A Letter to Our Leaders

-Luke Green-Thompson

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Mr. Cele

Mr. Cele

Your incompetence has arrested you

With your hands behind your back that man Thabo has just bested you. 

No your guns and militia have never kept us safe

The offspring of those caspers SAPS the hope out of this place. 

Mr. Cele

Mr. Cele

I know what you would say:

"That my mother was kitchen girl"

"And my father was a garden boy"

Howu, ngiyacela Mr. Cele

Oh we're begging you Bheki

Stop making excuses

Police and protectors?

Corrupt and abusive

Accountability forever elusive

Uyaphi Uncle Cyril?

No, we haven't forgotten, that the core of an apple is where it is rotten

What's that song that you like?

Pata pata?

Or Phala Phala?

Power's never won for mahala

Hands dirtier than the ocean by uShaka

I wonder if you notice us?

The desperate mouths of hunger-lust?

The burdened backs of baby mothers

The violence of domestic lovers 

You say preserve our traditions

The women in the kitchen

The men in positions of authority where they do fok all for the majority 

You say preserve our traditions

And let shine the rainbow nation

Side by side

Black and white

Is what you refer b

But when it comes to Queer folk 

You seem quite deterred 

So which Rainbow do you speak of?

I said "Wenzani Uncle Cyril?"

Do you count the numbers?

Or state the names?

Of women slain?

Of women laid to rest before

Dust turned to stone

And stone turned to diamond

Few diamonds left behind so 

Zama zama now could find them.

Absent light becomes blinding

When you're living in darkness

Living as shadows 

In the shadows of our past

Chained and locked up

Still in detention 

Rest in power Derek Watts

You've begun your ascension 

On the other side waiting,

Is Eusebius and Ricky, Senzo and Costa

AKA and his legacy

But I wonder if his deeds have disturbed the megacy?

Dear Uncle Cyril

A letter to our leaders,

Lend me your ears.

Will you heal a broken nation?

Construct anew from those BRICS you've just laid?

Or is it up to the people to fix the mess you have made?