Mangrove swamp

Dark earth brooding

Mozzies, biting flies or imaginary gnats

Landing hits on tender skin

Body and limb squelch away, in yielding earth

While trees with wet boots trudge in cold cold sludge, & breathe & breathe

through straw-like roots, that snorkel out and up; 

Decay, everwhere, creeps once more

Into nostril, lung and pore

Aargh!

I know you have a purpose

But why must you be so awkward?

Old flag

The four-colour flag

is a gun

i hear it, rat-a-tat tat

in the ear's dark canal

commas, full stops and deadly colons

ending in a fitful pause

... is a dog

on the leash

tugged by shrouded figures -

benzine, spyker, mostert -

their bare hands & bared teeth

gouged air

from our chests

... is a yellow kwela-kwela

metallically cold

to the touch; in the

wire-caged part

my brain rolls around

as wheels slew

from caledon square to torture room to death farm to stick-figure appearance

in white man's court

the four-colour flag

tortured the confessions:

the first nation is extinct

plunder was a walkover

good neighbours and bantustan lords welcome 'pass books' & high walls

& baaskap flowers naturally, amid veldblossoms, grape-stalks, mountain bush, cacti, wild grasses & woodland

The new flag

is a too-long road

that's sun-baked, potholed, soaked

and gasping with sweat

twisted in the knots

of so many winds