Joburg / Jozi / Egoli
An e-publication by Botsotso
Compiled by Mike Alfred and Allan Kolski Horwitz
Some months ago Mike Alfred and I decided to compile an anthology of new poems about Joburg. There have been many written in the past but we felt we needed to give a contemporary view (as expressed by poets) given the vast changes in the city over the past twenty-five years – some positive but many negative, reflecting the general impact of ANC rule on a post-apartheid South Africa.
Unfortunately, no funding over the covid period has been accessed for a hard copy version but not wanting to delay the project indefinitely, we decided to instead create an e-publication and post it on the Botsotso website.
As this is a work in progress (we have not in way edited the poems), we are still open to submissions and hope that at some point funding will be available to enable the publication of a comprehensive and illustrated version.
– Allan Kolski Horwitz
10 January 2021
Contents:
- Jozi my Jozi – Dimitri Martinis
- Bose bja Gauta – Moses Seletiša
- Horizon – Renos Nicos Spanoudes
- In the Aftermath – Gail Dendy
- The city – Thomas Abram Seloman
- Non-Delivery – Allan Kolski Horwitz
- Joburg Suite (4 poems) – Afzal Moolla.
- The colour of freedom – Lorraine Burne
- Why ? – Mike Alfred
- South Africa – Mbali Tshabalala
- All That Glitters – David Jeppe
- We can touch the sky – Kerry May
- No, I am not looking for my father – Mphae Charmaine Mashifane
- On the Way – Allan Kolski Horwitz
- A poem for my city – Lehlohonolo Shale
- Gentle awakening – Kay Brown
- Mauve month – Mike Alfred
- Joburg – Aphelele Portia
- Pain wakes me up at night – Musa Gift Masombuka
- The Settler’s Tale – Gail Dendy
- They forgot you but speak of you – Mphae Charmaine Mashifane
- Jozi, December: Season of few cars – Allan Kolski Horwitz
- Le re romeleng pula ya Borwa – Musa Gift Masombuka
- Goodbye Johannesburg, Hello . . . . . – Mike Alfred
- Jo-town – Frank Meintjies
- A Jozi Love Letter – Brandon Hamber
Jozi my Jozi
Dimitri Martinis
Jozi my Jozi
hallowed ground
hollowed out
Red
soil inside out
cyanide
yellow heaps
Golden harvest
progress’ dust
death’s confetti
over homes
into lungs
Oil on water
rainbow conflict
restless ancestors
riddled futures
Horizon
Renos Nicos Spanoudes
your morning tweet
pandemic musings
triggers
i remember distinctly
months ago
standing on your rooftop
drink in one hand
joint in the other
camera neckstrapped
you
taking photographs
of the s(etting)un
of the roads
and the jozistence
below
birds
above
beings
the homeless man
on the corner
outside
the nelson mandela s(uburb)anctuary
for children
he has refused
law isolation
to be moved
to a shelter
b(egging)een here
more than twenty years
well known he pleads
well loved well looked after
now da(y55)wns on me
triggered by memory
kill(arney)
one man’s home is not another’s house
and
degrees of shelterlessness
of deathlife
un(charted)folding
in our co
ronaworld
Bose bja Gauta
Moses Seletiša
o ba latotše ge ba mmitša bo-malope ‘a phahlana
a ititia phega ka letswele
“gae ga se moo ke yago!”
bose bja gauta…
ditšhika di thoma go thala phatla
tete e a dutla
mahlo a hunyetše
maatla a fedile
e bodule ya lebila tsela
yeo a bego a e budulantšha
ka la gagwe la go palega lenga
le meroto e elela le dipotane
ke a ratwa e fedile
ba metše diphofa bo-gladys
‘ruri tate o swiswatša pelo’.
bose bja gauta…
gauta e thomile go galaka
ga e sa le bose go etša maloba
‘go phala ke ge motho a ka ikela gae’
The City
Thomas Abram Selomane
See how clean you’re
Did you see how clear you were
At the first day of shutdown?
Now we’re in level three of lockdown
You’re still empty as clearest as a water pipe
I got out to look how shapeless you ain’t
Your curves are like flowers in a vase
Colorful and colorless butterflies and dragonflies
Over the river, closer the river and on air
Flying as high as they can view the whole of you
Jo’burg city, you look like a woman with earrings
Your streets, also those with red lines on the stomach
And yellow spots on the one side, are empty
As if hail has hastily passed with a wink of an eye
Leaves are playing in your parks
They have missed their friends
Whom are not able to go outside
As the fear the virus
No more shouting crowd in your stadiums
At least you’re having a deep rest
You can sleep smoothly
Without being disturbed by the noise of festivals
Johannesburg city,
The city of peace.
