I speak a white man's language

I speak a white man's language,

In truth,

I speak two.

My mind struggles to break free,

And yet it won’t remain trapped,

My culture is now,

With no language to join us,

I remain dislocated,

From a not too distant past

And yet,

My ancestors walk with me,

Through every waking moment,

Of an existence born from fragmented experience,

Giving strength,

To my every step!

My colour betrays

My African blood

But my words unveil

An African heart,

Fractured by the weight of history,

And broken in half a lifetime,

By an experience filtered through

The schizophrenic mix of both my historical oppressors,

On two continents!

Strangely I am freed,

Free to break all conventions,

Having nothing to chain me,

To a distant past,

But everything to draw me,

To a new future!

And now I see,

That my ancestors guide me,

Through the fragmentation,

The disintegration,

So that I,

Unchained,

Will create the new,

Through my own existence

That the Universal I

Of my kind,

The physically, culturally and spiritually disenfranchised

And excluded,

Will be those who bring the New into existence

“What is this New African?”

You ask,

“A disruption in the making?”

Smirking and joculating

At first,

He’ll be tearing down,

Everything you know,

But soon,

You’ll be living in his home,

He’ll grow old,

And replace you,

With a better understanding of

Delinquency,

Poverty,

Crime,

And Punishment

Whose barbarism imported

The language of Prisons,

And Police,

To my mind?

Whose Greed introduced,

The language of War,

And banking,

Industry, slavery and cheap labour,

To my mind?

Who killed Steve Biko,

And whose heart,

Was left cold?

Who taught me,

That I was inferior?

Who stole my ancestors land?

And my language?

And what am I

To do about it?

Can I really free myself

By stealing the language he gave me?

And using it against him,

Bastardising it,

Mastering it,

Spitting on it,

And pimping it?

Squeezing it of all meaning,

Till it touches my heart,

And awakens it,

To a New Freedom?

From:

Resurrection:

Reflections, Collections in Anger (2001-2004)