POETRY

WORDS MORE PIERCING THAN A NEEDLE

After what seemed like an eternal sabatical Uhuru Mahlodi is back with words more piercing than a needle on a fiend's vein. One of her fans was impressed and even said, 'I'm happy to know that there's a woman behind the dreadlocks'. Whatever that meant, we'll leave such commentary to you.

Ga-Modjadji

Like foot soldiers
They stand at attention
Green, calm and serene
Feet rooted
In ancestral soil

High mountaintop
Where the Modjadjis
Have found refuge
Under the sun
Under black clouds
That nourishes red soil

Royal and holy
This is where
Indigenous spirits
Jump native dance
Go a thunya lerole
Go a lla mekgokollo
Maru a thiba
Go a gadima
Badimo ba ga Modjadji
Ba thapiša bolobedu
Ka medupi ya legodimo

Supernatural mystics
Dwell on the crown of the earth
By the green heads
Of Limpopo


Ghetto warrior

She’s a ghetto warrior
Her birth cries erupted
Like a volcano of hospital bills
The lava of her tears
Scotched the nurse’s fingers
And an earthquake of a smile
Broke on the new mother’s face
She has given birth to history
That breaks silences
From its first breath
She rides on the arms of time
Constantly on a journey
Reliving the past
Her struggles weren’t finding herself
But her father
Whose genes of activism
She carries around

She’s a ghetto warrior
Who imprints memoir
In the minds she interacts with
She works out the script of her life
As she goes
Exuding a natural aura
That blends in with green sceneries
Staring through her eyes
Is taking a stroll into the sunset
So her presence feels like a holiday
She’s patriotic
And ever so poetic
Her N1 of lines runs for miles
Trampling over lies
From Cape
With Egyptian art
Embroided in every verse
She’s got her estranged father’s
Blood running through her veins
And a strong sense of self
In her soul

She’s a ghetto warrior
She started reading in the womb
And popped out shooting
Vocabulary of a 20 year old
20 years later everything is greater
Although at times
She’s beat boxed by a solitude rhythm
While hip hopping
Down town alleys
Swimming in fountains of red wine
And sniffing the line
Of the bass
That makes her scream
In music we trust
On the edge of coke highs
In city blues
Her life in captured
On films of Egolihood tapes
With script that induces panic and suspense
By holding your eyes hostage
Demanding your attention
For ransom

She’s a ghetto warrior
A Jacqueline of all trades
She traded her insecurities
With orgasms of universal mantras
Makes love with every step she takes
Making sure her future is laid
Sometimes she’s a bitch
Sometimes she’s a queen
A true artist indeed
Her brother is a mental case
Who guzzles beer cases
And smokes ndanda
Now he’s a danda head
But she’s got mad love
For him still
She massages her mother’s temples
With her works
She melts the ice
With her eyes
And disarms manhood
With her smile
She’s a ghetto warrior


So true a story

The nurse asked her
If she’d like anybody
To be called to witness
The arrival of her baby
And a destructive train
Of memory gushed painfully
On the tracks of her veins

Not even 9 months
Has prepared her for the day
She’d have to look
In the eyes of her first child-
Whose daddy
Is her own father

She’s never in the mood
To deal with her childhood
Or her life in the hood;
She can barely go through a day,
Never mind a lifetime,
Without crippled memories
Creeping in her emotional tunnel
Like a thief stealing
Her art of painted smiles

She says it’s too late for hugs
All she needs is drugs
To overdose her demons
As they wail at crack of dawn
To suckle on her
Toxic incested breast
They are both found dead