David Kapp

David Kapp is a popular educator and poet living in Cape Town, South Africa.

I nearly lost it

August 11, 2013 by 3 Comments 

I nearly lost it
I nearly lost it
on our Women’s Day
dropped Alice Walker’s
“A poem travelled
down my arm”
A gem amongst others
found at the Rotary Club
containers where there are
Books for the World
I nearly lost it
(later) on Eid-al-Fitr
traipsing around
showing off our collection
(The Babysitters Club series
A series of Unfortunate Events series
the Sweet Valley Twins series
even the Captain Underpants series)
The morning after
reading aloud extracts
to a literary associate
(from Mutual to Lansdowne
journeying Metro-hell turd-class)
What hair
we here!
Mandela
Douglass
Einstein
Between assassination
&
suicide
living
happily
I nearly lost it
on our Women’s Day
Our Women’s Day skies are blue as Alice Walker’s lovely tome drops from my grasp,
on the way to show off Belthorn Primary School’s collection of books in the neighbourhood. 
She invokes “Mandela with a free heart ... (Frederick) Douglass the same ... refusal of 
enslavement ... Einstein different but similar” in her intro titled “This is a strange book”
(Image Credit: Penguin Random House)
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(Daddy) Why is everyone standing

July 28, 2013 by 1 Comment


(Daddy) Why is everyone standing

(Daddy) Why is everyone standing
a young one asks of dad
he struggle-grey of head
like more than most about
(they weathered the storms)

Everyone is standing
over the road
at a monument
to an incident
we remember

(Others remember too
when reminded
perchance election-time
will occasion a sound-byte)

Over the road
everyone else
on their way
to whatever

Over the road
Robbie and Coline
standing tall
as did so many

(so many unknown
and even unheralded
as the past is reassembled
for the sake of the present)

Over the road
for all to see
and bear witness

(though under the radar
more often than not
as we turn the other cheek)

Everyone standing
reminding the world
how they got here
and why in the first place

Grey-heads, mostly, congregate, as they have done before, at the memorial tribute to slain Umkhonto we Sizwe freedom fighters Coline Williams and Robert Waterwitch, over the road from the Athlone Magistrate’s Court, 24 years on, 27 July 2013.

(Image Credit: South African History Online)

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I read the news today

June 25, 2013 by 4 Comments

I read the news today

I read the news today
our press is gloomy
sending the world
a pessimistic image

A pessimistic image
no-one has as yet won
the war on poverty
(R500b leaves Africa yearly)

I read the news today
foot-in-jaw politicians
puckering up for elections
(a ‘people-orientated leader’
denies a R100,000 kickback)

I read the news today
rarely do we hear of
active democracies
hale and hearty citizens
who can read and write

(perhaps it is in parenthesis
secreted inside of digressions
by the enemies of the nation
awaiting the reputed rainy day)

And violence against women
is on a high especially in Africa
(1 in 3 women victims of partners)
(did our Finance chief get that)

But that is just
a little bit on the side
in the grander scheme of things

Gender-based violence makes the SAFM radio’s Weekend PMLive programme, in an interview with a Medical Research Council doctor,Sunday evening 23 June 2013 (see “One in three women victims of partners”, Cape Times, June 21 2013); whilst “Gordhan scorches ‘gloomy’ SA press” (Cape Times Business Report, June 20 2013).

“Africa loses R500 billion a year to illicit outflows – Mbeki”, and “Minister denies R100 000 game farm kickback claim” (both in the Cape Times, June 18 2013).  By the by the line “I read the news today” comes from the Beatles’ ditty “A day in the life”.

(Photo Credit: David Harrison / Mail & Guardian)

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Love thy neighbour (or not)

May 5, 2013 by 1 Comment

Love thy neighbour (or not)

Love thy neighbour (or not)
Zambia’s vice-president
sheds his load about us
we who are the bees-knees
(or so we too oft imagine)

Love thy neighbour (or not)
right next door to you
here partners keep killing
the women in their lives

(where fire, rain and global warming
put our poor at risk first)

Children too at risk
in the early grades
reading not fostered
too few reading books
in classes and even
fewer school libraries

Backward we are
so much trouble
we have caused
in this southern neck
(we now the new imperialists
the old wolf dressed up
in democracy’s clothing)

Not yet decolonized
we think we are special
effortlessly emulating
our previously-advantaged elites
at the sushi-feeding trough

Love thy neighbour (or not)
turn your other cheeks
in the name of Africa
and that elusive African unity
(patriotic hand on your own)

Love thy neighbour (or not)
you watch behind your back
and we’ll look after those
who scratch ours

“Teachers not fostering reading in the early grades” and “Partners keep killing women in their lives”. And we hear that ‘South Africans are backward’ (all in the Argus, May 3 2013).

 

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It’s in the genes

April 20, 2013 by 1 Comment

Brenda Rhode and the Young Authors’ Club

It’s in the genes

It’s in the genes
we hear of youngsters
crazy about books
and reading too

It’s in the genes
and not their jeans
I must add as I have
my mother’s English
tea-drinking habits

Crazy about books
and reading too
like their parents
and their parents before

(might we lionize them
rather than those
who tyrannized nations
colonized people
and played apartheid sport)

It’s in the genes
and not their jeans
or trousers, if anyone
still uses that word

(Did they honour
World Read Aloud Day
by reading up a tree)

Crazy about books
and not shiny objects
and brand labels

It’s in the genes
crazy about books
and reading too

Aren’t you

A social media tale (or “chronicle”) courtesy of Brenda Rhode – she of Young Authors Club fame and fortune – gets my chromosomes going, sometime Tuesday 17 April 2013.

