When the Deal Goes Down by Keorapetse Kgositsile

0
Also Read

 


So now you have become increasingly reticent

It’s a long way from the warmth

Of a loving and loved parent

Whose hugs and kisses and mischief

Carry love and care and laughter

Palpable as flowers as a loaf of fresh bread


To this pensive young voice

Papa everything has a reason right

You are stunned to thought

The child is talking dialectics

And you fear what might be coming

You fear what you do not know

Perhaps, you say to the child

But… say… what are you saying


You know Papa sometimes you come home

Tense and impatient

One little thing we say or do

And you threaten to punish us

You yell at us you tell us

You have had enough of our nonsense


All right do you think there are times

When I have a reason to do that

O-o-o-oh plenty of times

Okay next time when there is no reason

Promise you’ll let me know


We dream in our quest

Determined past any argument

To reclaim ourselves our Home

Is the dream thereby insulated

From nightmare which looms and leaps at us


Through the child’s anguish

Which has ambushed her laughter

We do not have a mother

Mama is always away

Struggling to liberate us

When she comes home


It is only to sleep

Scientific though you say you are

You feel haunted by uncountable demons

Pounding you amongst the walls of your haggard despair

As the young voice now barbed

And intractable deflates you


I do not know my father

Papa is always busy

He does not know me either

I pick up pieces of my father

From all the uncles I meet

In search of him


Who is my father

I try to fit these pieces together

To give birth to my father

The clear voice that sees you

With the power of collective memory

Slices the core of you and you shudder


As you hear

The vice is getting tighter

And you’re standing in between

No place to hide

No place to run

Your whole being is a trapped tangle

And you gasp shuddering again


In the heat of your cold sweat

Reeling and wading through the stench

Of your dream turned juggernaut

And you scream

RESCUE ME!

To nobody that you know

To no force you could name

In the moment of when the deal comes down

Post a Comment

0Comments

Leave a comment behind

Post a Comment (0)

#buttons=(Ok, Go it!) #days=(20)

Our website uses cookies to enhance your experience. Learn more
Ok, Go it!