In the Aftermath
Gail Dendy
17 June 1976. (On 16 June 1976 an uprising began in Soweto and spread countrywide, profoundly changing the socio-political landscape in South Africa. Events that triggered the uprising can be traced back to policies of the Apartheid government that resulted in the introduction of the Bantu Education Act in 1953.)
Winter tonsured a crewcut on the grass
and yet we were surprised at how the public park
bloomed as though it had relocated
from another place and settled here
in a strange and foreign land, bearing crane flowers,
agapanthus, wild irises and rows of clivia
rooted in the deep, dark earth.
I think of ‘stone’, ‘gun’ and, oddly, ‘catapult’.
Or do I mean the soft furriness of caterpillar,
its pliable segments, the overabundance of legs?
In the distance, it seems the dogs have become
complacent, for they leave off
their sniffing and pawing, the way
wind chimes fall silent in the dead
of night. I had chimes like that, salvaged
from a dustbin, made of glass and wobbly tin,
which my mother hung on the stoep’s low beam.
And how she unlatched the window that night
to calm me down and show me the partial moon, perfect
in its incompleteness, and said
believe in this, for it will come back again.
I did not know then how caterpillars come back
as bright-winged creatures, but I believed
in angels, and that was sufficient for that particular time.
Non-delivery
Allan Kolski Horwitz
Freedom Park across from Eldos
Shoprite sign gives it status
Moonless night
Roads lit by burning veld
Meet black flames of tire
And in this haze
Blurred shapes
Run about
People stream from shattered shacks
Drag wood and rocks across the highway
To force open government’s hand
Force the indecent to be decent
Yes people come out
Dump boulders clench fists
Across the tarmac
Make each turn of the driver’s wheel
A jerk of brakes
To force blind eyes
To see the need
For land
For work
So note the red lines
Demanding power from power
Shelter from a cold state
Production in a time of retrenchment
As on this moonless night
Shadows rouse the flames
All traffic backed up in Freedom Park
And people cry out
To a beloved unloving country
Izwe lethu we need homes
Joburg Suite
Four poems by Afzal Moolla
The Johannesburg Rains
Soaking,
the rains settle,
meandering over jagged faultlines of our memory.
Drenching,
the rains settle,
streaming through veins,
the thud-thudding of the heartbeat of Africa.
Absorbing,
the Jozi rains that settle,
within each of us,
herald rebirth.
And,
if you listen,
if you strain to hear,
while shedding the raucous noise of your inner turmoil.
If you listen,
the whispers of the ancestors,
speak to us all,
lending us warmth,
urging us to stand,
even though we may
stumble,
even though we may fall.
Johannesburg Blues
Walking in this city of diamonds,
gold deep beneath my feet,
sleeping under her rainy skies,
embracing my newspaper sheet.
I had a life long ago, a woman too,
now I’m just a huddle of rags,
while the women walk past
never reaching into their Gucci bags.
She left me, or I left myself,
on these bleak Jo’burg roads,
searching for that fix at these desolate crossroads.
Now I stand alone,
these empty streets my bed,
my blood soaking the earth
with drops of beaten red.
So I wish you well, friends,
I wish you gold dust amidst the fray,
all of you who walk on and away,
leaving me to beg or borrow,
to get through another Jo’burg day.
Jo’burg moonlight
cloaked, shrouded,
misted within silver clouds,
moonlight slips, slides,
cascades,
drizzling down,
like her soft hair that swirls, twirls,
caressing my face,
like moonlight,
on an overcast Jo’burg night.
Old Sof’town*
1.
In old Sof’town,
the jazz struck chords,
the jazz lived, it exploded,
out of the cramped homes,
rolling along the streets,
of old Kofifi,
in tune to countless blazing heartbeats.
In old Sof’town,
Bra’ Hugh breathed music, Sis’ Dolly too,
and Bra’ Wally penned poems that still ring true.
In old Sof’town,
Father Trevor preached
equality and justice,
for all, black and white and brown,
and all shades, every hue,
even as oppression battered the people,
black & blue.
