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Mxolisi Nyezwa

the poor blacks of the world

they come from
rough buildings
one after the other
moaning
they are the long pisses
of white galleries
the red faeces of dogs
they boast of buried
cemeteries
and heavy chains
of nocturnal blood
and their hungry mouths
on a different day
they will be violent
like caterpillars
angel birds hovering above
covered with ash
dreaded by the wine farmers
in the daytime
anguish screams
its head off
there will be rows
of dead people
long numbers
of drunkards
pitchers with strong liquids
there will be skulls of men
and statues
mocking history
fingernails
of blood and moss
broken people
sodomy will stay
in the world
with mischief
very quickly
display the gonorrhea
in the lung
the poor blacks will stay
between the firm mollusks
and the beheaded mongrels
they are the careless coloureds
and the stinking kaffirs
they search the veins
of white thighs
beneath the cape’s blond torso
the poor blacks are shattered dancers
under the headless shrine
in simon’s town
they are the sudden church bells
fading slowly like vomit
from the entire world.

 

from NER 38.4
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Vol. 43, No. 2

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Rosalie Moffett

Writer’s Notebook—Hysterosalpingography

Rosalie Moffett

Many of the poems I’ve been writing lately are trying to figure out how to think about the future, how to reasonably hope, and what we must be resigned to. How can you imagine the future when the present is so slippery, so ready to dissolve?

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