DEATH BE NOT PROUD

As we approaching Christmas day & going deep into the festive season, most of us look back to the beginning of the year on the new years' resolutions we had then. And some of us also look back to the previous years and what they had brought to our Christmas Lunch tables, gifts we received & people we'll definitely miss because they couldn't make it to this point. Today I am writing this Blog post just to express respects to those who made it and those who couldn't, the likes of utata Nelson Mandela, Muammar Gaddafi, Senzo Meyiwa, Reeva Steenkamp, Mbulayeni Mulaudzi, Lebo Mathosa, Brenda Fassie and e.t.c

Today I want to pay my respect to the infamous friends & family we lost along the way, people who lived a positive life to the day they took their last breath. This coming Saturday is one of those Soldiers to our everyday struggle in this time & era, Rest In Peace Tshepo "Loopy" Molopa. Here I am writing this message and remembering all the friends I lost along the way till today, I look up to the sky with amazement & inquisitive thoughts. When is my time? Will anybody ever write anything like this just to show their respect or express how they feel? Will it be to glorify the life I lived or to embrace my presence in their lives?

I know most of those who'll read this will driving over a 100 of kilometres to go to different destination to pay their last respects to their loved ones, to all of those who passed on to another world...RIP - Rest In Peace. These Blog post was inspired by my old time favourite poem or should I say the first poem to ever got me to love Poetry, Death Be Not Proud by John Donne . And for all that death had taken from us, I have little to say but the words from that poem...

"One short sleep past, wee wake eternally,
And death shall be no more; Death, thou shalt die"

Death Be Not Proud...for we shall meet again with those who passed on, I would love to see the frown on Death's face as we move on to greater heights.

ANGELVILLE IS YOUR NEW HOME NOW…

I mostly write with difficulty of arranging my words and paragraphs, what introduction suite my story or poem. Today I don’t really care who will be reading and why, criticize if you can let’s see if I would give a damn. Writers like me are mostly never embraced or even celebrated while alive and that doesn’t mean that all the other writers get recognition also but just let them know that I am no more, see how much of my material they’ll start reading. Or maybe I’m just a bit sad that yesterday I had to say my goodbyes to the Poetic Angel called Maya Angelou as she had departed for Angelville, if she knew why a caged bird sang then maybe she wrote that song. She was like the Pele & Diego Maradona for the poetry, being on the football/soccer spirit let me say R.I.P to South Africa’s football genius Isaac “Shakes” Khungoane (former Kaizer Chiefs player) who took his last journey the same day as Maya Angelou. That reminded me of Maya Angelou’s poems “Alone”, it is true that “Nobody, Can make it out of here alone” as she shared her pain & joy with us allowing us to also express our utmost feeling in poems/songs & stories.

 

Alone

Lying, thinking

Last night

How to find my soul a home

Where water is not thirsty

And bread loaf is not stone

I came up with one thing

And I don't believe I'm wrong

That nobody,

But nobody

Can make it out here alone

Alone, all alone

Nobody, but nobody

Can make it out here alone

There are some millionaires

With money they can't use

Their wives run round like banshees

Their children sing the blues

They've got expensive doctors

To cure their hearts of stone

But nobody

No, nobody

Can make it out here alone

Alone, all alone

Nobody, but nobody

Can make it out here alone

Now if you listen closely

I'll tell you what I know

Storm clouds are gathering

The wind is gonna blow

The race of man is suffering

And I can hear the moan

'Cause nobody

But nobody

Can make it out here alone

Alone, all alone

Nobody, but nobody

Can make it out here alone

By: Maya Angelou

Today I make a promise to myself that I will write until meeting you in Angelville, I mean heaven if there is a place such as that one. An unknown destination for all of us & now not for you anymore, Rest In Peace Poetic Angel or should I say Return If Possible Mamma Maya. I won’t let these cage called life take away my voice to sing or speak my song. Today I fell on my knees and prayed that I touch people like you did someday, bring them closer to humanity. Everything that I might say would be repeated by a lot of people who know you & those who have no clue who you are, I have no clue on how to write an obituary either. I write my poems that would be used as my obituary when I join you there at Angelville. With a vote of thanks for all that you did for poetry, I want to say Angelville is now your new home & please watch over the kids in Nigeria being killed by Boko Haram, those kids who are dying of hunger & violence in the Middle East. I know some of these people & names have never filled your ears but send my regards to Prof E’skia Mphahlele, William Shakespeare, Tupac, Notorious BIG and all the poets I had not mentioned…They were also poets even though not of your statue!!!

ANGELVILLE…

Poetic Angel in my world you gave us rhyme

Reason I write is rhyme & reason from your lines

A legend to us though a freshman in Heavenly Angelville

I’m only Spoken Word-sick like Home-sick, I let your Poems be my Pill

Welcome to Angelville by Teddy Pendergrass would be your best

And mine to Angelville by Maya Angelou would a bliss

My Mamma will definitely tell a bit about me if not the rest

With this sonnet I plead that you remain her friend & be my frisk to resting in peace

Or maybe I’m “Passing Time” by celebrating a life of “Phenomenal Woman”

From “Refusal” to “Remembrance”, “Still I Rise” to the “The Lesson”…

…only because I love to live & give

They went home, home to Angelville

Why condolences & not benevolences

Because they’ve used all their chances!!!

By: Rufus “Roof-Top” Mashao

R.I.P

BORN: April 4, 1928

DEPARTED: May 28, 2014