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We are going to sin again.
With the energy propelled from the penury we live in.
The synergy hollowed in between our empty stomachs and bank accounts.
We are going to sin because we Lust for comfortability.
Even though we Envy the rich, we have Pride in our nothingness.
We have been put down before.
We have lived through servitude and oppression.
A VAT increase is a walk in the park. We are just happy to be here.
Yes, we have Greed. We indulge in every kind of impurity, food is food.
There isn’t much where we come from.
We excessively eat nothing, inverted Gluttony comes natural to us. Growling tummies aren’t synonymous with exuberance and vigour, so yes, we are Lazy.
We, the poor, will again embrace the predetermined Wrath of ragging VAT gods.
The bitterness of the 19 basic foodstuffs that are zero-rated, and therefore not subject to a VAT charge, will linger in our taste buds when the cost of breathing confiscates our lungs.
We are dying to live.
The higher-than-inflation in- crease in social grants is a double-edged katana with a ragged-edge blade on the side of the 14% to 15% VAT spike.
Yes, there is R20 and R90 more in the grants.
But what is a dusty wallet to a R11 loaf of bread?
What is a grant to a VAT hike?
Is it not a spaceship to a black hole?
Why orbit the centres of galaxies?
For you will be swallowed whole.
We are going to sin again.
We have embodied the seven deadly sins.
And our poverty is the eighth.
Malusi Gigaba’s Budget speech is God. We never needed a calendar to know that Christmas is near.
A stationery VAT and escalated grands is our lord and saviour.
But in this squalor, friendly white men are rare.
So, Jesus isn’t coming again this year.
We have inherited the sins of our past.
We have been drawing closer to insanity's open doors.
Comfortability and our kind are drifting apart.
Consonants and vowels. Continents apart.
With freewill shackled in bars.
And whenever they ask,
Tell them we are not the same. For we are no longer afraid.
Survival has become fun.
We have been living Day Zero since day one.
We know now that we are travellers to nowhere.
But right here is fine.
When we farmed, our wages were wine. We never meant to be drunkards clothed in rags.
We toiled at mines and liquor was a reward.
The beer halls, the drinking cages. Inebriation is no initiation to our kind.
We have been drunk on indigence for centuries.
From the numbing pain of sobriety, we have mastered the art of surrendering our souls.
We are going to sin again.
The powers that be feel nothing for us sinners again.
Increasing grants and VAT is taking one step forward and one to the back.
Then again, food for thought is cheaper than a Shoprite braai pack.
We are students of hard knocks, still learning how to catch shooting stars to wish for land.
That kind of magic is easier than aquatic locomotion.
No man can walk on water where we come from.
But a household of five can live on R1500 per month where we come from.
@Rabbie_Wrote
This poem was co-written by Magnum Opus. Rabbie Wrote is one of three founding and current members in the ensemble of award-winning poets.
@OpusPoetry