Where is Mdantsane

where does mdantsane starts
where does mdantsane ends
i do not know
ask its people
its many streets
its sky
and its birds
they all end up in a close alley
in closed rivers
of closed dreams
sometimes a light flickers
somewhere
only for a moment
when children laugh
at nothingness
its echo looks for
another mdantsane.

Poem and Drawing by Amitabh Mitra

Mdantsane Rain

a child smiles
laughter runs amid narrow streets
takes a turn
and runs amok with grey
sodden clouds
and then it rains in mdantsane
heavy downpour
weeping
all its miseries in one go
leaking into shacks and homes
a drenched sun waits
clouds take their own time
to go home.

Poem and Drawing by Amitabh Mitra

Cecilia Makiwane Hospital, Mdantsane

the road to cecilia makiwane hospital
is subtle to an extent
the dead treads softly here
not to awaken the shadows
living in the confluence of dread
and disparity
the sky occasionally moves down
and it is then the trees leap to search
the forgotten
driving down to cecilia makiwane hospital
mdantsane
daily
breathing the electric poles
shedding light
relief is perhaps a
sparse
word.

Poem and Drawing by Amitabh Mitra

Mdantsane Thoughts

a strange river snaked within mdantsane
shaking the sky of remembrances
black rain tinged with blood made cesspools
hunger is an imagination
smirking at doors and lost streets
tapping at windows long closed
i had thought of you and the river
and our parting forsaking another innocence
an orange moulds the mdantsane sky
thoughts of yet another day.

Poem and Drawing by Amitabh Mitra

Mdantsane Spaza

the somali spaza shop at street corner
mdantsane
beckons
the needy
cramped within
it too waits for
a stray bullet
or a
stab
violence is islamic
in distant african shores
death
has no color
here
in peaceful
mdantsane
only the muezzins strange strain
sets a few birds
to flight.

Poem and Drawing by Amitabh Mitra

Mdantsane Orange

within an evening
mdantsane grooves in the orange
sky and earth
homes take an orange blur
siya takes a short cut
with his bag of oranges
knowing
behind this parchment
of orange and yellow
lies a drought of the unspoken
a jaundiced eye
watches only a
painful distance.


Poem and Drawing by Amitabh Mitra

Viva

viva
surges in throbbing pulse
beating drums of another war

viva
hiding a million dreams
tearing a million dreams

viva
the colour of a sky blanched
protesting a rainbow promise

viva
a country runs on fasting streets
on the silence of old shadows

viva
the child shackled in the emerging sun
tries to smile and laugh.

Poem and Drawing on a hand made paper by Amitabh Mitra