FOR THE LOVE OF POETRY THIS KID IS NO GOAT by Mbuyiseni Oswald Mtshali Where have all the angry young men gone? Gone to the Island of Lament for Sharpville. Gone overseas on scholarship. Gone up North to milk and honeyed uhuru. Gone to the dogs with the drink of despair. Yesterday I met one in the bookstore: he was foraging for food of thought from James Baldwin, Amiri Baraka Albet Camus, Jean-Paul Sartre. He wore faded jeans and heavy sweater, he saluted me with a “Hi Brother!” He was educated in the country mission school where he came out clutching a rosary as an amulet against “Slegs vir blankes – For Whites Only!” He enrolled at Life University whose lecture rooms were shebeens, hospital wards and prison cells. He graduated cum laude with a thesis in philosophy: “I can’t be black and straight In this crooked white world! “If I tell the truth I’m detestable. “If I tell lies I’m abominable. “If I tell nothing I’m unpredictable. “If I smile to please I’m nothing but an obsequious sambo. “I have adopted jazz as my religion with Duke Ellington, Count Basie, Louis Armstrong as my High Priests. “No more do I go to church where the priest has left me in the lurch. “His sermon is a decaying pulpit tree to be swept away by violent gusts of doubt and skepticism. “My wife and kids can worship there: They want to go to heaven when they die. “I don’t want to go heaven when I’m dead. “I want my heaven now, here on earth in Houghton and Parktown; a mansion two cars or more and smiling servants. Isn’t that heaven?”
Posted on: Mon, 02 Sep 2013 09:13:04 +0000
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