Chiskop woman of my heart,

Chocolate girl of my soul,

The bright torch of my poems,

Your lips are like a cup of coffee,

I can enjoy another one,

From a well so deep,

The depth of your heart.

Chocolate girl

Let me sanitize you

With my poems.

Your love is like the sun

It brings light in my life.

Your beauty is an umbrella

When the rain is pouring.

Murhandziwa wa mbilu yanga!

The secretary of my heart,

Mutameri wa xitsalo xa moya wanga!

Scribble love resolutions in my soul.

Apula ra mbilu yanga!

Our love is on level five

Please, quarantine me in your art,

Deep down in your heart.

Slay queen xanga!

Please, defend my heart.

Slay queen xanga!

Defend my art.

Our love is a hit

Like BIG Zulu’s song:

Imali eningi

Ka mina rirhandzu ri nyingi

2. The Forbidden Fruit

For all teachers and learners

This letter to you Meneer,

I write with my blue pen,

Which was supposed to write

your homework.

Mr. Sir remember this:

I am just a baby,

a young child

Not your babe,

I am just a young child

I need guidance.

Don’t give me deep kisses

Help me travel the world

In your Tourism

and Geography classes

Don’t lure me to your favorite

guest houses

Assist me to interpret cartoons

During your history lessons

Solve for X eka Metse

I love to solve for X

But I can’t solve

your sexual desires.

Meneer, don’t call me names,

I am just a baby

Not your honey!

Since when I became your

‘Sthandwa sam’,

My love, my babe

My sweetheart, murhandziwa wanga

My BAE…’

Last month you touched my breasts

You said they are firm

Like those of a Hollywood woman.

Sir, at sixteen years of age

Please, don’t address me

like your wife,

I am just a baby

a bundle of joy

Not your honey pie

I am still young

full of dreams.

Please, give me hope,

Not red roses

not flowers

not French kisses

That can lead us

to something else.

Don’t call me

your sweetheart

I am a toddler

Don’t address me

like your wife.

I know you know my address

Please, leave my short skirt alone.

Last week

you slapped my bums

I didn’t like it

You commented about my boobs

You gave me clipa

and I closed my mouth.

Please my good Sir

don’t call me babes

I am your child

Pedophilia is a disease

It is a sickness.

Yours Faithfully

Grade Nine Learner.

3. Letter To Nobhala

I

Dear Comrade Nobhala

I write to you, my dearest secretary 

with a heavy heart

This letter of resignation.

Comrade Nobhala listen

I have taken an unpopular decision

To abdicate my responsibilities 

with immediate effect.

I am tired of these endless 

door to door campaigns 

for other people’s interests.

I need to live my life too Comrade

I have been a Ground Force for too long

Now it is enough my Cadre.

Comrade Nobhala listen

I am left behind 

still staying in a backroom shack

With no wife or children.

I wasted much of my youth

Trying to serve the people 

you my leaders

You even call me ‘The Ground Force’

After each election 

positions are distributed

Amongst your kind

Tribalism is criteria.

Comrade Nobhala listen 

I have taken a revolutionary decision

To look for a job 

so that I can buy a house

Buy a car 

a small bakkie

And marry a wife.

I need to make children of my own

I have been bleeding,

It is enough Comrade

I can’t bear this any longer

I therefore resign!

Yours disgruntled Comrade

Ground Force. 

II

Condemned unheard

Audi alterm paterm 

does not exist in these streets

It’s politics of the stomach.

There is absence of inspiration 

In these cruel streets

There’s presence of manipulation

The price tag of robust questions

Sentence without trial.

The ruling is an invoice of death

Our character has been butchered many a time

They are trying to write us off

I have been basking 

In the political coffin

Just for asking unwanted questions.

Clearly we are not wanted

They think their positions are superior

Defining themselves

Outside of The Constitution

Outside of The Collective.

Don’t write me off Comrades

I shall fight until I conquer 

These streets are brutal.

4. These Political Streets

When the trumpet roars

Know it is time to relocate 

to the place of no return.

When it is all said and done;

Read my poems at the memorial service;

Publish them online;

Spread the word

Poetry is my message.

When I take the final gasp

many people will make sense of my poems

which will give hope to the hopeless.

When the sun sets 

tell those who come to bury me

Not to praise me by lying.

No flowers in my grave

I have never bought one 

since I was born.

Don’t sing church songs

Sing songs of struggle

God loves me so much.

Through the rivers

Rains and trees

I am connected to him.

He lives in the clouds 

and mountains

When the sun sets

I will meet him.

5. I Am From The Ghetto

I come in peace to teach

Not to expose 

I pray to God 

to guide me 

pass the word.

Too many clubs

shopping malls 

and few schools

More booze 

and less prayers.

I am from the ghetto

In this big city of Gold

I come in peace to teach

Not to expose.

All I need is education

In this city of drug dealers

And lost souls.

Here men love power

And positions

I represent people’s power.

I am a learner 

from the ghetto

Living in a shack

Even my class is a shack

With no desks

No chairs 

No proper sanitation in my school

Infrastructure is my frustration 

But I learn anyway.

I am a teacher 

from the ghetto

Teaching in overcrowded classes.

To me 1 to 35 does not exist

There is too much politics in my school

The managers sabotage each other

For more senior posts

I teach anyway. 

If you have been to the ghetto 

you know the story

Children learn in temporary structures

Which have become permanent

More than 2000 learners share one toilet

Don’t complain 

teach them.

If you are a teacher from the ghetto

Who works on weekends

After school and holidays

Paid peanuts still

With no increment

If there is increment 

it is below inflation rate

Don’t complain 

these are not politics

If you know leaners 

from poverty stricken families

Whose parents passed away 

of aids related diseases

Don’t discriminate them

Don’t undermine them.

If you know the kids 

who get child grant 

Or free uniform 

Or sanitary towels

Don’t demoralize them

Motivate them

education will take them 

out of poverty

If you are a teacher from the ghetto

Representing teachers in the SGB

I hope you know parents 

who have turned this structure 

Into a business entity

They facilitate tenders for cash

They even sell posts.

Captured SGB members 

by the suppliers

Push their interests

No longer the learners’ interests.

Parents in the executive 

are the focus of interest

Don’t worry about that.

If you are a teacher from the ghetto

Who loves sports and arts

But schools no longer take care of such

Don’t wait for the direction from above

Get into the field.

Put on your boots

The sport left for them is boxing

Fighting for a chair every morning

If you can come to the ghetto schools

The children literally sit on dirty floor

The mobile classes have holes.

You are likely to be counted amongst those

Who shall have breaded criminals

And history will charge you harshly

They will grow wings one day

As I close this my poem

Know that I am a critical theorist

I am aware that the government

Gives tenders to writers

Who just change the covers of textbooks

And pretend to have changed the curriculum.

Whereas 75% of publishers

Are those who were responsible

For publishing colonial

And apartheid textbooks

I am aware that education

Which feeds memory

And ignores conscience 

is not genuine.

Education is a capitalist arrangement

reproducing inequalities and injustices.