iKasi lamaKasi: A Photographic History of Kliptown

Should I just say it?

There seem to be general rights speak that is spoken by men when they are questioning the privileges of masculinity. In particular around gender based violence. I have had the good luck/fortune to sit in the company of such men and they bring hope to my cynical heart. These men have found themselves at a point/moment/stage in their lives where they cannot ignore gender based inequalities. I would stick out my neck and say lesbian – feminism has a lot to do with this wake-up call.

In a time of commercialised lesbian politics where fear is clothed in the coolness of it, giving it, some shelf life in the mega store of identities. What can men with hearts and eyes do but try and engage with this supposed threat to the traditional, should I name it African Family. Even though it is expressed in a somewhat awkward manner, like an infant learning to walk, whilst hoping that their heads will not be bitten off in the process.

Such occasions give me the guts to talk my mind about this disease that we live with called lesbianism and its forcefully appropriated sister/mother/step-aunt, you choose, going by the name feminism. In such spaces I found myself free to name myself as part of the plague and totally deny it in the same breath. I can own up to the confusion of a space which has become so exclusive that it makes all other women except the self proclaimed lesbian-feminists want to run and hide behind their husbands, children, powerful jobs and even high heel shoes. We need some shine for those millions of women- feminists out there standing in the dark whilst the spot light is caught up with these women, should l say it, who believe that they can be men if they want to. Scandalous!

A short road trip

In search of new horizons Pam and I took a bus from Johannesburg to Gaborone, Botswana for the 2nd edition of the SADC Poetry Festival. We landed a few days before because I have been wanted to visit the Bessie Head Museum in Serowe 315 km north of Gaborone. Since discovering that there is repository of her correspondence along with a recreation of her room somewhere in Botswana I’ve wanted to experience it for myself, especially to read the letters. I have convinced my friend Pam months before that this will be a trip of a life time, so in that spirit, off we went to the unknown.

We had an opportunity to present the project we started in June in Cape Town titled No Holy Cows which is, for a lack of a better way to describe this creative experiment, a poetic visual art performance meaning that it infuses these art forms in the simplest way, to avoid confusing ourselves and the public. Thus for us it was a case of hitting to bird with one stone.

Our journey started with a night in Gaborone and we met our host from the SADC Poetry Festival to discuss our contribution and generally introduce ourselves to each other. It was over a drink in a spot I assume was quite a popular drinking hole for the youthful in age and at heart. A very accommodating establishment so when they have to chase you out because they are closing they have the decency to provide take way cups for your drinks. They don’t lose their glasses and you as customers you take your drink with you.

The next morning we were lucky enough to get a lift for most of the 315 km to Serowe, up to Palapyne where we took a bus to the village of the rain wind as Bessie Head describes it and I will add a village that has grown to a small town.

Coming from Johannesburg you cannot miss the stillness in Serowe. The people seem to move quietly with an air of tranquillity hanging in the slow moving breeze and dust envelopes it all. We were immersed in a beige surreal reality. I kept asking myself whilst taking in the curious expressions in people faces and the empty shops and semi deserted street, can I live here, in this quietude which could be so suffocating?
We drank in the sunset and had a chat with a man who had sex in his mind the conversation never diverted far from where we staying, what we doing here and our general marital status and procreation abilities. I realise some things are so common and we connect in a very funny fashion.

We came in memory of Bessie Head we landed in a museum that housed both her memory and that of Kgosi Khama lll family history which tied to the history of Serowe. Bessie Head an outcast sharing a memorial space with the ‘father of the nation’ that is something to chew over. We didn’t get the chance to read as much of the content of the boxes and besides we didn’t have the permission from the government to go over such delicate research material, but it was worth the hours we spent in that surreal universe. We had a most gracious hostess with impeccable manners for visiting tourists.

When we arrive back in Gaborone to meet the rest of the poets and visual artists at the poetry festival I was nicely nourished with food for thought which I haven’t even began to decode its nutritional value.

for usisi Busi

She was dust
spirit and water than
just elements of nature
in full spectrum

Things I will like to do

Before they lay me down
In the ground
Grey and nude
Without much to say

Before they say to themselves
How peaceful she looks
She must have passed in her sleep

Before the tears of self pity
Are soaked by hankies and tissues

I will like to start tonight
By going outside
Kiss the sky
Tell the moon
I am home

Maybe, before that
I will stay indoors
In the dark
With a soothing balm over my eyes

You see…
I have welcomed
The sun without protection
Sucked its rays to feed all my pores
And right know
I am sunburnt

So, after the solitude
I am going outside
To kiss the sky
And tell the moon
Yes, I am home for a while

Until the day
I yearn for the dazzling light.

On this one day

I thought Lulu’s husband was crazy, that day
When he called him
Asking him when his wife will be coming home

I read the conversation in her eyes

It was not that late, maybe just after midnight
We were drinking ...
Wine it was and smoking, unwinding
It had been quite a week

Him sitting at a table behind us
My back to him
Lulu sitting opposite me
Facing him, him facing her over my head

He was on the phone
I could hear the tension in his voice
Me facing Lulu
Lulu looking at him with a perplexed expression on her face
A cigarette in the air between her fingers

I saw the mental shake
She gave herself
As she flicked the ash to the floor
Gathering her wits about her
Focusing on the space between my eyes and her thoughts

This time, I really left him
While his head was turned down
Fishing for his ego in between his thighs
Pulling his elongation
To reach his knees
Flexing the muscle
Hoping it will reach-up and over
To pat his back
Cause his the man!

I had to go

Packed what was left

I was there for the music
That never stopped
While he danced in my eyes

All this time she is speaking
To herself, to me, to us
I was not sure
Who is him…

Things that make the skin itch - a two part monologue

Giving up

They announced
Change took a detour
To council with an old friend
It was around tea time
He is detained

We know once old friends get-to-gather
The moss grows under feet
He might be rooted for millennia

The progressive movement can wait
Change has been around for ages
Its agile youthful feet
Use to act just in time
For a bygone revolutionary moment

These days
The heart might be in the right place
But change is delimited by age
Just, maybe its time for a new age


Giving In

I will not look you in the eye
The blank space next to your left ear
Holds much fascination
It does not affect my nervous system
Nor aim to initiate involuntary communication

Yes, I will look at the cityscape
Pass by on the right side of your ear
It rushes past like I do
It asks no questions
And I am not giving any answers

I will not take up any particular struggle
I was not born of my mother’s struggle dreams
But conceived in between idle chatter and shopping sprees
On Longmarket street

Indifferently numb I will not comment
Answer only when spoken too
There is nothing more than this