THE BEAT OF MY HEART

I move to the beat
Of my heart
The true essence
Of my patience
The township
My courtship
The footsteps of my soul
Liberated by the gravel soil
The songs of taxis
Mobile in my mixes
A man shouts in a distance
“Heita, da!”

The dawn brings forth
The clutter
Awaken by the ghetto gutter
Stretching my sleepy arms
Feeling my pulsating palms
Scrutinizing the horizon
The east my heaven
I feast on my shaded lover
As she rises to the looker
Her heat my beat
I hold a hand on my chest
The true essence
Of my patience

A “spottie” is my symbol
That, which makes me able
I am a tease
My “All-Star” puts me at ease
“Tsotsi-taal” is my number one lingo
Kwaito beats, feed my ego
The street is naked on my skin
Always, making me keen
My ghetto sentiments
My ghetto elements
I borrow from the whites
My blackness put to the lights
And I move
I move to the beat
Of my heart

“Mshoza” is my roughneck lady
Our love songs always shady
I lick her breast bare
Her nipples rare
Lure by her sweet juice
I thank the source
And I said to her:
“Baby, I need no voodoo to do you”
To the true essence
Of my heart
Unseen, unsung, unknown

A concrete hero
Turned into a concrete zero
Told by Tupac
In the poetic park
In his “Concrete Rose”
And I still rose
To the foreign cries
Of all forlorn infants
My mind infatuated
Infected but, never affected
Their philosophical tears
Closer to me as my dears
Whispering a human history
In a walk of my humane story
“Let me live!”
“Let me die!”
Unseen, unsung, unknown

“Guga mzimba. Sala nhliziyo”
I move to the beat
Of my heart
The true essence
Of my patience

By Linda Sakazi Thwala