Manhattan Bouquet

For Joseph, Nellie, Duma, Welcome, Thuli

And those I never knew in a land far away

Antebellum

Before the dread of death through H I V

Before the twins that rocked on fire and fell

Before the bankers drained portfolios 

   And all the wealth poured down the drain like mud

  And whites had all the brownstones gentrified

Herd of wildebeests ran wildly

Careless hooves along the Hudson

Shiver, though the spring approaches.

Down to New York City’s splendor.

Liz has located

A Manhattan condo with a huge round bed --

And a view of Lady Liberty! 

Waqaqazayla wazaba makaza.

Tonight think only Zulu song and movement!

Think unwitting dilettantes. 

A rusted bus through black neighborhoods

One rag-clad beggar hops on

To sing for coins in a can.

But we deny his income

Standing, singing and dancing in

Smooth kwa-Zulu warrior strides. 

The black man exits, outnumbered, outperformed.

The passengers cheer.

 As we step down a carjack is in progress

But ain’t cho business, just walk straight ahead. 

Turn left on West 125^th in Harlem

And gasp deep breaths of history --

  The hallowed marquee

  Plush seats

  Sensual red curtains 

The Apollo. 

Our tickets purchase the hope that

Apartheid will soon wither and die.   

Peaceful protest -- join the worldwide struggle! 

Sing banned Nkosi Sikelele

Afrika and free Mandela!

Mayabuye, Stephen Biko!

Names of praise!  Names of beauty!

Bekhizizwe Shabalala!

Ntombizanele Shabalala!

Duma Ndlovu!      uMabatha!

Welcome Msomi!   Thuli Dumakude!

Wild applause, conceit as rainfall

Tin roofs far away are deaf to

Happy fans of freedom from afar. 

But on we cheer, heedless, oblivious

We dream that this one act will suffice while

Black and calloused hands work the mines

  With no ovation, no encore. 

We find the narrow alley through the ripened

stench of urine, smoke and sweat.  It leads us

to the stage door behind the Apollo.

No guards protect them

So, up the stairs two at a time the

White girls

Shout “Saobona” and find

the dressing rooms.

Only to meet ten half naked black men. 

Shyly holding their shirts in front of them.

I bring a dozen red roses from

A thin street vendor. 

Hoping, settling for

One big Zulu kiss; sensual but totally professional 

While licentious, lonely Long Island Liz

Hopes to grab a guy

Who saves his “Little Brown One” for the right

Gujarati girl a decade later.

Within a few short years

Nellie will be murdered by greed

Joseph shot in the hand

Brothers murdered

The end of revolution is hard.

I take the fragrant wilting roses

Back onto the subway with me

And toss it onto the lap of

An off-guard reader

Who SCREAMS in terror!

With laughter we peal out and on

And on.

We stretch the ruddled threads that

Briefly bind us

    And are gone.  

Thula Khlizeo Nalapase kiya

Thula Khlizeo Nalapase kiya

Hey Kiya, Nalapase Kiya.

Hey Kiya, Nalapase Kiya.

Be still my heart.  Even here you are at home. 

Oscar -- Our True Halloween Story Cat

     I wasn't looking for the horror that transfixed me as I lumbered out into the garden with my ailing, aging French bulldog, Miss Avalon.  Sunlight pried open my rheumy eyelids as I heard Miss Avvy stir, I knew that my husband, deep asleep, would never get my incontinent girl outside in time.

    Sleepily, I put on my soft, pale green bathrobe and went into the living room, opening the backdoor for our two younger dogs, Sparky and Remi Gris-Gris, who yelped with joy at the sight of our neighbor's Herefords who always declined to reciprocate the greeting.  I walked over to Miss Avalon who required that I lift her dowager body and I struggled to carry her to the front door.  Descending the stairs barefoot I shivered as I stepped out onto the cold, crisp autumn dew that covered the grass and flower garden.

    As Miss Avalon attended to her business, I checked the state of my cheerful marigolds, bright Icelandic poppies and fragrant Russian sage.  I was sluggishly considering whether to postpone the weeding for yet another day -- or even until spring -- when out of the corner of my eye, I saw the flash of a lithe, dark silhouette -- our grey and white cat, Oscar.

   Oscar was recommended to us by SPCA volunteers as a loving older house cat.  One staff member  placed Oscar in the arms of my husband, Rick, who was completely taken by his pale green eyes.  Oscar purred and snuggled even deeper into Rick's arms as if to say "You see?  I am the perfect house cat."  When we brought him to our vet for his first checkup, she idly remarked that he had the largest canines she had ever seen in a domesticated cat; a comment that, at the time, went unnoticed.

   Soon, after several determined galloping escapes from our home, Oscar made it clear that he preferred to sit beneath our ornamental grasses like a pride leader on the Serengeti.  He quickly displayed skill in catching small vermin in our nearby woods and fields.  My husband overlooked this murderous potential when Oscar neatly dispatched the red squirrel population that had ravaged our garage.  Our dogs gave his silent presence wide berth as he perched on top of a recliner and casually sliced at them as they walked by.  Our comfort level began to evaporate as his penchant for the hunt grew.

   Some months later, on what we came to refer to as The Night of the Long Knives, Oscar demonstrated a new artistic side, not only massacring an entire chipmunk family -- mother, father and children -- but arranging their little corpses in an almost perfect straight row along the sidewalk that we had just constructed.  It was clear that we had a serial killer in our midst, but one who, up to that sleepy September morning, provided offerings that were natural.

  How had He done this?  What I saw was impossible -- something completely unnatural, something that would haunt me forever.   This feline denouement demonstrated a brilliant yet horribly macabre artistic streak.   A creation God himself would have rejected.  How could an ordinary domestic cat so perfectly align the severed head of a blackbird with the headless body of a rat?

  He had outdone himself.

  And in the chill morning air, I heard a loud purr from the steps of our landing, as Oscar smiled down in malevolent beneficence.