#Philosophistication

PreSchool teacher at dinner
with family;
“Sambo, Golliwog, and pickaninny;
Mammy; Mandingo; Tragic mulatta,
Watermelon;
Hierdie ape moet in spesiale
klasse geskei word en gegee word
wat konkreet en prakties is.
Hulle kan nie abstraksies
bemeester nie, maar hulle kan
effektiewe fabriekswerkers word.”
Daughter walks to room;
| She sits on her pink chair,
with dolls sitting around the
table. She picked up her
imaginary cup of coffee, She
sipped and they all sipped,
Then her black doll fell on
the floor then her imaginary
friend spoke. |

Parading, freedom pride,
Jefferson and Mandela is yours,
open palms; Yeshua bleached
his skin in Rome, skin tone is
too dark even in shadows,
lost marbles, colossal moment;
mom and ants, the rosary rusting,
pitiful carnage; car symbolises success,
suck on xanax, the Zambezi is
where your greatness was once
beheld by the elders who passed,
last man standing before the
pistol struck your funny bone,
laugh yourself up heaven’s stairs,
for heaven’s sake ignore the injustices
and focus on an eternity,
it’s a tea party, heaven is a place
of fork and knives, illegal miner
traumatized by colour of gold,
PTSD by the sight of golden streets,
Golgotha to Golgonooza, press the snooze
button, let the man awaken from
these false heavenly notions,
motive is to have false Zen in
Zionism’s context.
Fellowship with owners
of slave ships, sightsee
privilege on Maple street,
jungle gist; gorilla welfare
when the warfare started
promoting cuddling, bundling
man in hostel corner houses,
pistols and politics, the pen
pierces baby nappies, leave
poetry pampering a bastard’s
understanding.
Too much violence lacks context,
the constitution made savages
into Malcolm X’s, graze on bullets and
smile at massacres, sight of burning cars
leaves your senses blunt, debugging
the system, bring the python and
preach Hades’ arrival.

Tomorrow another body is a corpse,
tomorrow someone’s heartbeat is naught,
stressing about the next bag of coke,
Borrow sanity from the child born
within suburban trees, miss the life
of a dead dad, life lacking sense,
sushi, lasagna and fridges filled
with different types of cheese while
the harvester of it suffocates on his knees,
every produce is bittersweet, we’re sweetened
by the unknown meat in butcheries,
supermarkets where tomatoes
reak of poverty; tourists and camera
triggers; shoot me with your gun
that spews out privilege, prevalent
inequalities, mourning sceneries
while industries keep retrenching loyalists,
monarchy smiles and peasantry cries out,
tie intestines into knots, no space to
house butterflies when flies already
dance in those corridors.
Closed doors; no jobs,
stay inside and stay alive,
survival stride while others ballet around,
jog out, first priority is the community
with more cents while those lacking
loose change are buttered and are
never loosened from institutional chains.
Tired of survival; destiny in sight but
no insight to ensure arrival, at night
night owls become knights knitting
and chaining single mothers to
promises of love and devotion,
manipulation of emotion; world of
a melanin mannequin, woke and
having poverty as kosher.

Call for the blood of Isa
when they forget about our
existence, holy waters and holy books;
detained by ideas, dark path,
no clearer direction, emancipation
is in one 90-something footage,
aging while the foot aches, the
heart aches, the head aches, soon
its ashes to ash, dust to dust,
little life filled with pain.
When will it rain? The land
has dried up, the big thick bloody
injection keeps interjecting our
genetic rites…

By Eugene ‘Philosophisticater’

Artwork by Mark Bryan

Philosophistication Poetry © All Rights Reserved ©