tell your children say:
“your names are grazing at the entrances to existence
dangling loose at the leaves of our minds
ready to sprinkle in fires that will vindicate the unborn
so search to engrave your path behind
the clenched breaths of unborn babies
tell them mek them know that our claims to victory are still
locked in holes silenced by the distance
between this side and that side

bouncing around between now and then
wear the revolution at your feet
like a disciplined disciple of knowledge
who gathers around
words”

tell your children say:
“liberate our source of truth
that was stolen and diluted under the name of “progress”
to search for knowledge and survival not only from angels
but occasionally face the devil’s eye

tell your children to name
their children with intention
let them say their names through
pride and answers about botho jwa bone
le batho ba bone
tell them say:
our names are ready to sprinkle in
fires that will be vindicated by the unborn

I asked her to paint me
The ballo sardo on the marble floors
Of her endurance
With a wrinkled smile softer
than the lips of time
She began: “I have never danced
in my entire life
My father would not let
a woman dance in his home
So I watched my brothers tap
loose the mirrors of histories and futures

…And they did it well,” she sighs.

I wonder tho, if she danced in her dreams,
Unspun grace like a soultrain diva
Shaking the load off
At the feet of her desire
Not to be hidden nor forbidden by
The naked the truth she holds

These bodies
Scream like attention does
Engage and disengage
Withdraw and carry on like
Bopelo maikutlo le dithapelo

These bodies listen to eulogies
That dissolve the wind’s breath
Straddling the glory for pulling
Through the night rocking dreams
Who soothe our journey’s
thirst with kisses
That grow under the skin

Of bodies remnants of
goddesses and kings
And rainmakers in forests
now existing only in my
Body’s streams
Under summer echoes
striding the yawnings
Of yeoville, second
avenue in alex,
downtown Brixton
These bodies release the truth
to what the soul had shelled

Bodies love and are loved
Play and are played
Bodies pray and are prayed for
Swing us closer squeeze through
bodies of souls who can only bear
love to chide the everyday song of bodies

Not only are they messengers
but carriages to every rise
and any fall so stitch them to
invisible loads and roads
that deep etch the screams
and seams of every/body/soul