Squatting in the midst of time
Durban’s once magnificent elephants,
stillborn
flail to travel their ancient paths
Tsk, tsk – these pachyderms
stand stridently ‘gainst sand, sea and sky
African elephants are welcome in other cities
But not in an African one
Rusting noisily beneath flimsy plastic foliage
once shot out by colonial hunters
now shot out by corrupt politicians -
a bureaucracy with small-trunk syndrome, perhaps?
Haemorrhaging their guts into political waters
their truncated futures uncertain
caged in steel with hearts of granite
barred by supposed servants of the people
Their underbellies rumble through the populace –
five tons of bellow refuses to die down
small herd is heard beyond concrete
pernickety policy-makers refuse to listen
This quagmire of elephantine proportions
bogged down in a whole lot of bull –
you can bring an elephant to water,
but you can’t make a politician drink (water, that is)
The electeds have a rather thick-skinned hide-and-seek:
like chattering monkeys at a waterhole
assembled council can’t see the leaves for the fleas
wildly trumpeting haughty self-absorption
nkosi-gevaar lurking under every leaf
like an ever-present elephant in the ancillary dis-services -
think - if you’re brave enough, oh wise ones
free these silver-grey beasts forever from City Hall
