Rethabile Masilo: People of Stone
People of stone
©2007 Rethabile Masilo
Look West to the men of stone, the women too in their polished demeanour in some corner of the world, born to live and die alone. So what else is new? I’m not here to lay hands on foreheads, I gain nix by mumbling to the gods, the promise of my visit is not to allay anyone’s wretched pain. I’m leaving the frontlines now to deliver mirth to a kingdom in the sky, mix the colour of life on earth as it is in heaven, like never. Black isn’t death isn’t gloom is my people. Green’s not the dollar but the flora of my youth. Red? Not Marxism: red is blood the mother gives, then grieves.
Scarves
Nothing but these scarves will cover a shilling’s worth of flesh, the rest being lies packaged in a grief.
Nothing satisfies, not the halves of ardour on silver tray, just these scarves hung on necks of girls on violent days.
Djellabas on street terraces suck narghiles, drag meaning from below; but nothing will ever prepare you for this.
No one will tell you when your time is up. The dark-house gods have come for the kill, at last, and not even a good scarf will shield you any more.
Madam in the bedroom
I live in Midville where the sun’s unhappy, where one answer to what we seek as a folk is cross-burning; and though madam’s alone today, the ranch quiet, I’m not taking no chances. Without a squeak I slink from the sill and go past the tree branch, which has seen men hanged for less than a peek into a lady’s sleep room [that tree should have long become a monument], and on to the back stables by the sty. A steed stamps as I approach, prances, brooding perhaps over my manhood, what the purpose of it is, the why to all of this, and, can I explain this pain I hold. I grab the curry comb to groom, to straighten my thoughts in that stall once and for all, for I do seek things in life, like justice, and I seek the knowledge of why the earth is round, the sky blue, the pygmy small; though above all it is God I seek [in the end it always is], a rendezvous with God so we can speak of niggers and stuff. And won’t God be aghast? Life here overseas is no oasis, man, where are the stars, in these concrete deserts so friendless and vast? But now at last I’ve got my rendezvous, and I’ll see about completing the ellipsis all the way through.