An abattoir of red marrows!
A hairdresser of tomorrows,
Who cut your coiffure?
With noisy hair clippers for ladies
A slaughterhouse of premature babies!
Waterberg!
Who banqueted at your
tsamma melons’ tablecloth?
Your aperitifs of Mary cocktails,
Like foams on frosty glasses,
you drained my identity,
Like OMO, you rinsed my hope
An abattoir of hominids’ offal!
Waterberg!
A menu of squashed tomatoes,
and purple-red wine
A return ticket to hell,
Like shy pink clouds,
A short-lived streak of light
in eternal horizonless
Waterberg!
Flashing your clinkered rocks,
Like glowing embers,
A simmering three-legged pot
of human broth,
A stew of smokeless skulls,
A hunter in pursuit of mirages
Waterberg!
An oasis of ice-cold beer
A butchery of chitterlings
Like a chronic boozer,
you tanked up my tears!
Like a drunkard,
you sponged my sweat!
Waterberg!
A mellow brandy puking my babalaas
A vineyard of flavourless wine
you chauffeured me into timelessness
Like a craving winebibber
you chugged my blood
and grilled my pride on open fire
Waterberg!
A knackers’ yard of menudo
As a tourist in a tomb
A newborn in a blood-spattered womb
my shaking tumbler overflows with pus
of my caesarean death
Waterberg!
Demised hairless skulls
Like boasting pregnant women
Genocide foetuses in their bellies
A stockyard of chitlins and
Tinkling calf’s urine
Waterberg!
A visitor in my backyard!
A boemelaar banging a discotheque,
Announcing my unhurried death
Endless teardrops of nursing momma
Breastfeeding women in a coma
A blood-soaked hawthorn’s diaper
An abattoir of aborigines’ tripe!
Waterberg!
* Poem by Ruben Kapimbi