OSWALD JOSEPH MTSHALI

I brush you by
in the busy streets of town
in the urine-reeking alleyways
in the shadowed subways

- where you often lurk –

in the fish and chip shop
where you sway to the jazz
blaring from the duke box.

I hear your voice
raucously on crammed buses;
above the roar of pneumatic drills
tearing up the street;
shouting greetings to a friend
some fifty yards away;
swearing drunken abuse
at foe and passer-by.

I see you, yes,
slick gentleman
in white shirt, suit and tie,
strutting the sidewalks;
(and women clutch their bags!)
browsing arrogantly
in the departmental stores:

“One stetson, please. The best.”

In sweat-drenched overall:
“Aaii baas!”

Khaki-clad, barefoot, manacled:
“Freedom baas”.

In rags; with crutches,
or without; no legs;
no arms; no eyes:
“Bread baas…bread!”

Oswald Joseph Mtshali,
“boy on a swing
shirt billowing in the breeze
like a tattered kite”,


lend me your heart
to wear in my chest…

Son of Mother Africa
field hand
miner
shopboy
beggar
convict
thief
businessman
detribalized;
Poet of the people
lend me your boots…

I have already borrowed your eyes.

Let us
walk together
in the busy streets
the alleys;
among the ripe corn
I n the valleys…

talk
together
on crowded buses,
in the shebeens,
in my city home.
Yes, by all means
in your thatched hut
if only as poets

my voice
not so full of pride
(a lot of shame; a lot of guilt)

your voice
as resonant
as the sounds of a cowhide drum.