The trouble with country, a poem by Rethabile Masilo
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 homeland, seeking his place as a son, a father, a lover and then husband. This is the poetry of a man who has seen much and kept his ear open, curious for the texture and weight of words.
�David Barnes, poet and founder-curator of Spoken Word Paris
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 homeland, seeking his place as a son, a father, a lover and then husband. This is the poetry of a man who has seen much and kept his ear open, curious for the texture and weight of words.
�David Barnes, poet and founder-curator of Spoken Word Paris
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| Canopic Publishing 2016 |
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