In old Sof’town,
the fires of resistance raged,
‘we will not move’ was the refrain,
even as the fascists tore down Sof’town,
with volleys of leaden rain.
In old Sof’town,
the people were herded,
like cattle,
sent to Meadowlands,
far away and cold and bleak,
as the seeds of resistance,
sprouted and flourished,
for the coming battle.
In old Sof’town,
the bulldozers razed homes,
splitting the flesh of a community apart,
only to raise a monument of shame,
and ‘Triomf’ was its ghastly name.
2.
In Jozi today,
we remember those days,
and those nights of pain,
that stung our souls.
like bleak winter rain.
Yes, we remember old Sof’town,
as we struggle onward,
to reclaim our deepest heritage,
and build anew,
a country of all hues and shades,
of black and of white and of brown.
And yes, we will always remember,
and yes, we will never forget,
the price that was paid,
by the valiant sons and daughters,
of old Sof’town,
those vibrant African shades and hues,
of black,
of white,
of brown.
*Sophiatown was also called ‘Sof’town’ and ‘Kofifi’
The Colour of Freedom
Lorraine Burne
Shawl of lilac open skies blue and white
our city collared
bannered in whittling fraud
the colour of Freedom dismantling our plenitude
her transformation despite Truth & Reconciliation
within this largest ancestor grown home of forgiveness
living forest of healing entangling our composite collective roots
glorious mantle above our heads claiming binding the soil beneath
AS ABOVE SO BELOW where we have not learned
diamond mind Egoli’s nuggets
Mandela rainbowed us
offered all a glimpsed reflection red green blue black & gold
inclusive prosperity yet never to be repaid nor proven
a circle of opportunities stolen by the Crown
his lessons taught wrought by masters of deception
in statesmanship their puppets strung and fed
AS BEFORE SO AFTER where we have not learned
now again our purple bells fallen dreams of union sharing
pile the softest carpet newly trodden underfoot
wind stripped lawless leaders bare their rampant greed
on streets of jacaranda bleeding violet blue without account
drawing foreigners with cameras our new insatiable colonists
who pay their way in hidden trysts accepted
beneath our orbing sun to spawn their hoard here
AS THEN SO NOW When will we learn?
Why ?
Mike Alfred
Because, because,
it’s there.
No, not there, here, here it is, and I’m here
drowned in the hereness and the isness;
enveloped, trapped, pulsating,
somersaulting,
free.
No elsewhereness for me.
It’s where I am, where I belong,
where I soak in amness; where I breathe
and chew and sweat and shiver and curse
and love and hate.
Joburg my crimeness, my fenceness,
my litterness, my taxness, my raceness,
my jokeness; my clapness and flashness.
Where the sun enters and leaves my eyes,
where the wind lifts the moon and silvers the
winter air.
Joburg my sac, my dustfull lungsfull,
my gunshots, my gauzy stars, my perfume,
my stink, my myths, my restless limbs,
my flapping fingers, my dogdirt,
my indignation’s indigestion, my throngs,
my body’s mysteries, my trepidation,
my place, my departure, my return.
Joburg, my life’s garment, my coursing blood,
my voice, my laughter, my mates, my love, my loves,
my eardrum, my lunchtime beer, my siren,
my whip, my elation, my births, my funerals,
my anti-depressant.
Oh why do I love you, road rage city,
my doll’s house? Why? Because, because,
why Mallory?
Because I do,
I do,
I do.
South Africa
Mbali Tshabalala
When the bowl sky
rim stains with turmeric,
some fish chase the shore.
All That Glitters
David Jeppe
From the sputter of muskets perturbing the veld
To the chatter of stampmills was but a moment.
The cradle of humans as the crucible of wealth,
Separated only by some several millennia.
An epoch of glory and greed, not a flash in the pan.
The steady returns from the thinly spiced banket
Laid a bedrock of bounty.
Even that did not last.
Now the tailings of that time, those mountains of memory
To the great spreading seam, are also picked clean.
We survive now on stories, the ghosts of past glories,
The chattering mills become the chattering masses.
Nomads from Africa wander unseeing the temples to that time,
Burning fires in its monuments against the Highveld chills.
Past spreading city limits and zama zama wars in spent rock,
The patient veld waits its turn.
We can touch the sky
Kerry May
Not lulled asleep by the restless surf
Not hidden beneath the shadow of a mountain
No, not ours.
