Poet to Poet
Strings of jazz to helmet
Life to death
Ntate, which moments here were fallible?
Which ones carried the "loudness of blind desire"?
What of the future of words?
Loneliness and poetry
Unrequited giving and years of beckoning light
What is all of it supposed to look like?
How are we meant to feel in the apocalypse of too many:
Ages,
Feelings,
Rhythms,
Cultures,
Births,
How is this moment meant to be archived -- neatly seated amongst memories and eulogies?
How did you keep up with the cycle -- bore the pain and sickle of words,
Showed up
Housed jubilant rage with a conviction to smile...
Your sons and swords
Your daughters' tears
Repetition and repercussions
Exile.
Ntate, the present continues to be a very dangerous place to live in
Disenchantment and a plurality of breakings
Ineffable catastrophes that kill feint hearts
The urban stage has never been pro-truth
In fact,
The urban stage has killed too many poets
Poet to Poet,
For the sake of it all,
How did you out breathe most poets?
One day I asked you about black protest culture and secure spaces for rage
It was about jazz, Ntate
Poetry as Jazz and protest
Multilayered and multidimensional dissents,
This worded moment of struggle --
Four hemispheres and multiple lives.
Poet to Poet,
Life and death
Confusion and... mostly confusion
Deep rivers and aching,
Ntate, melancholia is drumming rare grooves on hard bop and...
I am drawn to these things, Ntate
The parallels, Ntate,
The duos
An acidity
I am scared the ANC made you tired --
Broken promises and a never returning Azania.
My heart is idle and to this day my relationship with words is slippery,
I am still a mere mortal whose hello is a whistle and
There is so much here.
Thus if this is really the end,
May my heartfelt, spirit led, love-driven gratitude find you
I hope grace covers you always.
There is a Wilhelm scream for beautiful black ancestors
May you please, kindly and always remember us.