Been watching this jive
For too long.
That’s struggle.
West Street ain’t the place
To hang around any more;
Pavid’s Building is gone.

Gone is Osmond’s Bottle Store.
And West Street is like dry;
The dry of patent leather
When the guests have left.
And the cats have to roll like
Dice into the passageways . . .
Seeking a fix
While they keep off the jinx.
That’s struggle.

Miasmic haze at 12 noon
Stretching into the wilderness
Of uniformed gables . . .
Vast and penetrating
As the Devil’s eye.
At night you see another dream
White and monstrous;
Dropping from earth’s heaven,
Whitewashing your own Black dream.
That’s struggle.
Get up to listen
To Black screams outside;
With deep cries, bitter cries.
That’s struggle.

Struggle is when
You have to lower your eyes
And steer time
With your bent voice.
When you drag along –
Mechanically.
Your shoulders refusing;
Refusing like a young bull
Not wanting to dive
Into the dipping tank
Struggle is keying your tune
To harmonise with your inside.

Witness a dachshund bitch shitting
A beautiful Black woman’s figure too close by,
Her hand holding the strap;
In a whitelonely suburb.
Tramp the city
Even if you’re sleepweary;
’Cos your Black arse
Can’t rest on a “Whites Only” seat.
Jerk your talk
Frown in your laughs
Smile when you ain’t happy.
That’s struggle.
Struggle is being offered choices that fink your smiles.
Choices that dampen your frown.
Struggle is knowing
What’s lacking in your desires
’Cos even your desires are made
To be too hard for you to grab.

Seeing how far
You are from the abyss
Far the way your people are.
Searching your way out
Searching to find it;
Ain’t nobody to cry for you.
When you know what’s bugging your mama
Your mama coming from the white madam’s.

When all the buses
Don’t pick you up
In the morning, on your way to work.
’Cos there ain’t even room to stand.
Maybe you squeezed all of Soweto,
Umlazi, Kwa-Mashu
Into one stretch of a dream;
Maybe Chatsworth, maybe Bonteheuwel.
Then you chased it & went after it;
It, the IT and ITS.
Perhaps you broke free.
If you have seen:
Seen queues at the off-course tote;
Seen a man’s guts – the man walking still;
Seen a man blue-eye his wife;
Seen a woman being kicked by a cop.

You seen struggle.
If you have heard:
Heard a man bugger a woman, old as his mother;
Heard a child giggle at obscene jokes;
Heard a mother weep over a dead son;
Heard a foreman say “boy” to a labouring oupa;
Heard a bellowing, drunken voice in an alley.
You heard struggle.
Knowing words don’t kill
But a gun does.
That’s struggle
For no more jive
Evening’s eight
Ain’t never late.
Black is struggle.