We didn’t get to finish

June 4, 2020 by David Kapp Leave a Comment

We didn’t get to finish

We didn’t get to finish
a social media dialogue
in between the music
I sent TQ to keep
our spirits up

We didn’t get to finish
he asking leading questions
in response to my saying
that I miss the schoolchildren

What will you do he asks
when most are infected
the school has to close
and you can’t even
visit them at the hospital

Children whose nutrition
and immune system
is compromised are also
vulnerable and then they
bring it home to those
who are more vulnerable

Whizz Centre suspended classes
for 60 of their learners
who were a major source
of the Centre’s income
putting people’s health first

This is the TQ we knew
health before profit
health before economy
not economy before health
he maintained you cannot sacrifice
people’s health for the economy

Then he asks me
what is this economy
we are talking about
are we talking about
food or gold

We didn’t get to finish

(Photo Credit: Facebook / Tembinkosi Qondela)

Filed Under: General Tagged With: Cape Town, Covid-19, David Kapp, Khayelitsha, South Africa, Tembinkosi Qondela, The very unfortunate

Perfect day

April 26, 2020 by David Kapp Leave a Comment

Perfect day

it is
with a young author
all of 11-year’s old
on my morning radio

she bubbling away
enthusiastic is she
about writing
and reading too

(World Book Day
has passed virtually)

A tad later
another is on
she somewhat
longer in the game

Perfect day
is her first
choice of music

a song surely
to bring cheer
to humanity

surely not
what with we all
held to ransom
by a virus

one that has exposed
the planet’s cracks
for all to gasp at
and then to act on

A Perfect day

Two authors and a Lou Reed song on Michelle Constant’s show get this going, on South Africa’s Lockdown Day 31.

(Image Credit: “Joy” by John Von Wicht: Smithsonian Museums) (Video Credit: YouTube / Eagle Rock)

Filed Under: General Tagged With: David Kapp, South Africa, The very unfortunate

There shall be

April 6, 2020 by David Kapp Leave a Comment

There shall be

There’s a Manifesto
There’s a Party Political
There’s a Charter and
a Statement too
of some intent

There shall be
the usual smoke
come election-time
(and no doubt after)

Plenty for all
All for plenty
in the many
Lands of Plenty

Plenty of material
for PhDs and movies
cartoonists and satirists
and even for comedians
to stand up

Plenty now dressed
in their appropriate
Aims and Objectives
(no red carpet here)

from this stage
to every other stageist
in this phase or that
in this queue or that

There shall be
no walking of dogs
says a talking hat
(face on straight)

But
There shall be
Post-COVID-19
Elections
and the beyond

There shall be
Plenty for All
to remember
here and beyond

Dogs walking or not

Lockdown Day 5 went by, with a weekend Zapiro cartoon (Daily Maverick 4 April).

(Photo Credit: The South African)

Filed Under: General Tagged With: Covid-19, David Kapp, South Africa, The very unfortunate

Do you (wash your hands)

March 16, 2020 by David Kapp Leave a Comment

Do you (wash your hands)

Do you
wash your hands
in these trying times

of the politricking
not just from those
financially ahead
at the royal feeding trough

there are soothsayers
and clever-dicks and all
those who phone in
incessantly to radio stations
and pen social media epics

Do you
wash your hands

You who are
Unemployed and Unwashed
(even Poor and Unshaven)
Malnourished and Starving
Unhoused and Landless
and Illiterate too to boot

Do you
wash your hands
of Gender-Based Violence
and all that goes with it
(is there a Gender Audit)

Are you stocking up
on toilet paper and batteries
and baked beans and the like
perhaps even travelling points

as you daily go
from your dark place
to light

as you daily go
from the ghetto
of your mind
to that of others

Do you
wash your hands
of all of this

and look at yourself

(Picture Credit 1: The Metropolitan Museum of Art) (Picture Credit 2: The Tate Gallery)

Filed Under: General Tagged With: David Kapp

He said he didn’t know

February 18, 2020 by David Kapp Leave a Comment

He said he didn’t know

There are many
who are there
right here
out Africa-way

Knowing
knowingly
and not knowing

in denial
and denying

they are beyond too
on the rest
of Planet Earth

He said he didn’t know
the little enclave’s last
does as many have done
and many will continue to do

Might Ladysmith Black Mambazo’s
haunting Homeless
be a reminder
a little hint

that the system
he oversaw
had been declared
a crime against humanity

some even have it
that it was
an unfortunate past
a glitch on the horizon
of the planet’s timeline

like the Little Troubles
over in (Northern) Ireland
like the fall of Saigon
(and not the people’s struggles
against various imperialisms)

He said he didn’t know
notwithstanding the scars
the scarred and the scared
still

(Image Credit: African Activist Archive)

Filed Under: General Tagged With: apartheid, crime against humanity, David Kapp, South Africa, The very unfortunate

His hands were up

December 20, 2019 by David Kapp Leave a Comment

His hands were up

His hands were up
He was reaching out

So remarks the presenter
interviewing Section 27
on morning SAFM radio

His hands were up
five year-old Michael Komape’s
he drowning in a pit toilet

(learners and teachers
forced to learn and teach
in the state we are in)

