by Sihle Ntuli
Sparrow‘s
Unshackled and flying high
In the midst of Sleepless saint less nights on the side
Walk
On the pavements the concrete
Evidence of the existence of an everyday struggle
The eye is the hustle
Hard.
Eyes shoot like revolvers
Revolving around eye mirror images the suicide of eyes
Made blind
To the potholes
Deep
On the side of the street
That swallow
To cook
Salt on wounds,
And cooked
Swallowed smiles puked grimace
Pain filled
And broken
Eyes closing
Flammable tears
Smoke and smell
…of burning
Start
On
Entering entertainment
Morning Wood bleeds champagne showers on ad breaks
Morning wood means an axe to grind
Bikini’s sell cars and body spray
To contextualise or the lack thereof as long as they speak persuasion
The 12th official language
Perhaps
Baptism of screens accompanied by screams of blessing
Pleasure comes to early worms
Catching the bird
Vinolia flavoured meltdowns Jam Alley
Eye’s scream in shock at the cones of a once smiling face turned to tubs
Fame down the drain and it is sad
Stains get wiped out
While stars get washed up
On infomercials
For the amazing price of free 99.
Swallowing pop through the eye balls
Our corny culture rolling onto the next channel
Reality shows lie the most
The makeup is telling
Lip sticks on the lips of Bonang eclipsed only
By her caving forehead
That Umbrella’s her body from the raining comments of her skin and bones
Acid rain dear friend
What’s realer than a life that lacks a lens?
Off…
* Screen blackens*
This black hole in my television
Fills the side that I need not see
I swallowed pop culture through my eye ball
My eyes vomit madness
So I went on to paint the wall
And pull a chair
And watched
Frowning at the start
Smiling at the end
A cool blue
I passed wind it felt good
Till I read about
Socialites dictating about what dick took in books
“Mzansi”
Wants to know all about the bottom & the glamorous top?
That adorns the busts of Ms Mbau and Ms Khumalo?
Busted for cliché rags to riches stories that have the same premise
The re-runs and re-writes
Gucci’s and Lamborghini’s
As seen on T.V
Mimicry cries all over
Serenades for courtship
Car keys start the notes & Engines sing songs
Vulturing sugar daddy’s on steering wheel
Hard stick moving into gear
Admiring reverses
Dripping saliva amongst other things
Ready to pounce with blue bottles
Saying let’s “hang out “
The stereo
On
Missed,
The hit song
That can’t see nor touch
To me the sound is rolling silence
If it strokes soul in rhythms its classic
Violence of base need not mean a hit
Classics leave a mark to be loved
Hedonistic undertones blasting on stereos
A hit song plays
Deaf from the blow
The world lent their ears
A loan
Then took them back after a week
It’s a speaker with base but no music
Scrambled rambles written as slogans and acronyms
Mess made on the screen with no wiper
The reign goes on
Bitter blues blasting through bodies
The streets song plays blues
Breathless
Poignancy lives in street corners & taxi ranks
Bitter blues blasting through bodies
Breathless
Some in groans
Some in song
The groaning song
Till funerals
And stereo’s are turned off.
Spare change
I could spare a thought
My change
They want change
These priests!
My offerings are piece of mind
Perhaps their devil and evil are socially constructed
Constructed by priests and the devoted
Belief and faith can be explored in intimacy
To be decided on solely.
Drive time
Wheel spin on shining rims and dim windows
Actors, Lawyers and Salespeople
Selling dreams for $ouls
Wheel spins on shining rims and a clean get away
Dim windows and…
Hand-made leather intentions that you won’t see
But they do see you
In you
Picture
Money
Your face in the note
Wheel spin on shining rims and dim windows
Reverse eyes to see a running mind
And a clean get away….
Left the mind running
Taps
of my feet
To my favourite tune on the system
Sweet Life running out
Taps
My feet lightly hitting the ground to runnings out.
To Tap
Also meaning
The act of knock and cum in
That runs on minds everywhere
Some experiencing drought speaking like swimmers
Left their minds running…
And out came
Nothing.
Outcomes and Incoming
Capitalism questioned because of the unanswered lower case
As I find myself in an institution learning to go mental
In the district of cathedrals
Where hippies still live…
Swallowing green smoke on the highway
Dubstepping
Afroing
Braiding,
Fucking
Sleeping
And writing
Poetry.
And at dusk
Smoke and smell
…of burning
Necklaces
Made for
Black Madonna’s & King’s
To celebrate the celebrated
Necklaces made of rubber lace in jewel cases
Preciously painted with passionate flames
Rubber smooching necks and screams
Necklaced
Pupils white overtaken by a dionystic trance
Ritual sacrifice to the gods of authenticity
Claiming flammable horse hair,
silicone and rubber spine’s
Perhaps souls held by the one wearing prada
Heads ripped from bones
Parading heads like the 16th century French
Souls intact
Dressed in the colours of hell we gave
To those lacking substance
Fists in the air
Flaming torches
The comma ends we continue this sentence
with an ellipsis to kiss endlessness
With eyes open to foreseeable future.
Now as free as sparrows
Till kingdom comes.