CHILD OF MY MOTHER
Berry Heart February 21st  2012
Dedicated to raped and murdered girls
esp Tshepang Motlhabane and Segametsi Mogomotsi
Rhyming patterns aa,bb, cc,dd and alterante to ab, ac and Free verse for intensity

My body is a moving coffin carrying dead bodies of girls inside
Every time a child  or woman is raped or dies
I feel the pain of how they lived in vain
This pain makes my brain membranes insane
This pain pierces through the puddles of rain
And between the letters of my name
If pain was sound you wouldn’t hear it
For it will be louder to the human ear

When will girls own their bodies?
She asked with a twisted tongue tied to her teeth
Sometimes her ribs act like violin strings it seems
These eye bags are monuments of grief
Filth, red blood flowing between her shaking knees
Beneath his body
Fraying, praying to God saying ‘take me Lord’

The height of my spiritual insight
grows with tears n’ fears of a child
whose smile was never recognized
Last night I dreamt of her wearing a flowered dress
Yes! She wore her flowered dress when she disappeared
Yes! She wore her flowered dress when she was raped
Yes! She wore her flowered dress when her body was cut into pieces
the flowers on her dress melted in a pool of blood that escaped her body
I’m not impressed of your demise child of my mother
I hear  your soundless heartbeat on highways
I see your restless soul chasing the birds  in the sky
hoping to rest on their nests
And our hearts will always touch child of my mother

The pieces of her scattered soul
I bumped on to them last night
My eyes can never find
The right shape to cry
Minds knowing, hands holding arms folding
Looking at your body rotting
They call me names, a risk, a feminist
But I am anti rapist against child molestation and GBV

Like the sun awakens the earth’s core I’m the awakening
I am the beginning to the end of Gender Based Violence
It’s wise to know reasons why seasons spin clockwise
Rise and shine my mother says
But how can I when everything around me is a lie
And painfully blinds me to see the sun rise?
I play trombones and recites poems in homes to heal bleeding wounds

They say the revolution wont be televised but it will be told through berry heart Poetry
It may not calm the roaring seas or erupting volcanoes
but empowerment and enlightenment of youth through poetry changes the world
Singing and reciting words of hope through the lips of silence
I, an activist of intellectualised circumstance
Some of you have been taught and inspired to write poetry
and you practice metaphors, similes and rhymes
some of us are born poetic thus we recite poetry to STOP abuse
against women and children for eternity...

The pieces of her scattered soul I bumped on to them last night
She remembers the hardness of his chest as mahogany casket against her breasts
She feels his rhythm, beating in haunting images
I advised her to stop looking for sunlight inside a cave
I advised her to save her soul and pray to pave her way to heaven
Because the blue blanket above isn’t called heaven
its Berry Heart Poetry sown into blankets to clothe naked children
Our hearts will always touch child of my mother

They have angered God
His wrath falls like rain from the sky roof
He wants them to feel the same pain they cannot explain
In the seventh circle of hell they yell in pain
The dust from their feet scratching my window pane begging for pity
Our hearts will always touch child of my mother

I’ll always hold you like the moon in the palm of the sky
Ask God to turn all stones in Ethiopia into bread
Because stomachs of the children are touching spines
Yes, we call it poverty
Yes, we call it starvation
Yes, we call it hunger
Our hearts will always touch child of my mother.

Gender a spear that brands us
A spear that shapes sunsets and sunrises of sharp tongues
and deliver babies imprisoned into the basket of womanhood
it flights kites on skies n chisells smiles on lips that spits blood
of street mothers enslaved in the currency of time
they wept and slept, bled and died but the struggle continues

this is for the lost love that used to guide us
this is for you, who will be moved by the power of my poetry
This, is not a poem, it is a song to be sung to of every girl child
whose been told that the only way to live is to give your life away