Mainstreamisms: Decoding the Media

Steve Biko - Mourn for Us

You don’t recognize us

But we are the children of your fight

Black and white

I write what I like, you said

Now they do what they like

We mourn for you

But Steve, mourn for us

How handsome you were

The infinite potential of youth

Then a bludgeoned bloated corpse 

We don’t recognize you in those pictures

Black and white

But it was proof of what they did to you

Though we were shy to see it

We mourn for you

But Steve, mourn for us

Mourn the tender deal

Tender and kind

Deep in the bowels of the earth there lies our wealth

And with glittering glee - our leaders squeal

It’s mine, it’s mine

Squandered with stealth

Buyer and lender smile while the child

Without books, without shoes, walks to a school without teachers

Mile after mile

With every million that divides rich and poor

Mourn for us

With every woman raped

Mourn for us

With each death

Black and white

Mourn for us 

How pretty we were

The endless possibilities of a country renewed

Are our bludgeons to the head self-inflicted?

…as they said yours were

Bloated - but not a corpse

…yet?

We have all the proof, though we are shy to see it

Black and White

Rest In Peace

Cry the beloved county

I took a trip to Southeast DC…

There the homeless say,

“Cops disappear with the fading of the day,”

In the deepest darkness of the dark city,

So close to power, so honest and so gritty,

Rape, theft, murder - vigilante justice on display.

I came home to bright, white, leafy, sweet vanilla Arlington County…

Just 9 miles away.

One more car diligently towed from outside my house, as if for lucrative bounty.

Oh to see the daily routine, 

So thorough, justice so clean.

How dare you not pay, or park in the wrong bay?

Wake up beloved despot.

Wake up beloved despot,

This is but a bad dream.

Flick open those lids adorable crackpot,

Then you’ll be in control again, you and your queen.

Yesterday you burnt my children deeper than their skin,

Burnt to the bone.

You smiled, issued the order from your throne.

You deemed the treatment fair.

From a man of care.

Tonight we stand here, in your slumber, can you see us?

Can your flesh feel our stare?

You tasted sugar on your tongue yesterday,

Sickly sweet.

As your men worked their way - street by street.

Tonight that pampered tongue couldn’t speak.

Wake up beloved despot,

This is but a bad dream.

A break from authoritarian strawberries and cream,

Half a world away, shot by shot, there spreads a meme…

Your enemies, sharpen a knife,

Imperial steak, carve a slice during strife.

Grilled in a sauce so humanitarian,

Made easy, tasty by you, the butcher totalitarian.

This is us, beloved despot.

When the sun is up you rob us of our desires,

But when you sleep, your conscience channels this crowd’s fires.

Can’t sleep easy, beloved despot?

I’m the one in the middle, with the poker face.

Yes, it’s us, collectively walking slowly towards you - don’t run your grace,

It’ll soon be over.

Wake up beloved despot,

I fear you’ll remember too much of this night-time rendezvous,

This chance for us to win, even grin,

Wake up for you might castigate us for this sin.

Wake up now or I fear we’re through…

Flick open those lids adorable crackpot,

Then you’ll be in control again, you and your queen.

Please don’t punish us - it was just a dream.

Just a dream.

Just a.

Just.

Strange Times

In this age of the powerful outlaw state; the rogue state; the failed state,
… In this age of occupation; genocide and mass rape.

These are strange times.

Drones thousands of feet high above,
Angels of justice and love?
Or scars on our collective conscience?
Bombing out all the paperwork of judicial nonsense.

These are strange times.

Suicide bombing and collateral damage,
Peace processes of carnage – can we manage?

Dictators who fell as spring becomes autumn.
Or as they say here, the fall.
Dictators who fell,
Dictators who fall,
Dictators who are still falling…
and dictators who foiled the feeble,
And their democratic fight,
With all the might that tortures in the night.

These are strange times.

Slick PR firms, slick oil spills,
Toxic sludge and Wikileaks,
Toxic poison for the whistle-blower who weeps,
Be careful of the slippery slope, but to where?

These are strange times.

In this age of “Laws” of War and whores of wealth,
Biological and chemical weapons of stealth,
That dance around the boundaries of legality,
Question our morality…
Threaten our perceived immortality.
Mortal quest for immortal glory.
Dystopian sunrises fight Utopian sunsets,
Fight to be our top story.

Compelled to fairness, equal airtime a must.
In us thee must trust.
For the elephant that crushes a colony of a million ants,
And the solitary ant that bites at the elephant’s heel, as he vents.
Moral equivalence reigns supreme.
X-Factor and Idols spell the egalitarian dream,
For the everyman and the creme de la creme
But no free healthcare for the poor man’s pain.
Lest Socialism reign.

“We’ll recover, it’s not too late,”
Say, cardboard men with paper hearts who speculate,
In chocolate skyscrapers on Wall Street
Glad for the temporary cold, but fearing the impending heat,
Meltdown, the price to pay for the holy grail…
But worry not we’re too big to fail.
Walls that hem in, walls that lock out,
Walls of class, walls of clout,
Walls of shame, walls without a name,
Walls that we want, walls that we need…
Wallpaper-themed lives we lead,
Of hashtags and the status update
Flashy tools that makes us love and makes us hate.
Apple man lives, Apple man dies,
Fruits of his labour forever chimes.

These are strange times.

Activ-isms (#2012)

Sorry to buck the trend

My activist friend

But your activ-isms have created schisms in my land

Reminds us of days gone by

As your ancestor’s ships arrived on our shores with the good book in hand

We are not obliged to match the size of the garments you cast upon us

™

We are not designed to conform to your fetishes

S&M

We don’t intend to bite the hand that feeds us

But forgive us

We may have lost our appetite a long time ago

You enter my dry windless summer

A land for you of infinite drama

Intervening, hunting for the killer in the wood

Strange that you should have such swings of mood

Forgive me for the bitterness swirling in my spleen

Your cash flows like our tranquil streams

Fulfilling the wildest dreams

Of our real tormentors

Our Kings and Queens

Send in the troops

In endless postcolonial loops

Like Black Hawk Dawn and Apocalypse Now

Let’s shoot some hoops in HD and together vow

Death to poverty, death to crime

Time to change the world one RT at a time

You raise awareness

But what of fairness?

Read, watch, click, send

In an over-saturated online wasteland

Millions and millions more informed

What if your history was deformed?

Yet still, my continent, to you a country

Welcomes you

Let the internet set the bounty

From ABC to ICC

Only because you love me

But if you love me, why don’t you ask me what I think?

Or do you fear that I, from the fountain, shall too deeply drink?

Sorry to buck the trend

My activist friend

But your activ-isms have created schisms in my land

Forgive me my beloved rebellious bird

Your voice, unshackled, deserves to be heard

But while you explore our forbidden fruits

Take me as an equal, from the leaves to the branch, to the trunk, to the roots.