Ours is a city in the sky
A city of storms
A city of gold
A city of trees
A city of light
What unimagined force is buried in our soil?
Pulling us along through the seasons of the world
The long dry winter bares the new bud.
Storm thunders across our sky.
This is no place to sleep
To be dreamy human being.
No! Stamp the ground and send the shout echoing up
Our heads are in the sky and our hands free
We will work the with Father God’s earth
Striving to answer His
Call “Oh man awake”
Joy in the thrill of the trumpets call
We are awake
And we can touch the sky
No, I am not looking for my father
Mphae Charmaine Mashifane
I cringe as I ride my way into
the belly of a city that swallowed my father
The knots in my abdomen grow tight
as I feel the shadow of a tower rest on my shoulder
No, I’m not looking for my father
but I hope to see him
People chatter, taxis hoot
I bet you my father must’ve
not heard himself think
of coming home
Street lamps, traffic lights
I bet you my father must’ve
lost his sight and his
way home
I’ve been trying to pick up a language
It feels like lapping water with my tongue
I bet you my father must’ve
forgot his own name and never heard us call out
No, I am not looking for my father
but I hope to see him
On The Way
Allan Kolski Horwitz
At the intersection of acorn lane and louis botha
I gave two rand to a stained woman with a hole for a mouth
At the intersection of walker road and bertha
I gave one rand seventy to a smirking man with a crippled swagger
At the intersection of albertina sisulu street and main
I gave fifty cents to a burnt out child with a burning hand
At the intersection of joe slovo drive and abel
I gave one rand twenty to an old woman who carried a bundle of snot
on her blanketed back
At the intersection of jan smuts avenue and empire
I gave five rand to a vacant glue sniffer who pawed the heavens
and drooled on my window
Home?
How could I reach
HOME
A poem for my city
Lehlohonolo Shale
High-rise scrapers law us into my city
We move Zombie- like
In the cold-cramped city, where?
The light blurs gloom in the rubble drains
City lights can be alluring sometimes
Especially at night
But a poem (for my city) won’t take the blues away
It can’t swipe away the alluring might
When the city lights highlight, the city contours hide
The four-wheels wide
Milling at the red light
Collisions happen under translucent skies
Gentle Awakening
Kay Brown
trilling
a myriad birds
threading
the crisp air
of the urban forest
murmur
air-filled tyres
in cushioned contact
with the tar
growl
small hard wheels
of a trolley
hurtling downhill
in search of scrap
purr
kettle beside me
warming water
in its sleek embrace
scritch
sharp claws on wood
dog needing release
… the sound that prises me from bed
Mauve month
Mike Alfred
Jozi turned mauve this month;
convoys of lilac caravels sailing
over the hills, amethyst carpets
popping along the avenues, a
lavender illumination flaring in
our great forest. Some Quixotes
condemn this splendid flowering:
an alien species without resident
status, but what’s a few Brazilians
among the nations? I can’t believe
this cool mauve is contributing to
Global Warming or anything other
than beauty and joy. Come spring,
can anyone contemplate Jozi without
her pale purple jacaranda birthmark?
Joburg
Aphelele Portia
1888, I came to life
Love I experienced, only an illusion
I bared myself to your daggers and shovels
The world I welcomed, I embraced
My guts I spilt
My gold I let run
Introduced myself to you George Harrison
Trusted you with the treasure I am
You sounded the alarm notified the man of my existence
Denied the people my wealth
Drained me of my truth
Allowed the men to merge their names, to own,
Name, tear me into countless Metros:
Tshwane, Jozi, Ekurhuleni, Vaal, Soweto
All along my children go unheard, unseen, unloved
Tembisa, Diepkloof, Sophiatown, Fiestas, Alex
The children I was intended for
The children who built the railroads
The children who planned the Carlton Centre
Who planned the City Centre
The children who introduced me to the world’s stages
With their voices – Caiphus Semenya
Their guitar – Kippie Moeketsi
Their 5 Mahotela queens
Their leadership – Zanele Mbeki
Pain wakes me up at night
Musa Gift Masombuka
Pain wakes me up at night,
it gets lonely and need some company.
And as I try to dive and drown in alcohol,
it seem to have adapted and learned how to swim.
Jo’burg! With its cement trees,
as lifeless it could be
exhales nothing but dust
that gets trapped in my lungs
I am asthmatic of these obstacles
that come whirling like a cyclone
provoking my senses, triggering depression
of insomniac nightmares, and silent screams.
