Still the Sirens
By Dennis Brutus
Still the sirens,
still the sirens
stitch the night air with terror—
pierce hearing’s membranes
with shrieks of pain and fear:
still they weave the mesh
that traps the heart in anguish,
flash bright bars of power
that cage memory in mourning and loss.
Still sirens haunt the night air.
Someday there will be peace,
someday the sirens will be still,
someday we will be free.
1989
Dennis Brutus, Durban, 1/1/09
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Stubborn Hope
By Dennis Brutus
Endurance is a passive quality,
transforms nothing, contests nothing,
can change no state to something better
and is worthy of no high esteem;
and so it seems to me my own persistence
deserves, if not contempt, impatience.
Yet somewhere lingers the stubborn hope
that to endure can be a kind of fight,
preserve some value, assert some faith
and even have a kind of worth.
1977
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The Diminishing Road
By Dennis Brutus
The road, too, diminishes:
one would see less if one tried;
it is what ageing is about—
if one gave it thought:
generally though, one is content
eyes fixed on the road,
content to see what can be seen,
unanxious to speculate
about a possible road—
the diminishing road.
---
Musgrave Centre, Durban, August 2008
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The Mob
By Dennis Brutus
6/1/09
(Durban's inner-city has witnessed a mob of xenophobes roaming. This poem is about a white crowd who attacked those who protested on the Johannesburg City Hall steps against the sabotage bill in May 1962.)
The mob
These are the faceless horrors
that people my nightmares
from whom I turn to wakefulness
for comforting
yet here I find confronting me
the fear-blanked facelessness
and saurian-lidded stares
of my irrational terrors
from whom in dreams I run.
O my people,
O my people,
what have you done,
and where shall I find comforting
to smooth away your mask of fear,
restore your face, your faith,
feeling, tears.
1963
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The New Monastics
By Dennis Brutus
23/2/09
Dennis: "Medieval scholars plotted—or tried to plot—their universe; now Summers, Geithner, Zoellick, Strauss-Kahn, et al have a similar enterprise."
Tall black-shadowed cypresses
slender beside arcaded cloisters:
thus were monastic enterprises; now with our new doctrines
secular-consumerist, we bend
with similar devoutness in service
to our modern pantheon—
Bretton Woods, its cohort deities—
World Bank, IMF, WTO—
diligently we recite
“We have loved, O Lord, the beauty of your house
and the place where your glory dwells.”
“Amen,” we chorus in unison,
as ordered by our Heads of State.
Obediently, we traipse to our slaughterhouse
directed by our Judas-goats,
Mbeki’s herds tricked out in shabby rags,
discarded by imperialist gauleiters
who devised our Nepad subjugation.
– ActionAid Economic Justice course, Kenyan School of Monetary Studies in Nairobi, November 26, 2007
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A Tribute to Vanessa Redgrave
By Dennis Brutus
Dennis: "I just read a tribute to Vanessa Redgrave, in the January 2009 issue of 'Your Family.' She continues to campaign on behalf of the Palestinians."
Still her voice is a silver trumpet
among war’s bluster, barrage of lies,
storms of wailings, sirens’ shrieks.
When I was served—for a second time—
with another 5-year house arrest,
having come from Robben Island,
she sent me recordings she had made
of ballads and resistance songs
(perhaps to comfort/console)
during the time of Vietnam’s war,
via my editor-friend Ruth First,
Solidarity in Struggle!
Still her voice is a silver trumpet
crying: Justice for Palestine.
5 January 2009
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Tribute poem to A.ELutchman “Little Chief”
Trimly honed, he moved with ease
among colleagues, respectful of work
attentive to skill, ability
he gave full measure
to all demanded of him
gave effort, energy, work
more than was measured
was praised far below his work
Dennis Brutus Tribute poem to A.ELutchman “Little Chief”
October 28, 2008 Durban, South Africa
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