OPINION | #PoeticLicence - Journey to Wakanda has begun #LandExpropriation

Magnum Opus, an ensemble of three spoken word poets, from left Rabbie Wrote Serumula, Sibusiso Ndebele and Thobani Mntambo. Picture: Lungelo Msibi

Magnum Opus, an ensemble of three spoken word poets, from left Rabbie Wrote Serumula, Sibusiso Ndebele and Thobani Mntambo. Picture: Lungelo Msibi

Published Mar 3, 2018

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The true bearers of light are smashing stones together and the flame is rogue.

The stories we have written on our flaws are becoming parliamentary votes.

For our Struggle began when our vast land of beauty was poached. Then wrapped in whiteness, a concept we could not quite land. Take a look at our hands. They are coming together.

We are healing these broken songs of Struggle. Reclaiming that which belongs to our forefathers, phoenixes whose ashes have abandoned them.

But our land is already on fire. Look at our feet. They are swollen. We are tired. Our ancestors and sisters have been dying.

Their blood fertilising soil in the garden of rage. Look at our faces. We are crying in broken songs and poems on a page.

We are smoking out the mirrors you gave us. The people inside them are no more.You have tricked us before. But little did you know that we too are wizards made of rags, hand me downs, stones.

Shanty towns we are supposed to call homes. Shaky grounds self-imposed with holes, mine dumps.

We are that close to hell. We have been standing it, but the heat is not a factor any longer. Look at our skin. We are after all descendants of soothsayers. That breed of magic from pixie township dust.

We are made of borrowed sugar from the neighbours, spice from the Pakistani tuckshop, and everything allegedly nice. Rulers of the kingdom of grotesqueness.

But who is the peasant now? The promise of acres is almost tangible.

Look at the time.

It took 24 years and a water crisis but we are practically landlords now. There was a slight parley to the motion of how we have been parlaying sand to reclaim the land of our people.

Our spirits are relearning the truth of our bodies as heavenly totems. There was a slight parley with the motion of how you have been mining the pot of gold turning us colour-blind to a one-sided rainbow.

Look at the sunrise. The slumbering giants have awoken. Landlessness has long bred disorder.

There are shacks in sufficient land. Enough has been enough for far too long. We are restructuring. Self-remembering. Recreating.

Forget the imaginings, the hallucinations, and all the dangerous fields. We are erasing all those hurtful pains that our elders could never run from.

Simultaneously mending hearts that were once broken and torn. We are drawing closer to our purest forms.

Painting new lyrics to our old Struggle songs. Resurrecting our locations into an eternity.

Look at the tides. Black was lenient when you sailed on its shores with your cargo. But now black is embargo. Black absorbs light, as fire does air.

We are warriors of the vortex, combatants of the cosmos tribe.

We have been graced with the burden of oozing black boy, black girl magic. Now is the time to unpack our bag of tricks. Your alchemy is diluted. You concoct weak magic. Your songs memorised footprints of your ascendants.

But salt water doesn’t hold prints too well. Look at the tables.

First it was Black Panther, now land expropriation. The journey to Wakanda has begun.

@Rabbie_Wrote

This poem was co-written by Magnum Opus. Rabbie Wrote Serumula is one of three founding and current members in the ensemble of award-winning poets including Thobani Mntambo and Sibusiso Ndebele. Read their profile here http://www.poetrypotion.com/poet-profile-magnum-opus/

@OpusPoetry

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