Siphiwe There Shall be Peace and Freedom

my pockets full of holes

pots full of boiling water

inside my fridge

nothing to ease

your babbalas

i fight cockroaches

for crumbs

and friends fade like salt

in water

in my heart

I want to compose poems about

flowers that do not wither

a woman cries in the night

her voice drowned

by a bellowing gumba-gumba

the law arrives late

like a late-night movie

warriors chant usuthu

raising the spirit of shaka zuzlu

and like streams of the same river

we hoist a rainbow flag

singing

nkosi sikelela die stem morena boloka

someone in a car raises the middle finger

and in parliament they dance

the rdp tango