Che is dead, so get over it
you want revolution? wash a beggar’s feet
I’m sick of your commentary from the backseat
fruitless and empty, like yelling at a taxi
this ain’t New York man, I’m speaking Mzansi
your friends are all on permanent matriek vakansie
alcoholics by twenty while the rest leave the country
and everybody’s laughing, but nothing’s really funny
I’m a white man’s white man, with European lineage
but my strength is born in Africa, like Popeye eating spinach
the Greenwich Meridian could never confine me
I’m living in the promise that my death will be timely
but my people have forgotten how to spell “reconcile”
yes, there is a new school, but the old is in denial
and the vilest of hate-speech on every street corner
makes my blood hot and sweat drop like sitting in a sauna
you’re the star performer in this cynical spin
the only one who understands the mess we’re really in (2010)
a flagship for hardship and constant complaining
but maybe your heart is the reason your whole life is failing
I don’t claim to understand you, these are merely suggestions
maybe its time to burn down your white picket fences
svibonakalile imatihlo aina (we have seen with our eyes)
svitakalile etindebeni taina (we have heard with our ears)
langutani eshihambanweni (let us look to the Cross)
my boy plays pool for money to buy shoes
a mirror of the terror in the paths that we choose
it’s not a matter of judgment, it’s how we hate to lose
(something is the matter…) what? something is the matter, man!
50 year old boys at the bar til they drop
something is the matter…fill the glass to the top
of my alcoholic skin, will this cycle ever stop?
even these guys sing along to the atrocities of hip-hop
everyone’s desiring the fruits of “a good time”
but no-one understands when you try speaking about new wine
your shoes shine in the moonlight but your heart is ever dimmer
you find love in a stripper’s eyes when there’s not even a glimmer
remind me why the deep end does not make of you a swimmer?
you speak of all your struggles like you’ve never seen a mirror
we grow old in denial and a blame-shifting pattern
can it really be my fault that something is the matter?
zvataona handizvo (what we have seen is terrible)
nezvatanzwa handizvo (what we have heard is terrible)
tarisai kumuchinjikwa (look to the Cross)
let’s burn the picket fence around the tents of the wicked
offence is explicit in this pre-emptive visit
to the nation of rainbows that’s flying a new flag
but the co-ordination of halo’s looks crap like a do-rag
the boomerang effect of a history of bloodshed
turns cold-blooded killers into heroic figureheads
“quick! change the street names”, the masses are restless,
and far too suspicious to see the gifts that they’re blessed with
and the next generation inherits the complex
until every election is littered with bomb-threats
come on! where are the optimists? my people with no blindfolds?
sisters and brothers who perceive the urgency that time holds?
I’d die for the cause and pour my blood out on the altar
that is raised in true repentance of the mistakes of my fathers
I’d much rather insist that the sister I wed
brings the purest of her culture to our future marriage bed
than allow the eyes in my head to be dictated to by pigment
imagining love is racially bound is like bowing to a figment
a stigma of hatred and ignorance that numbs us
but Hitler had Jewish blood, so you add up the numbers…
forgiveness runs deeper than the fears we’re all gripped with
leaves sick myths of hierarchy slowly dimming to a whisper
so raise your fist to the oppressor that resides inside you
and leave a wake of hope for the sake of the ones behind you
ajax and friend. photo: gerhard uys
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