THIS MORNING NIGGER

THIS MORNING NIGGER

THIS MORNING NIGGER

The days have been like this
these past 4 days

I've been trying to sell
my 2 copies of New Coin for few coins
Veldfire ravage evicts
mice hares locusts and her beauty to the hunter
to believe
I've walked to town and back
to try and secure that University scholarship

It's vain and vulnerable
achille's heel my roofs crush me
over the hills the beautiful Vumba mountains
the grassy drakensberg the sand-particled kalahari
my biological homeland Barotseland
Lewanika's eye and my true identity

My heart is now a bomb
the dish of water that pilate washed hands

Indians smoke peace pipe
When I'm reading Oom Smut's autobiography

We can sit in this sun
or beneath it

God's footstools
So long as
I have a single beer

When she crossed her legs on Farewell
She mentioned Upsaala Heidelberg
Then british airways. She was gone.

Baring the wolf's ivory fangs
trying to blaspheme if God slept at all
Wondering why poetry is personal
Why Im not yet dead the cat's whisker twitched
SHIT!
Again the blood and snot clotted in my nostrils
to the shouting outside

this dark little room where
the unmattresed bed
the tens and tens of books
the oversized jacket behind the door
the holed shoes
are POETRY themselves.