by Zeenit Jacobs
Have you seen Mahikeng?
A place between rocks and filth;
streets with littered debris are the empty words
regurgitated from the foul lips of an office bearer
crashing like dense hailstones…
the stench of transparent oaths
looming heavy over heads riddled
with holes …
But the streets are hungry too
with holes on their bellies…
burning pangs like the children of Montshiwa
under flickering lights amidst
live wire and festering ponds…
still they drink from the dry river beds
of the Molopo River, under the
glistening eyes of Baralong…
Yes, come and see our forgotten place!
Highbrows with protruding bellies,
pockets of trickery and loot deeper than Wondergat…
she has always been a dumping ground for casualties –
Wars, Sieges and Political Games…
a place of stones, stones we must now
hurl at Ministers who reside in Glass Castles;
those who eat from the fat
of the toiling servants of Bafokeng,
but point to ghosts of the past…