular.
Red questions burn my lips. So
how you feel when them tumble
down hills like this to your door,
a sjambok and panga landslide?
Is your face in their book of hate?
How you feel when your wife
wail with her head in her hands,
like she want to unscrew it
and give it back to God, who
look out of true on the cover
of a magazine? How you feel?
How the heck have you been?

NB: Francis Matyaka was abducted and beaten to death
by Mugabe's men in June 2008. His ransacked body
was discovered two weeks later. Mugabe is still
President of Zimbabwe.