Word Art at 151 | Young voices : Moses Mtileni
Moses Mtileni was born at Nkuri-Tomu village in Limpopo. He is the author of U ya va Rungula (poetry) and Mpimavayeni (novella). He curated an anthology of Xitsonga poetry by ten young poets, Ntsena Loko Mpfula A Yo Sewula. He has been longlisted for the Sol Plaatje European Union Poetry Award thrice. His short stories and poems have appeared in local and international journals and anthologies (most recently Illuminations and Asymptote). He has translated Ng?g? wa Thiong’os short story, The Upright Revolution: Or Why Humans Walk Upright (published in Jalada Translation Issue 01) Peter Horn’s selected poems into Xitsonga. He writes in both Xitsonga and English.
Kwandonga ziyaduma – Place of rumbling walls
(fragments- of paths and memories)
rumbling walls
they rumble no more, these walls
rumours of gold, ghosts of magayisa
and meat that never finishes
they rumble no more, these walls
freedom
those that flocked to the city
when the fields were castrated
wrestled and slaughtered
that beast called ‘influx control’
declared everywhere home
the red ants
the court said the building
was too old to carry our bodies
unfit for our breaths
red ants confiscated
mattresses pots
broken stoves
threw them ten floors
down onto the streets
children screaming
the old the sick
no time for goodbyes
amidst the wrestling
the red ants are not ants
they are human beings reduced
to machines that bulldoze
those whose plight they share
for a meal
out of buildings too old
to carry our bodies
lumping us with pots
broken people broken stoves
the cold thickness of winter
robots
red eyes
frowzy hair
dry lips
a black rubbish bag at hand
a small cardboard piece
against his chest
bold black letters:
i keep this corner spot free
pointing at the letters and the bag
approaches a black sedan
whose driver winds up the window
and looks away
night, orlando east
when the raindrops
spattering against sheets of zinc
eat away at the soil below the wood
foundation to the mukhukhu
dig a donga into its inside
sinking the mattress and blankets
rousing the one negotiating sleep
a man needs a spade
to fight the torrent
via village road
charcoal blackened
next to the M2 highway
barefoot on the grass
barefoot on broken glass
he pauses to urinate
spits before moving on
utterly naked
through the windows
in a taxi to work
some look at his face
others at his penis
others his dreadlocks
drifting in the cold winds
night, tshiawelo
through the subsiding flame
of a paraffin lamp
full blast music
at the main house
a shebeen
and a couple having sex
at the corner outside your door
it makes sense to read
zoning schemes &
township ordinances
the communist manifesto
and steven bantu biko