His hands were up
He was reaching out

Now there is justice
some 5 years later
his family awarded
damages for emotional
shock and grief

A most appalling
and undignified death
says the judgement
(Supreme Court of Appeal)

The SAFM interview also
tells us of the insensitivity
and callousness of officialdom
in this regard

(have we lost our principles
along with so much else)

His hands were up
He was reaching out

How many more

See “Michael Komape’s family awarded R1.4 million in damages by appeal court” (Franny Rabkin, Mail & Guardian, 18 December 2019), and “Komape family awarded R1.4 million for emotional shock and grief” (Ciaran Ryan, 18 December 2019 © 2019 GroundUp).

The Komape family was represented by public interest law firm SECTION27

(Image Credit: Daily Maverick)

Filed Under: General Tagged With: David Kapp, Limpopo, Michael Komape, South Africa, The very unfortunate

Tell me why (Moody’s)

November 4, 2019 by David Kapp Leave a Comment

Tell me why (Moody’s)

Tell me why
we are to join
the dubious ranks
of the downgraded

(I mean the country
has just been upgraded
to number 1 as it beat
England in a little game)

Tell me why
we seem to be
your whipping boy
responsible for all
the ills of planet earth

We are not after all
bombing invading
or waging war
against any country

(we are only at war
with ourselves and
our women and children
not to mention those
who don’t look like us)

there is concern in Soweto
about Marathon runners’ safety
was the Ethiopian winner at risk
what with an politician waxing on
about different cultures and races

and an amnesiac sports presenter
says at the end that the rugby win
was for the whole of Africa
(where has she been most recently)

Tell me why
Moody’s

is it the economy
stupid

Filed Under: General Tagged With: David Kapp, South Africa, The very unfortunate

The English of Domestic Violence, and The Domestic Violence of English

September 15, 2019 by David Kapp Leave a Comment

The English of Domestic Violence, and The Domestic Violence of English

We split infinitives
We split the atom
We split a skull

What wonderful beings
we are (we men)
we who are superior
to all things

We crack a walnut
We crack a joke
We crack a (spare) rib

We blow out a candle
We blow into our hands for warmth
Those same hands that
strike a blow

We strike a match
We go on strike –
and come home to strike
a woman and (girl) child
(in the quiet and dark
of family life away
from the glare of the public)

We build confidence
We build houses (albeit matchbox ones)
We build relationships, which we
then break down like they are
our matchbox houses

We march, against apartheid
(of the statute book and the mind)
Sometimes we even march against
capitalism and woman and child abuse

We name our children
We name hurricanes
We call women names

We take up burning issues
and bride-burning continues

We arrange our furniture
and we arrange marriages

What wonderful beings
we are (we men)
we who are superior
to all things

(Penned Saturday, October 08, 2005)

Photo Credit: Silindelo Masikane / enca)

Filed Under: General Tagged With: David Kapp, femicide, South Africa, The very unfortunate

only colour light and music

July 18, 2019 by David Kapp Leave a Comment

only colour light and music

only colour light and music
to our hearts and souls
says the Daily Maverick
reporting on the passing
of Johnny Clegg (1953 – Forever)

1953 – Forever they say
as his music will
be played on
a long time after
the glowing accolades

Yet another says
The dance ends
for Johnny Clegg
South Africa’s beloved
musical storyteller

born out yonder Rochdale
to my knowledge
no-one here has
called him an alien
or anything the nastier

raised a bit in Zimbabwe
then peri-urban Johannesburg
and its townships were
his teenage stomping ground

this 15-year-old was taught
Zulu music and traditional dancing
by Charlie Mzila following him
guitar in hand to all
the migrant labour haunts
from hostels to rooftop shebeens

(this we hear from
the Final Journey official programme)

he who brought only
colour light and music
to our hearts and souls
has now made
his final journey

(Photo Credit: RFI / Alliance DPA)

Filed Under: General Tagged With: David Kapp, Johnny Clegg, South Africa, The very unfortunate

Welcome at last to the 21st century

June 26, 2019 by David Kapp Leave a Comment

Welcome at last to the 21st century

so wrote a colleague-past
at my reportage of now
having one of those devices
you see folks walking
into stationary poles with

is it any good
I enquire
as it seems
I have not been

I hear there is
running water
electricity even
and plentiful
(so politicians say)

Welcome at last to the 21st century
where you can see
hunger on a world scale
from local Bonteheuwel
to the beyonds of Syria
and darkest Africa too

the 21st century
where humanity
behaves as though
there is another
planet to go and ruin

the 21st century
where women
and children too
would want there
to be another planet
to shelter from the storm

there is illiteracy
and innumeracy too
on this man-trashed sphere
most especially down here
Africa South way

Welcome at last to the 21st century

(Photo Credit: Mail & Guardian / David Harrison)

Filed Under: General Tagged With: David Kapp, South Africa, The very unfortunate