by Michael D Wentworth
I’m not sure what makes me angrier:
The fact that wars are still being fought
Provoked by men with ulterior motives and security details
Mass murderers who speak of peace with blood on their hands
Inciting their flock with tales of ancient gripes
In this age of supposed enlightenment;
Or the fools with the guns in their hands.
I’m not sure what makes me more despondent:
The fact that supposedly educated people
Still believe in the ancients’ fairytales of a flat-earth prophecy
Who spoke of love from pulpits of greed and hatred
Duping congregations of apathetic victims with eyes tightly shut
Praying earnestly to dead gods and decayed messiahs;
Or the complicit complacency of the conscious.
I’m not sure what makes me feel more murderous:
The fact that these fat-cat politicians can still so easily deceive their constituents
In their flashy suits spewing a mindless, stock-phrased rhetoric
With pudgy and groping, manicured hands profiteering from poverty
Unconcerned in their landscaped suburbs hidden behind impenetrable walls
Condemning the critics and criticizing the condemned;
Or the masses who buy the lies each time.
I’m not sure what makes me more disgusted:
The fact that these corporate giants with their PR teams
Can market their wholesale destruction with sophisticated ads in glossy mags
Making us feel as if our lives are not complete if we don’t aspire
To acquire whatever package deal they have put together
In their sweatshops and factories by low-paid casual labour;
Or the buying public who worship the brands.
I’m not sure what makes me more pessimistic:
The honest racist who will share their last bread
But from an old, stained cracked bowl
Or the lying liberal stuck in a new age Aquarian mould,
The rich who don’t care or the poor who don’t dare
Fairytale religions and theoretical systems or the general inaction;
But the one thing I do know is that this state of affairs riles me up!
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ABOUT THE POET ~
I am Michael Wentworth, a South African writer and cultural activist. ‘A Love Letter for the Epoch’ is a new collection of my poems written over the past two decades., In primary school in the 1970’s I wrote a composition for the June examination that was read to the assembled school by the principal on the day that we returned after the holidays. As I listened I realised that I had written it and I began to notice the reactions of my peers. At that moment I knew that this was what I was meant to do., Since then I have honed my craft on the streets and in the gutters; in the ghetto and the ghetto hotels; with passion and certifiable insanity. One of my first short stories won a competition in a daily newspaper while I was still at school and my poetry has been published in various compilations and anthologies as well as the African arts and culture magazine Rootz., I have been writing professionally for theatre since 1996 when I was commissioned to write a children’s play for the North West Cultural Calabash Festival. My first feature play was the only South African entrant to be short-listed for the 1997 British Council International New Playwright Competition. I have since worked as a writer on various documentaries and stage productions including an original adaptation of Can Themba’s short story ‘The Suit’, as well as the pop-opera ‘Torong – A place to dream’ which I wrote, composed and directed. My theatre credits include writing and co-directing the musical ‘Maloba – Memoirs of a Nation’, ‘Waiting’ which I also produced and which premiered at the National Arts Festival in 2008, ‘Live rAGE’ which was a birthday tribute to the poet and writer James Matthews and ‘Progres’ inspired by the life and work of Ken Saro-Wiwa., Most recently my play Just Another Friday Night which was first performed at the Volksblad Kunstevees in 2009 was performed in May this year at the Windybrow Community Festival. The play was directed by Danny Moleko., I have written for television and radio as well as various South African newspapers and magazines and I am currently working on my debut novel entitled ‘A Tale of Extra-Ordinary Madness’ while co-ordinating an arts project at an underprivileged primary school in the Eastern Cape.
Last updated July 14, 2015