Believe me, they are loud!
My own thoughts in a battle
for I fell deep into the lion’s den
and I fear for the cubs
what would be of me when the lions come?
Joburg, it is you I loathe
I found no gold or world class city
but a pit of wrecked souls in entrapment
and I fell into it, I fell into You!
It is my life you wrecked,
my dreams you stole
and my hope you shattered!
So I crawled and crept my way out
with scavengers preying for my soul.
The Settler’s Tale
Gail Dendy
Winter ripens the ornamental chili-peppers
and spreads them as bright-headed quotation marks
on stems so thin as to be almost invisible.
Although it’s hot, everything’s stopped growing.
Somehow the season knows when it is
better than we do. The verandah lies slack and still
in its veil of dust, and we park the cheap plastic chairs
and the wire-mesh table on their sides
in case an early rain surprises all of us
and leaves the furniture ruffled by dirt,
mosquito-tracked and trailed by brown lizards
scavenging for moths. The swordferns have shrivelled
into lacy disarrangements, failed signposts
of another year of getting too little accomplished,
the son-in-law with no business sense, although
the broad staircase of your mother’s mansion
and her Louis Quatorze settee fail the acid test
of questions and answers when you recall
your grandfather’s success from gold-panner to billionaire.
You say he plucked them straight off the earth,
rocks speckled and round as bird’s eggs. An eye, he had,
for the glitter. Nothing slack about him,
the stiffened collars, black bootlace ties, the man
who imported impossible orchids and those sack-wrapped
rose-stumps for the English garden he’d build here
to create the eighth wonder of the world
in this shanty town without even a river
to boast of. And then that winter it all disappeared,
drifted like forgotten hayseed in a single weekend.
Of course there’s no record of this,
and though I know you’re not a liar, I’ve seen you stand
on steps that were never there, white-shouldered,
companionable, your cheeks round as summer pears
as you pass timelessly through tea-parties,
a rabbit’s hole, up through the mirror, arriving, complacent,
almost everywhere but here.
They forgot you but speak of you
Mphae Charmaine Mashifane
Some speak of your concrete streets
The buildings that stand tall on your back
They forget your mountains kiss the clouds every morning
Some speak of your concrete streets
The bridges that never dare to touch your rivers
They forget your rivers fill their guts
Some speak of your concrete streets
The gold they dug out of your belly with their bare hands
They forget your soil’s fertility
Some speak of your concrete streets
The lights bright enough to call night day
They forget stars breathe light to your skies too
Forgetting the land before the name
The land before the rain of feet
Jozi, December: Season of few cars
Allan Kolski Horwitz
Green growth and rain pervade
though thunder bumps at night
after dense clouds puff the sky
and the fragrance of purpled flowers
rivals the coffee i drink
making stories
in a zone of quiet celebrating the Galilean
where neighbours delight in fire
chairs make circles
barbequing meat at twilight as the heat abates
i switch off the news
the hollow men who own bombers
retreat to secure estates with golf clubs
the only news isn’t news
is the old news i always knew
in my head and my heart:
black holes will whiten the universe
anonymous heroes and heroines wait to be composed
the grate begs to be cleared of ancient ash
the inner ear finds the right colour
the inner eye
the right note
it’s a green Jozi December of trees
the STORIES in my HEAD sway
in a downtime breeze
Le re romeleng pula ya Borwa
Musa Gift Masombuka
Mother, your sons have risen to walk bare-feet
the burning coal streets of Johannesburg,
Suffocating from the thick air filled with smoke from their burning flesh;
In pursuit of an old back-bent woman’s words, leaning on walking stick,
sweat pouring, sunbaked, staggering to her mud house;
“Le re romeleng pula ya Borwa.”
Father, the sun has risen
Not only to roast your children
but to turn their broken dreams to ashes
that rise to form clouds weeping tears of sorrow
and thunder – the moans of their sobbing souls.
Now when the clouds gather, mother,
Village children dance to the screams and tears
of your sons while singing,
“Langa langa bhek’ eGoli, mvula mvula buya.”
Children have put buckets in the rain
collecting the dead dreams, the torment and agony of their brothers
to water their own dreams —
No wonder their minds are graveyards
for dreams that never claimed existence.
Father, your sons have fallen,
The city knows no rain
but a reign of pain.
