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    The Bavino Sermons
    The Bavino Sermons
    The Bavino Sermons
    Ebook127 pages1 hour

    The Bavino Sermons

    By Lesego Rampolokeng

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    About this ebook

    Born in Orlando West, Soweto, in Johannesburg, Lesego Rampolokeng is a poet, novelist, playwright, filmmaker and writing teacher who rose to prominence in the 1980s, a turbulent period in South Africa s history. Originally published in 1999, The Bavino Sermons includes such memorable poems as Lines for Vincent , Riding the victim train , To Gil Scott-Heron , Crab attack , Rap Ranting and The Fela Sermon .
    LanguageEnglish
    PublisherDeep South
    Release dateJul 23, 2019
    ISBN9781928476313
    The Bavino Sermons
    Author

    Lesego Rampolokeng

    Born in Orlando West, Soweto, in Johannesburg, Lesego Rampolokeng is a poet, novelist, playwright, filmmaker and writing teacher who rose to prominence in the 1980s, a turbulent period in South Africa’s history. He is the author of several pioneering collections of poetry including Talking Rain (1993), The Bavino Sermons (1999), Head on Fire (2012) and A Half Century Thing (2015). He is also the author of three novels, two plays, screenplays and has collaborated in performances and recording with several musicians.

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      Book preview

      The Bavino Sermons - Lesego Rampolokeng

      I

      RIDING THE VICTIM TRAIN

      Lines for Vincent

      they pulled out his teeth

      with a pair of pliers before he died

      wrenched out his nails

      ’cos they wanted his manhood denied

      they cut off his genitals

      with a butcher-knife

      while he bled they skinned him

      & let the blood flow with the wind

      i got the full blow of the message

      in the red rage of a storm

      whipping hard at the back of my shame

      & still the shack of memory rattles its bones

      let’s put it in perspective

      no one i know saw vincent’s corpse

      & the condolences were dry cleaned

      by a military-man who lived

      for the struggle to be human

      yes the man in command made a demand

      for his pounds of blood & flesh

      we buried an empty coffin to symbolise

      they say a jackal carried away his skull

      was found choked on the bullet lodged in the brain

      legend would have it

      they waved his head in the air

      & the bones would have made a throne

      for the president

      they mutilated & sodomised his dead body

      vincent was my cousin killed by bravery

      & a nation’s homicidal glory

      i showed him my first pubic hairs

      & in the season of my confusion

      he pointed out the path & how to walk it

      but took a knock on the shock of mortality’s discovery

      on his feet with fog for a blanket

      crept thru smog of a cannon’s fartblast

      to die in komatipoort

      site of the seal on the settlement of deathexcrement

      justice took a hit in the killing fields

      vincent on a hill of scarlet

      with the chill wrapped around him

      it was a whirlstorm within

      tucked under a blanket of fear

      as murder’s recognition grew

      & still the wind of torment blew

      at night i drown in sweat

      with the sight of a death-grin

      with a gun aimed at my brains

      & they call that figment

      of a fevered imagination

      & still

      i see the made up faces on the news

      tremble as i watch them tuck into chicken at luncheon

      in limosine whip thru function after

      cameraflash function

      & want to get their views

      on why lives were compromised

      but my questions are lobotomised

      it’s no use

      stirring the grail of revolution

      when all it can yield

      is a landful of maggots in convulsions

      the mother couldn’t stop shaking her head

      so they certified her mad

      & locked her inside her solitude

      the bomb bullet blade poison

      or just silence

      can ease the itching sore in my mind

      as my tongue twitches

      i know i might encounter the death

      of speech

      but it’s said memory is a long road

      made worse by the heavy load

      of violence

      Riding the victim train

      I

      blight on the site of the death-staple diet

      at gunshot midnight

      the leper cast out in the desert & cold

      without snout or paw in the pot of gold

      but warm & sane on the wisdom train

      i’m beyond the boer factor in the kaffir sector

      if it makes me suffer

      rougher i come tougher

      break its neck ’cos acting kaffir

      is not being black

      cry nazi riding tracks of the third reich

      they stand back from the battle track

      back up the second coming of the groot trek

      herd themselves like cattle in the colour kraal

      wearing the victim label

      everyone a sufferer

      pretending there was never a biafra

      can’t see ethiopia for myopia

      kick up a rat racket

      they pick up a rot packet

      wearing skin like a wallet

      riding a technic of pigment

      moving from depth to platitude

      selling attitude

      each one a racial prostitute

      the victims vie for martyrdom

      blood is mud we trudge

      call on history they reverse the charges

      not jud suss but the birth of a nation

      brutal equation

      the mein kampf syndrome takes hold

      my pain is deeper than yours

      chained to history’s flaws

      from the root of the old

      the fruit takes hold in the throat

      then they wonder why some feed on the seed

      of the dead

      II

      blight on the site of the death-staple diet

      at gunshot midnight

      the leper cast out in the desert & cold

      without snout or paw in the pot of gold

      but warm & sane on the wisdom train

      i’m beyond the boer factor in the kaffir sector

      if it makes me suffer

      rougher i come tougher

      break its neck ’cos acting kaffir

      is not being black

      but shame contained at dawn of conscience’s end

      old wounds dusted off          shown off

      atrocity flags flown high

      casualty squad on scar-parade

      past afraid made present dread masquerade

      achievement charade

      relevant rule of the moment

      tears dried out at birth

      gorgon stoned blind eye devil faith

      tears seen own corpses on the morgue slab

      dr jekyll’s back in the lab

      dreams besieged in withering fright

      vampires in blood hot night

      unleash blistering storm on tattered flesh

      rain of fire wash souls of ash

      lives to the stake

      a slice of civilisation power cake

      bedrock of solomon

      dread lock of samson

      life’s art strife’s fart

      beast to diseased heart

      slow painstrain

      death-flow-rain

      hope in abortion

      riding the victim train

      A bavino love story at wet sunset

      maybe she said i’m impure unclean there are moans & whores

      make the most noise or give blows to the head of manhood

      he said I come in molten lead striking a gong

      when it can no longer claim to be long or strong or even a dong

      maybe she guides him into her inner sanctum out of the storm

      & he said when I pulled out to the surface I said shit & it was

      holding tight when she compressed her sphincter passage

      I could neither axe it nor run to the exit

      maybe he said open the sluice-gates here comes the juice-flood

      she said there’s not a pole here anymore but a mole wriggling

      around in the muddy hole & conquer was not an issue

      the search was for the toilet tissue ... (wipe away shame’s traces

      of aborted explosions when mossy walls of flesh layered purple

      folded straightened out to fossilise shrinking shrivelling

      in embraces of deep silences awaiting the final affirmation

      in the after-mission)

      maybe she said this is not right she tried a hold on the cold

      in the heat & the night first she said let it be the last

      but the genesis revealed her later splaying saying

      stay

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