David Kapp

(Photo Credit:  Young Authors’ Club / Facebook)

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Never so (few)

March 10, 2013 by Leave a Comment

Never so (few)

Never so (few)
says our emperor
on the very same earth
(no second one yet)

Never so (few)
giving the country
a bad name through
their violent acts

It’s a minority
the majority is not
(we are peace-loving people)
(is poverty not the worst
form of violence in your town)

We are peace-loving people
apartheid was sustained
through entrenched violence
(we have the moral high now)

We are peace-loving people
a woman or girl is raped
every 25 seconds down here

(Was the brutal gang-rape and murder
of a 17-year old Bredasdorp girl
an extreme example of ourselves)

Femicide is the order
women brow-beaten and besieged
sexual assault the daily custom
(though this seems not to count)

At least our emperor did not
resort to the dodgy tradition
of we are all so pious
and even religious too

Never so (few)
Never so
Never

An Editor on SAFM’s Sunday morning The Editors programme wonders what planet our president inhabits: “Most South Africans peace-loving, Zuma tells opening of house” (Cape Times, March 8 2013). The said “house” is the National House of Traditional Leaders in Parliament.

 

(Photo Credit: Zaheer Cassim / DW)

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Women continue to fall (victim)

March 7, 2013 by Leave a Comment

Women continue to fall (victim)

Women continue to fall victim
conceivably a Freudian slip-up
that menfolk typically make
on our toiling earth-planet

Women continue to fall
victim to their males usually
as is expected out here
(femicide is the order)

Women continue
to fall victim
to a force inefficient
and a service often inept

(are they keeping you
safe from blind faith
sex and colour TV)

Women continue to fall
victim to the savagery that is
human and everyday-familiar
(boys wear blue girls pink)

Women continue
as the girl child falls
socialized and programmed
afore the cradle on
(know your place)

Women
continue
to fall
victim

(And will continue
to observe and celebrate
International Women’s Day
come every March 8)

A veteran anti-apartheid journalist articulates “An efficient police force is the first step to curbing rape, violence” (Cape Times, March 5 2013); whilst a local civic-minded person’s Letter, “Men, change your views”, does the Freudian bit (People’s Post Athlone, March 5 2013).

 

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The ticket to ride

January 7, 2013 by 1 Comment

The ticket to ride

I now have the ticket
to improve my life and
one day be able
to take care of my family

So says Asanele Swelindawo
an orphan who managed
to get three distinctions
in our much-maligned Matric

She is an Ikamva Youth member
a by-youth for-youth
volunteer-driven initiative
just up your street

The ticket to ride
at the end of it all
a stairway to heaven
folks would have it

(Zero to hero turnaround
out at Peak View High)

Though experts have it
that our matric ticket is one
loaded with mediocrity

(quality over quantity
the new post-apartheid
standard grade of life )

The ticket to ride
in the context of
our country gone
to the (pampered) dogs

(our girl-child illiterate
and barefoot and pregnant
out here in darkest Africa)

The future is in our hands
says Ikamva Youth

Is it in yours

An email missive tells it all: “IkamvaYouth learners from township schools achieve 100% pass rate with 91% eligible for tertiary education” (www.ikamvayouth.org); and the Argus “Zero to hero turnaround” and its Comment “Quality over quantity?” (Friday, Jan 4 2012).

(Photo Credit: Jon Pienaar / Daily Maverick)

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Read Study Work

October 22, 2012 by Leave a Comment

Read Study Work

Read study work
(pardon my punctuation)
jailbirds all equal
in their prison-orange

(Adult education courses
will be compulsory
ABET from levels 1 to 4)

Read study work
pardon the spelling
and the homophobia
of a tweeting Hawk

Remember your Vaseline,
Jub-Jub, quips he,
unaware apparently
of sexual violence inside

A fresh-faced musician
hip-hopping his way
guilty on murder charges
(what example is he
to our fresh-faced youth)

Read study work
rehabilitate yourself
and the homophobes
wherever they masquerade
(befrocked, veiled and the like)

Rehabilitate yourself
so that you may join
the world outdoors
of your particular prison

Read study work
in prisons transformed
into schools (where matrics
go through the rites)

Like we didn’t know
of the school called prison
and their myriad graduates

Student of life – and French-speaking too – Hawks man McIntosh Polela says sorry for tweeting ‘in poor taste’; whilst Jailbirds to ‘read, study, work’ (Cape Times briefs, Friday Oct 19 2012).

 

(Photo Credit: Readucate)

 

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This is not Limpopo

August 23, 2012 by Leave a Comment

This is not Limpopo

This is not Limpopo
WH Auden in ashes
amongst other books
out Elsenburg way

This is not Limpopo
a municipal hall burnt
inside almost beyond
human recognition

Crude obscenities
mark the walls
what beasts here
did 1994 come
and go too quickly

This is not Limpopo
smouldering rags
torn out pages of books
on the blackened floor
of a community resource

This is not Limpopo
though two worlds here
scenic slopes and dales
lodgings Dickensian
and work seasonal

(A pristine building
up yonder, on a hill
seemingly far away
comfortably numb)

This is not Limpopo
though a text book case
of something unfulfilled
a number of youngsters keen
despite all the odds against

Politicians not yet
kissing-baby election time
development planning
Uhuru not yet Elsenburg way

 

Out yonder in the not-so-picturesque rural quiet of Muldersvlei-Stellenbosch, Western Cape, South Africa, the week of August 14-16 2012.

(Photo of the Elsenburg Community Hall provided by the author.)

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