Salute to you big brother Johannesburg
Our inner-city of cosmic trait and talent
Ruling hemispheres with power and aplomb
Peppering the roots that grows pride or ambition

You were born from a gallant Botswana tribe
Light in complexion with rich political history
Bred by my grandfather’s endless sweat and tears
That sowed the country’s first official flee market

You are Canaan to people of the South
Drawing even attention from our neighbours’ eye
Africa’s safe haven of dreams and fortune
Giving hope to all who wish to earn a name

You unfold invincible rivers that cleanse misfortune
And your skies televise firecrackers of fame
You raised pebbles from dust to favorable heights
Still enchanted the world with your blinding lights

You are sweet-motherland’s center piece of glitter
That kept solemn views and left critics speechless
Your town plan gave a massage on our siblings’ feet
Kept our cousins howling and hawking every street
Your windows mirror the face of a modern man

Inviting nomads so they could be lost in your atlas
Following the rhythm from your covert train tracks
Tap dancing to your song, all in pursuit of success
Brother Johannesburg you are blood of my ancestry
My late father’s wise and adopted son

Your wings shelter the homeless and all broken souls
Turning every tear into pasture or seeds of gold
You were only married to our precious economy
Gave birth to mansions,
Townships and squatter-camps
Taught us refuge in hostels and
Hard labor mining in the reef
Governed our elites with religion
And Bantu education

Big brother Johannesburg
A man with colonial vision
You have destroyed unity
And betrothed the art of deception
Hypnotized my insular people with
Your idealist inception
Broadcasted sham headlines
To mislead our perception

You really are the captives’
City that hardly sleeps
Fulfilled your mission by
Keeping our relatives sunken deep
Our families weep for children
In pavements or lost in your caves
Hidden at the bottom of your pit
Living as destitute or wild slaves

You kept our scholars detribalized
Colonized by thesis from Oxford
Watched our elders abandon
Culture and sold tradition for comfort
You gave society illusions and
Fed my mother the teenager’s pill
Condoned vibrancy destroyed
Morality keeping us captivated
By nude appeal

You stole pillars from the rural
And left my nephews glitches
That won’t heal
And you spilt the antidote that
Cure fungi and gems of poverty
You erased my surname and
Signed yours on every
Intellectual property
Left my soul bitterness and
My heart vanity so my existence
Won’t feel real
You vowed to fulfill fantasies
And seal empty spaces to
Shield our lack of basic skills

Became treasury to filing pressures
Or insomnia and left our leaders
Overdosed on stress pills
Dearly beloved brother look
What you’ve done, now tell me…
How do you feel?