Bury Me Naked

Teamhw SbonguJesu

When I am dead,

bury me naked,

facing the opposite direction

of the correct direction—

with my coffin and eyes wide open.

Throw dust straight in my face,

use stones and bricks while at it.

When half done,

throw rubbish,

take a shit,

point your penises and vaginas,

pee and spit inside—

like you did on me and my name.

When done, leave.

Don’t put any headstone,

or try to make it decent.

People should know

and not know who it belongs to.

Let them take a wild guess.

That shouldn’t be a problem—

they are familiar with making guesses.

Featured at The Red Wheelbarrow on 8 September 2022

Talk of war

Michael Cope

Old men like us must always talk of war,

Whether we fought and won, or didn’t fight

Or fought and lost. Whatever went before

Must be told again, so that the sight

Of fifty burly men in uniform

Eyes front, lock-stepped, left, right, left, right, left, right,

Allows young men, like we were once, to see

Only an organized stupidity.

You tell us how, when food was gone, instead

You ate the cats and dogs, then starved away;

And how they beat that young man in the head

With rifle butts, in the hot sun, where he lay

Bleeding, for half a loaf of dried-out bread –

Whereafter he was stupid till the day

He died – and how it was their cruelty

To let him live, for everyone to see.

I’ll give you in return my uncle’s trudge

Through Poland in the winter, years ago –

How any comrade who was weak, or judged

A problem, was knocked down into the snow

And shot at once, and how he bore his grudge

Against all Germans till his death, although

He understood the general fallacy,

And knew the foe was ideology.

Fifty earnest military men

In boots and camo, corporal beside,

Squared up and marching in five ranks by ten.

Who will tell them of the ones that died

For the fat and lying rich, tell the children

To look away, that war is suicide,

If we old men are not at liberty

To tend the horror in our memory?

Featured at The Red Wheelbarrow on 6 September 2022

When the sun peaks over the mountain in the morning

Nondwe Mpuma

The rooster will crow

The birds will chatter

The sheep will rise like sloths

The crickets will soften their creeks

The goats will stand eager by the gate for mealies

When the sun rises we will forget that darkness came, comes and will come.

Featured at The Red Wheelbarrow on 1 September 2022