David Kapp

I am the other

An executive director
was apparently most worried
their small poodle gone
missing during a house robbery

(their domestic worker
tied-up and quite unnamed
probably a woman too)

I am the other
in our 2011 Census
(some say Senseless
on a National Scale)

I am the other
a left-handed atheist
(no checkbox for that)

I am the other
no checkbox for human
since we are dealing still
with apartheid’s  miseries

I am the other
counted was I
like our purple-frocked Arch

I am the other
a non-Springbok aficionado
and a South African to boot
(patriotic hand across your breasts)

I am the other
we brand and stereotype
like apartheid ordained all to
(ethnic cleansing on the horizon)

I am the other
(the small poodle returned
the next day)

What with our Archbishop encouraging the inhabitants to get counted (“Tutu urges citizens to get counted”, Argus, Oct 30 2011), I tease my way through officialdom as the eager-to-get-it-over supervisor-blue Census Worker makes the sorts of assumptions that folks tend to make.

A wee while ago, circa August 2010, the People’s Post Claremont-Rondebosch edition reported a robbery, amongst a few others, under the heading “Claremont resident wounded in shootout with robbers”.

I have a turn-table

I have a turn-table
blithely I declare
to the supervisor-blue
who ostensibly deals
with difficult customers

I have a turn-table
an open invitation
to imposters, con-artists,
ex-comrades and politicians
(am I repeating myself)

I have a turn-table
and other such
antediluvian assets
(imagine no possessions)

I have a turn-table
is there a checkbox
as there is for race
the human-kind that is

I have a turn-table
does that count for any
as a ministry scoured the suburbs
for World Cup accommodation
(must be a legacy fallout)

I have a turn-table
(no bodyguards here)
come up sometime
and have a steal
in Census’s name

Someone asks, rhetorically perhaps, “What is this census all about” (Opinions, People’s Post, Tuesday 1 November 2011), as the eager-to-get-it-over supervisor-blue Census Worker looks for the appropriate checkbox to tick, circa our Senseless, sorry, Census month sometime.

And if rhetoric is anything to go by, a government minister somewhere muses upon her being “cast as an extravagant minister” (“Minister spent R420 000 on hotel stay”, Cape Times, November 3 2011).

May the force be (with you)

May the force be (with you)
sweaty and perspiring masses
leaders, emperors, chieftains too
as you reveal yourselves before

May the force be (with you)
though who can we count on
mathematicians and engineers
not quite in oversupply
(who tallied our 7 billion)

May the force be (with you)
as Verwoerdian shadows lurk
if we can believe anything
politicians twitter our way

Who can we count on
when force will be your lot
for not freely cataloguing yourself
as apartheid convincingly did

Who can we count on
when force will be your lot
for not democratically declaring
all of your worldly goods

May the force be with you
as race rears its ugly head
in apartheid’s tangled web

May the force be with you
you 17,000 or so persons
criminalized you may be
in democracy’s name

May the force be (with you)

Now will we all let it (be)

I mangle Terry Bell’s “What a tangled web we weave with official race classification” (Sunday Argus, Oct 30 2011) and Neville Alexander’s “Race rears ugly head in Census 2011” (Cape Times, Nov 2 2011), as the higher-ups issue threats in the name of some law or the other (or is it “lore”?).

(Image Credit: South African History Online)