Was I wrong,
A poem by Mazisi Kunene
Was I wrong when I thought
All shall be avenged?
Was I wrong when I thought
The rope of iron holding the neck of young bulls
Shall be avenged?
Was I wrong
When I thought the orphans of sulphur
Shall rise from the ocean?
Was I depraved when I thought there need not be love,
There need not be forgiveness, there need not be progress,
There need not be goodness on the earth,
There need not be towns of skeletons,
Sending messages of elephants to the moon?
Was I wrong to laugh asphyxiated ecstasy
When the sea rose like quicklime
When the ashes on ashes were blown by the wind
When the infant sword was left alone on the hill top?
Was I wrong to erect monuments of blood?
Was I wrong to avenge the pillage of Caesar?
Was I wrong? Was I wrong?
Was I wrong to ignite the earth
And dance above the stars
Watching Europe burn with its civilisation of fire,
Watching America disintegrate with its gods of steel,
Watching the persecutors of mankind turn into dust
Was I wrong? Was I wrong?
Mazisi: Alive At The Cusp of Your 90th Realm
A poem by Will Alexander
Mazisi
you the great spirit
the intransigent oracle
who now appears & disappears
as progenitor of liberty
not as scribe super-imposed by professional sterility as syntax
but by magical etching via surreptitious penguin's quills
never a domain of hoarseness
but personal power via in-docile bravery
being colorful wind that continues to erupt from transfixed volcanoes & it is you
who magically inscribed Shaka
who sculpted his salt from indiginous fragments
from lingual incensment
alive as living structural historicity
not as quotidian perspicacity
but through language as sum
via the biographic as intrigue
Mazisi
you remain the great torch
blazing & retreating as touch & go astonishment
possessing in your psyche a plethora of lion's blood
condoned by dark behavioural spell
always signalling from the beyond your power as prophetic Zulu doctor who continues to forge alchemical numerics
rife with organic Zulu cosmology
Masizi
you are never as dazed ghost or ornamental replication
but as mirror who embraces forces & because you remain spawned by ceaseless bravery
you spontaneously erupt
not unlike a teeming realm explosive with swans
always breaching the invisible
via the spellbinding power
of your commanding hallucination
