France 1-2 South Africa

Linda Maria Baros (1981- ; trans. Stephen Romer)



The Turgescence of the A4 Motorway

Those who come and those who go
know nothing
of the A4 and its turgescence.
Nothing of its feral stink – an old whore
whose eyes are the colour
of surgical alcohol –
the stink wherein the truckers levitate, stiff-necked,
and, like some sainted leper,
raise the level of their life.
They think the city stretches out before them,
its severed head grinning on the windscreen.

(But they never see, on all that asphalt,
the herons take off fearfully and blindly,
like trying to extract the blocked coins
from death’s votive juke-box.)

At the service stations, the recruits of petrol
take the heads off the highest octanes.
They put a rictus on the setting sun.
They knife open the joints of the door
their neck sliding on a blade of steel.

And those who come and those who go
know nothing
of the A4 and its turgescence.
They pass through it, like a tunnel.


Lesego Rampolokeng (1965- )



Habari Gani Africa
(fragment)

bloodstains on morguesheet sweat of impotence
born to die lie dead in the street the lie of omnipotence
scarstripes on the soul sign of demention/delusion
look of drugged minds hidden behind illusion
& outside the grenade-reality-cracked window the botched moment
licemen of the west bearing gifts rearing rifts of torment
come to perform reconciliation a land’s abortion operation
nuclear wasted to the world’s acceptance/assimilation
a disembowelment your creation cursed a braindeathblow
manchildwomananimal NOWHERE left/right/middle/O...
sixfeetdownbelow
glow longknifenightsessionsplashed blooddroplets in the sewers
fleshpieces from crossed Xs/axes of man-made-wood hewers