It ends where it began| the Mandela story

The Mandela Story
(first published in M&G)

How does this trouble maker end his story? How does he conclude his life? How does he continue to trouble the leaders who succeeded him? While Jacob Zuma’s Nkandla was still at the centre of national scrutiny, Mandela would be buried where the poorest people of the nation live. He would force the nation to look at the forgotten province of the Eastern Cape. He would make it most difficult for our leaders to ignore the state of the rural community in South Africa. He would add further pressure by being so important that all the leading men and women of the world would want the honour of attending his funeral in rural Transkei. He could have chosen to be buried in Johannesburg or a more accessible, developed area – one South Africa could later show off as a famous site, like we did during the 2010 World Cup. That event hardly registered in the Eastern Cape, cont. reading

Invictus by William Ernest Henley (1849–1903)

OUT of the night that covers me,
Black as the Pit from pole to pole,
I thank whatever gods may be
For my unconquerable soul.
In the fell clutch of circumstance
I have not winced nor cried aloud.
Under the bludgeonings of chance
My head is bloody, but unbowed.
Beyond this place of wrath and tears
Looms but the Horror of the shade,
And yet the menace of the years
Finds, and shall find, me unafraid.
It matters not how strait the gate,
How charged with punishments the scroll,
I am the master of my fate:
I am the captain of my soul.

William Henley was born on this day 23, August, the same day I was born.

Yes I am a Poet. I am an Illustrator.

Yes I am a Poet
I am an Illustrator
I write on the grains of the earth
On the coast of the tip of Africa
I write so that words of life will be blown by the wind of the ocean
Transported to the body of the continent
I write so that the wind would whisper the identity of the child in Congo to know that she, he has worth unmeasurable
I write so that the wind will sing to the refugee looking for the hope of peace
That hope and peace is possible in a hopeless land
I draw in the sky
So that the wind will lift it up to the clouds
Let the clouds interpret it over every nation to see
More
To wonder
To question
To hope
To find
To not stop until their neighbours too have their inheritance
I write at the tip of Africa
Where Mandela learnt wisdom
I let the wind blow the words
To every nation of the earth
I let the ocean carry it wherever it wishes
Washes it off like a shell
So that the old man in China
Will also pick up his pen
And tell us things
We have never before
Heard

Poem & Illustration By Siki Dlanga
Last day of the campaign
www.thundafund.com/sikidlanga

A poet's dream - A prince's birth?

My poetry campaign

Fell on the days

Where the world’s most powerful cameras

Were held outside hospital gates

Held with the precision of a gunman

Waiting for his target

Waiting to shoot

The last blink of a legend

Before the earth takes him from us

Microphones artistically extended like Mpondo sticks at Marikana

Hungry for any word from his daughters

Who called it violence?

Only the cameraman knew that his target

Was as intense as the soldiers at war

Only this time it was not ‘shoot to kill’
It was to shoot for the love of a man held so dear

To capture a moment that belongs not only to this generation

A moment too great to slip quietly

This was a gift for generations

Just as the man has been a gift to a generation

My poetry campaign

Falls on the days where scribes, story-tellers

In two continents

Sat waiting outside hospital gates

One for the end of a great story

Another for the birth of a prince

Whose former fathers

once stripped off the royalty of the father

of the grey-haired-great-man lying in hospital

Invincible

The master of his own destiny

The little prince is born

Angelic in nature as all babies

With an inheritance like no other baby

With a heritage that looks like yin and yang

I sit

In South Africa

In a town called East London

Writing in the language the little prince will one day speak

And wonder if the prince will one day read these words

When I am fifty or sixty

What would I want the prince to know?

That on Mandela’s 95^th birthday my poetry reached its first five thousand milestone?

That five days later the prince was born and I received a healthy sum for my poetry from England?

That South African born Jeanette Kruger was that famous donor?

That our money was called the Kruger Rand?

What would I want the prince to know?

With the millions of messages he has received

With the zillions of information that will one day be his to sort through

Will he find the poem that will always be as old as he is?

© siki dlanga

22 July 2013

One day when you’re looking wondering when the prince of England was born remember it was on this date. 
Give my campaign some royal treatment. I only have 19 days left to make it count! www.thundafund.com/sikidlanga

It's not just a poetry book... it's royal beyond design. African and universal. www.thundafund.com/sikidlanga

MANDELA JULY

So here we are and it is 1 July 2013!

Thank God we are alive to see it! And thank God Mandela is alive! This is officially Mandela's 95th July ever. That is just so cool. Most of us have lots of Julys to live to get to that number God-willing.

I always find that July can be a game changer. It is that time of the year where you have stepped into the second half of the year so that if you got the other half of the year wrong, this is the half to make up for it. It is also the half that makes you think seriously about the following year! I am praying that this half of the year will introduce all the things necessary for my next steps next year.

The poetry journey continues. I do not see why a brilliant poet is not earning as much as Torres. At some point in history, sport was just a game. He or she was not necessarily rich because they were good.

It is time for the poet. It has to be. This July can change things. Here is one way to make poetry count www.thundafund.com/sikidlanga

Let the games begin. This is a game changer.