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Showing posts from October, 2018

Six November, a poem by Rethabile Masilo head website

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The line is long; in it people have been here waiting behind an old man who arrived before everyone, his sponge mattress still flattened near the door— a door like no other. Nothing is new, a snake is long, as when South Africa queued to quell itself those many years ago, waited to cut its own head off with a panga for the first time after years and years of venom, not knowing that its head will sprout back each time more determined than ever. Though it is cold out here at this time of the year you do not care at all� and maybe it is all the better because no one will go to no beach, to no picnic in the park, but will be here standing in unison with their bredren before this entr�e, which is like no other, with their minds all made about which part of the snake to cut and remove. On this day in 1806, a line extended from this booth to every other end of town, and Lincoln was elected. Do you feel like an extension of those four hundred and twelve score years and four

Family reunion, a poem by Rethabile Masilo

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In the afternoon I gather fruit that drops from our tree; the peach I pick for dad breaks in my hand and bleeds over my fingers because it�s ripe and sallow, like bushman skin under the sun of Taung. I pluck one for mum from a low-hanging branch, and put it in a different basket, for it�s still firm. I�ll put it in a bowl on the kitchen table and watch as it ripens. Siblings fall from other trees that a breeze stirs: this weekend we�re having a reunion. Cousins too, their apricots and prunes and marete-a-makula touch and kiss as I carry the heavy baskets to the house, after which I proceed to shave and shower, put on a clean shirt. There are friends already in the house, from Ha-T�iu outside town, and from as far as Bloemfontein. I knot my tie, fix my hair with a �fro comb dad never let us use. The mirror smiles. I rub my eyes, dad is staring back at me. Mum & Dad Poem from ' Letter to country ' Canopic Publishing, 2016

The trouble with country, a poem by Rethabile Masilo

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They inhabit dreams, at night always and on into day, have severed their cord with earth, the need for people, preferring to drift alone. Sunlight avoids their faces. Something deep-intense hangs above their heads to stir their senses, but there�s no reaction when their knees are knocked; they wander in themselves; walk where the rush goes that drives their lives; and they have broken the record of age like old timers under a village tree. Outside is nature, forested, sap-ful, black in its posture. Horny fish swim up a brook as kids in water, here, outside; the walls are painted with fornication, which is the religion, our eyeful is not yet blas�, wind flies lovebirds from bush to bush. Inside� no craft: they prefer the life the coloniser made, and left. They, dead inside, are the motherfuckers of the world. Rethabile Masilo�s poetry wanders across continents from Lesotho in southern Africa to America to Europe to elsewhere. It is restless, seeking the meaning of his ties to kin and ho

My father's killers, a poem by Rethabile Masilo

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They take to the road at midnight, and turn Toward land that by right we plough and turn. Their dark convoy passes white-washed houses. A brake light: the bakkies slow down, and turn. They park at right angles to the street, To light the yard: it's daddy's day and turn. They have come on a crisp September night To blight us, make our season change and turn. The moon shimmers its flashlight on a blade While, from a height, the planets spin and turn. Lapeng

Sex shop, a poem by Rethabile Masilo

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�after Albert Goldbarth This sex shop enjoys visits to Bangkok in Thailand / This sex shop is successful because it has licked all the competition / This sex shop sells crotch-less chastity belts / Everyone comes here / This sex shop goes through a lot of mops / If you come upon anyone you know here you should wipe �em off / They sell a gun-shaped dildo here dubbed �The Sex Pistol� / This sex shop hates every ��ism�, except �jism� / This sex shop grows its own rubber trees / This sex shop pierces women�s lips and men�s heads / This sex shop showed the Goldbergs how to make whoopee / This sex shop isn�t in The Encyclop�dia of Sex; the Encyclop�dia of Sex is in this sex shop / This sex shop isn�t right up anyone�s alley. It�s up yours / The red carpet leading to this sex shop is a tongue / The Kama Sutra is dedicated to this sex shop / This sex shop has a salesman named Rocco / I saw Adam and Eve browsing in this sex shop / This sex shop does not have a single die-hard customer / This se

'Set�oana' & 'Eseng ka rona', by and feat. Siphiwe Nzima-Nt�ekhe

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1. Each time I listen to your music I can�t help wondering if you�re at the cutting edge of your own style, or if your music does subscribe to a specific genre with which I�m not (yet) very familiar. Can you say something about that? I subscribe to different genres of music and the spoken word and each one has an impact on my music and pieces. I create my music based on the timelessness of the message, the harmony that bonds it to the melody that speaks directly to the conscience. What to call that fusion is also beyond my grasp at the moment. 2. How do you compose a song? Is the experience different every time, or is there a well-honed, well-oiled procedure? I never really set out to compose a song or a poem for that matter. There always has to be an occurrence that sparks the need to put pen to paper. This usually happens when I find myself emotionally attached to the event so much that I am rendered speechless, save to write it down. 3. Your tunes, Eseng ka rona and Set�oana, have a