ELEGY ON THE SUICIDE OF A COMRADE UNDER SISULU

Poets and writers of all other hues are not pilloried or questioned why they write certain things.  But, being censorious of Ms Lindiwe Nonceba Sisulu, my blog has never been an easy blog.  I for example have had to break certain rhythm in my writing because of exigencies and such momentous developments as the reported suicide of a full colonel on the 17^th January 2011, in that regard I plead forgiveness from my esteemed readers, I will have to transfer Deo Volente the series on court transcripts to another blog which I plan to call WATER UNDER THE BRIDGE and relegate the current blog to a receptacle for day-to-day happenings.

 

Furthermore down the explanatory course, some readers still trapped in the thing called skin colour and failure to forgive may ask WHAT ON EARTH IS HAPPENING WITH PHIRI’S HEAD, BEING SO BLACK AND WRITING A SYMPATHETIC POEM ABOUT A WHITE MAN WHO NOT ONLY WORKED FOR APARTHEID IN ALL HIS YEARS PRIOR TO 1994, BUT WAS THERE AND PROBABLY PLAYED A HAND AS NOW MAJOR GENERAL ENOCK MUISENG MASHOALA OFFICIALLY BUT UNLAWFULLY APPOINTED SOMEONE ELSE INTO A DEPUTY DIRECTOR’S POST STILL OFFICIALLY HELD BY PHIRI AS SENIOR STAFF OFFICER IN 2002?...[(to the reader of this post, Blogger's elucidation on the Mashoala character, please check the yellow highlight to be found here)]....

Let me say I am capable of forgiving, which is the same message I sent the other day to Mandela/Matanzima Cousin Brigadier General Winnie Ntombizodwa Bobelo-Zini, via Brigadier General Yengeni, my General Officer Commanding.  I do not take pride in writing negative things about my generals and colonels even though these things be true, nor do I gawk and celebrate the death of a fellow human being... that is stuff for savages and they shall not rule South Africa for long.  I JUST WANT THEM TO REMOVE THESE STUPID 10 OR SO CHARGES THEY HAVE UNFRUITFULLY LEVELLED AGAINST ME FOR THE PAST 10 YEARS TO PROPAGATE THEMBU TRIBALISM AND BRITISH-TYPE WHITE RACISM.

To come back to my poem: soldiers love music with a passion bordering on the insane.  And if you are a soldier, one of your most memorable (if not ultimate) pieces of music could well undoubtedly flow from a melodious pen exploring the virtues and vices in love, in hate, life and in the death itself which can promise eternal life.  That is why, inspired by Mr Gordon Matthew Thomas Sumner and one of the Englishmen I like, I have written an elegy for Colonel Andries T. Mann.

ELEGY ON THE DEATH OF A COMRADE UNDER SISULU

(Colonel Andries Tredoux Mann:1957-2011)

Whether  as by Sting suggested,
Emotional problems held sway.
Whether financial problems bounced the cheque
Whether he was  too frustrated a go-getter
Whether he was jumping from a self-made hell
Whether he was plainly mentally disturbed

The individual blogger never shall he know
That death of the individual what caused
Suicide by rifle grapevine report
Monday 8 o’clock in the morn
Mann Andries Tredoux.

Believing strongly and convincingly
Sting  was never in England
Neither on any British island
He was here in Africa
Watching you drive your wife
To work at HQ Sisulu
Watching your wife cruise solo
On the following ever after alone.

As notes glide and dart
from chord vocal to chord aural
symphonic skiing and Stinging
Shall you your suicide commit

Penned he so your eulogy
Perched on a train bridge
Peering over the street beneath
Your absence its main traffic
Your memory his Sting his lyrics:

“I guess this is our last goodbye
And you don't care so I won't cry
But you'll be sorry when I'm dead
And all this guilt will be on your head
I guess you'd call it suicide
But I'm too full to swallow my pride”

Personally I think she bothers never
Because she is not disinterested
Conviction is that she understands
Supports the programme very well
Two-hundred years ago initiated
Two-hundred years of Colonial Britain,
Africa via the collaboration to dominate
Paternal grandmotherly tribe Thembu of hers
Grandfatherly ethnic-British deified far and near.

PHIRI