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Pathisa Nyathi Upon Mzilikazi Bridge The sprawling dusty townships Come into foggy focus Matshobana, Entumbane, Mpopoma. Blue smoke lazily mingles With choking dust from bare streets Both twirl and waft above The architectural monotony of dreary houses Finally adding more layers of sordid grime To drooping leaves that long lost their shine Like the beleaguered residents Who can no longer afford lifebuoy soap Or the nivea cream of the cross border trader. The road to town entraps many a car Through a kaleidoscope of crumbling potholes Enduring motifs of these hard times. Tall brown grass laces road verges An ideal rendezvous for mating rodents And a hideout for part-time township lovers. A silent absence pervades the service station A white elephant that never sees a car A facility offering no service, no refuge Save for a solitary guard, umawobho Who specializes in imaginative snoozing And gazing at the erratic traffic lights That control little traffic. 31 Beyond the rogue robots Police maintain a toll-gate of visible corruption Squeezing hard cash out of hapless commuter crews Who dare not challenge law and authority Lest their death-traps are taken off the road For safekeeping at the local VID. Township folk converge here Where they safely cross the railway line As they trudge and slog into town Their holed shoes showcasing sockless feet Their tired togs telling tales of abject poverty Their surly looks of agony and torment The easterly wind desiccating their ashen faces. “Our people are a resilient people Who will never yield to imperial pressure Who will never surrender to neo-colonialism We walked from Mozambique We certainly can walk into town Forward with the revolution!” Below the bridge the freedom train comes racing by Passengers jostling and shoving Hoping to get a breath of air Only to get wafts of stink from Mazayi Spruit Notorious for its reeking stench Worse than the farted air from a famished skunk. From the bridge cooling towers loom large They ran out of steam a long while ago As have the scruffy glue-sniffing street kids. Smog and smoke from early morning fires Fill the tear-welling eyes of township dwellers Impairing their vision of the present and the future. 32 ...

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