"FACINGFACES 2002 - 04" SELECTED POETRY (Part 2)

One Nation

Under the merciless sun
Does she feel her baby weeping
On her back demanding
Milk that her flaccid breasts
Cannot provide

While the president of the nation
Gaily mends the fate of his people
Over six-course meal
In a noble restaurant
With his buddy heads of state

Hope and despair make her walk
Perilous streets at night
In a dress bright and short
To attract shady clients
For a few bucks an hour

While the president of the nation
Boards his private jet
In an Armani suit
To relax in his lavish
Five million dollar weekend home

With sores on her hands from
Foul water of the dry river
Does she caress the tiny head
Of her dying child
To sooth its last hours

While the president of the nation
Takes a bath in his gold-plated tub
With a glass of champaign
To celebrate his thriving
Politics of the day


Trapped

Bittersweet oppression
Slowly drowns her spirit
Her voice an echo
That resonates in nothingness

Laws ridiculed
By male order
Tradition a pretext
To kill her inner core

Violent memories
Erase expectation
As her empty soul
Fulfills everyday chores

Mended liaisons
Caused by fatal conviction
Of her own unworthiness
Predict novel calamity

Eyes averted
In convenient ignorance
Preserving the image
Of a sane world


World Elapsed

Her identity burned in the struggle
With the flames went her faith
Her house and her future
A shack she calls home
To raise generations without hope

Her children killed by disease
Nurtured in state's denial
Smoothly raping the country
In rapid multiplication
Mass murdering the nation

Her existence dictated
By handily forgotten promise
Tables turned only for few
Leaving the masses
Paralyzed by the past

Her wrinkled hands stir water
In pretense to boil food
Until her grandchild falls asleep
Worn out from hostile life
That does not provide

© Kristin Palitza - South Africa