by Mikey D Wentworth
Bang bang
Banging at the door
In the dead of night
The dark illuminates your fright
As I'm pulled from your bed
Dragged across the floor.
Bang bang
Banging inside your head
Festering wounds inflicted by structural
violence
But the pain illuminates your silence
As you escape into ignorance
Safe in the sewer with the rest of the
dead.
Bang bang
Bullets rip through flesh
Blood stains the road
Bomb blast craters disfigure the
landscape
As we turn our attention elsewhere
Crippled and blinded by fear.
Bang bang
Blatant lies disguise the face of decay
That feeds on complacency
And breeds on greed and callousness
As we bend down and pray
Broken beings lapping up all the shit
that we're fed.
Bang bang
Buildings burn and towers crumble
While our kin continue to die everyday
And not just from guns but from a lack of
water
As progress wears another mask
Bowed and bent we play our complicit
parts.
Bang bang
Ons lewe in dread
Gebuig en gedruig tot die mens verdwyn
En al wat oorbly is net vlees en been
As our faces contort around capped smiles
Grimacing as we look but fail to
perceive.
Bang bang
We go through life like phantom players
Trying so hard to ignore the facts:
We need to contain this manic psychosis
As we hustle and strive just to survive
Brow beaten and bowed, chattering too
loud.
Bang bang
There are no more excuses
All of the rhetoric and skirting are
useless
Sharpen the pencils and brushes and
chords
As we try to dissect and express what we
see
Within this tragedy
of impotent revolution.
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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 November 20, 2012