MANDELA

by Evert Eden    

    so this is why I’ve been in New York all this time

to stand at the UN and vote for a man

on an April day in 1994

Rolihlahla Nelson Mandela

his life cut by twenty-seven and a half years

yet he said, I’m not bitter – I’m not bitter?

     up here in the north

we sure could learn from his south

here the smaller the brain

the bigger the mouth

     you liked New York, Nelson

but I gotta warn you

we poopscoop our dogshit

and giftwrap our bullshit

we’re  all prisoners in a dark sitcom

some talk revolution but the closest they get

is to call Doctor King an Uncle Tom

      praise-sing Rolihlahla Nelson Mandela

your mother Nosekeni, your eldest son Thembi

they too went underground

prison-bound

unable to go their funeral

where did you go?

the last walk to hell

a deep descent

but you came back

your back unbent

you knew a nation marched

from Lagos to London

Beijing to Boston

Moscow to Cuba

Makgatho, Maziwe, Zenani and Zindziwe

how proud for them yeah ulululululu

that you were their tata

     my father was proud
when you went to jail

he, a ten-foot crackpipe

I couldn’t inhale

his idea of father

came straight from hell

he touched me only

to beat the shit out of me

and when he finished

he beat the shit as well

     all those years I made up

two fathers for me

the one I could smell

whiskey-fart near

the other one gone

island-bound, gagged –

Nelson, he ain’t here

     I liked having one father who was missing

he made up for the one who was too much there

but far from my fatherland on the isle of Manhattan

where the hype high-fives to maroela-tree size

you get to spot self-deception

it wears a funny green hat

check it out, the cold smile of fact

      Nelson, I can never dig my tata

the way I love you

but marooned in my whiteness

how long? very long

in my self-imposed exile

I know one thing that’s true

the father who is my father

is my father

and the father who is not

is not

is you

     amandla! – power

awethu! – is ours

the price of freedom has been paid  

in blood, in pain, in tears, in rage

hey, dad, I count the scars you wrote on me

I price the resentment I kept forever on simmer

I total up the rage I ate each New York night for dinner!

but now, today

as I make my cross

with Rolihlahla I say

sweet freedom at last

I’m not

             bitter