“Le re romeleng pula ya Borwa.”
Goodbye Johannesburg, Hello . . . . .
Mike Alfred
I appear as a man
starting another story:
I’m accelerating along the M2 West
heading for the Vaal
I’m gently swaying and clacking over
the Fordsburg viaduct on the Trans Karroo
I’m on the R21 to OR Tambo
for my Cape Town flight
Egoli, we grew up together,
learned to love one another
about you
I waxed loquacious
I was your scribe
delivered multiple tellings
I was too young to be asked
so here I was, faced with my
unquestioning arrival
my life and my futures
settled by migration
school, university, work,
my life unfolding, lovers,
love’s failures
love’s acceptances
career successes and
other episodes that make a life:
children, death of parents
from twelve dwellings we explored
your neighbourhoods
Goodbye Johannesburg
I’ve left my story with you
my story of you and of me
all my written words and
so many spoken
my words about
golden winter days
and torrential white waters
after summer thunderstorms
my memories of tram rides
up and down the hills
driving through the great
exotic forest doubling
as an aviary
mansions and shacks
crazy driver pissing competitions
the growth and demise of apartheid
about the men who found
gold and the men who mined
gold and those who followed:
workers and traders, whores and wives
and the six generations of
citizens who built the great sprawling
city where once was grass and banket
the industrial revolution that
took place underground
the crime capital
the arena where once white was so baas
Goodbye Johannesburg,
Goodbye Soweto
you were my marvelous voyage
you were the destination
and the journey
the backdrop and the fabric of my life
and all that life holds
the great adventure playground
the full catastrophe
and you were wonderful.
but, dear Jozi,
I cannot cling any longer
you fashioned and scene-changed
my life, but now, it’s over,
I’m moving on, but I’ll carry your
legacy in my bones and tissues
on printed pages I’ll preserve yours;
together we acknowledged
histories and biographies
the world’s greatest goldrush,
the richest square mile in Africa
Illegal gold digging and Black Diamonds
creating a new future
the Stone Age and the Iron Age
preserving the past
this huge extent of
my ordinary existence
where with every step
every revolution
I clocked up
my life’s generous odometer
but . . . . .
I’m almost clear of
the city now
moving, moving . . . . .
moving on
hello Cape Town my adaptive
challenge, where the surf never stops beating,
sea-surge calling me to the edge of my life
here in Muizenberg village, history taunts me again
this village, struggling not to be tawdry, sleazy
or greasy spoon
and not quite succeeding
seeking some former grace and glory
but the world has moved since Snake Pit days
it’s a Rainbow Nation place
clean streets and dirty shouts
and the destitute still call under-the-bridge, home
it’s full of despair and flesh, beautiful bodies
filling wet suits and hardly filling bikinis
art deco talks loudly here and Cinnabar’s an eyesore
surf boards and skate boards are the
preferred modes of travel
and motor bikes are all a throttle
they say Capetonians are not friendly
I seem to have experienced gold
yet again.
Jo-town
Frank Meintjies
One day it’s a gilded mine dump
the next, a sinkhole
Another day, it’s a broadcast tower
that stands saintly as Big Ben
The next it’s the mighty Ponte, leaning
like a wounded Megatron
Since the lockdown
when government flattened the curves of creativity
tardy bureaucrats have been
fattening their powers
to lengthen queues
I’ve seen things; am high
on sanitizer fumes
I clutch a faded orange peg; it means
I’ll get my turn
to snatch some toilet paper
from a U-save supermarket shelf
Eye-catching sunsets land
with a splash in potholes
Spectres rise with gleaming eyes
at dawn
into the new normal
The city with blinking eyes, so many blinking eyes
and a hollowed gut
A Jozi Love Letter
Brandon Hamber
This city welcomes
Streets watch and wait
New arrivals take the bait
Gilded perdition
Jostling for position
With the skollies
And the recalcitrant
Unemployment rate
This city shines
Off the bonnet of a Beemer
Money creates and stymies
For the sheltered
Rejecting and accepting
Glittering fearful hope
Always space for one more
On the tightrope
This city jives
Buildings boom and sway
Heavy with prospect
Affluence and gunshots
Twinkling and twisted
Affectionate tepid nights
Rhythmic jazz
Wistful in the neon-light
My city of gold
I love you, I do
Discover more from Botsotso
Subscribe to get the latest posts sent to your email.