poetry - bitter sweet

[Jazzy]

Bitter Sweet


As the tapestries of struggle are woven
In crucibles of pain and dispossession
Religionists grace the center stage of empty theatres
Ephemeral figures drifting through
The faded pages of bygone ages
Striking somber discordant notes
In the orchestra of history
When the cries of Soweto echo
In the ravines of political expedience
The absent voice of Islam screams in its silence



As poverty writes its bitter tale
On the fallen corpses of oppressed martyrs
The pages of contemporary society
Drip ink like blue blood
The hand of the god-fearing is closed
The ink spilt - the pen broken – the page torn
When children of Africa expire
From fumes of inhaled adhesives
Desperate attempts to escape
The misery of a soulless existence


The minds of believers are dulled
By the insidious lure of the material self
The voices of Biko, Subukwe, Hani, Haroon and Cassiem
Are stilled by the sound of scriptural chanting
A deceit of the self by the self
A departure of one from the other


The tears of weeping flowers drip like blood red rubies
That splash on the tattered wings of downcast angels
The scream of the dying butterfly fills the void
Between the book and the heart
An odious smell of treachery spans
The extremity of time and space
Prophets and holy men slash their faces
And cover themselves in ashes


Between the word and the deed
Lurks the abode of the undead
Truth is but a commodity
Traded for a pittance
A sword for the unjust to plunder - despoil
Whilst seeking a hungered absolution.
When the missiles of false piety
Are hurled at the gods like blazing comets
And the soul blazes like a rampant inferno
And blood fills the streets
The cloak of piety is rent to shreds
And the pieces soak
Up the spilt blood of fallen martyrs



The tears of the prophets
Wash the hearts of the dead
And truth remains yet another victim of violence
Godless men swagger through the earth
dispensing pain and misery
Oppression is sweeter than nectar
Even the gods turn away in shame
At what their hands have wrought
Woe to the man-creature that
Wears the garland of false piety
Yet deceives in the marketplace

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Copyright 2004© Rassool Jibraeel Snyman “ A Journey to Forever”