Staffrider Vol.3 No.1 Feb 1980 - DISA

Poetry/Johannesburg"HISTORY WILL ABSOLVE ME" FIDELCASTRO(An unfinished poem.)Fidel,History absolves no-one,History takes drugs, has hallucinations,stumbles among the corpses looking for a fix,wakes up in the morning with a dead head& vomits into the future.Africa,shaped like a skullunknown.Men in khaki & incongruous helmetswho stood in poses beneath the sun.No marble columns/ to frame the action.No clear record/ of the number dead.Despatches in the press.Africa — the outhouse,unspeakableacts.Where any civil servant, rough trader, roadmaker,could take his pants offfeel the shit slidesoftly down his legs.But they stayed, Fidel, they stayed.Not in the Cape, where dreams could rest— out beyond the ring of the mountains,annuli of distance, sunsets red as crucifixblood."To preserve our doctrines in purity"The clean holes of bullet wounds.Men with dark beards& the dust on their clothesthe land deepin a dream of itself.Beauty is annihilating, Fidel,the beasts remainedanimal eyes in the darknessthe dark rowsof sweating, serried bodies&"the rest of the worldwas nowhereas far as our ears& eyes were concerned"*Blood River,Kitchener's camps,Bikobeaten on the headto die of brain damagea blind brute of painbellowingbullet woundswide as flowersa child'steargassed eyesbleed for simple merciestruncheon handat the top of its trajectorystatisticsno-one believespolitician'sdull jawsmalicetheir unmoving eyesFidel,Calvin's dead Godgloats in the kwashiorkor glooman animalwith thick flankswaits by the river"die aapmenshy wat nie kan dink nie"**Martin Taylor/Johannesburg*Anna Steenkamp —Journals** N.P. van Wyk Louw — RakaHILLBROWI waited in the cityand all its eyes turned down on me,surprised.Only old women in old slacksdo thatand walk from single roomdown smelly cabbage stairsto supermarket shoppingas old as city chapel flowerbedsbetween the sunless flats.Who would live in Building Block Land?Yeoville, photo, Biddy CrewePatrick Taylor/JohannesburgSTAFFRIDER, FEBRUARY 1980 11