There was a fight in this house

While I slept

Unusually from 5 till midnight.

There was a fight

And someone smashed the desktop.

No, not mine

But even so …

The police were here

I heard them come

And vaguely saw legs move past my door

‘Police. Who called? Is this the house?’

Disembodied voices spoke

Then I passed out again

Not knowing why they came, nor even if

They came for real.

There was a fight last night

In this house

The desktop smashed

Because it is not his to take

A man arrested; gone to jail

A man who spoke of love and care

While anger bred relentless violence in his soul.

There was a fight in this house last night

While I slept unusually from 5 till midnight.

Why could I not wake?

Domestic Violence

©Jeanihess

Cloud Beauty

Ramadaan Moon

The moon as seen from Hanover Park  Cape Town on the first night of Ramadaan.

Pictures: Hanover Park Cape Town

Court Yard as Cycle Track

Barren Play Environment

Child Gangs and Gambling

Where Children Live and Learn

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It resonates with my poem TO WOMEN so I publish it here.

To Women

Daughters of the Universe,

Your Essence gives form to the World:

You are not the Sacrifice, but

The divine Source of creative life.

In the Womb you determine Destiny.

History is made by the Words of your mouth:

Be not silent for the World implodes on itself

And the Earth cries out in pain.

Free now your Passion: Let Joy gurgle up

From your belly, through your throat,

And into all wretchedness.

Kundalini, the Divinely Feminine, dwells within.

She slumber- coils at every vortex base.

See her in the surging tides and in the

Cyclic phases of the moon.

Her ascent brings forth regeneration

And creative change.

Whenever her sleep is too long unbroken

Siva Consciousness turns perversely on itself;

Corrodes, corrupts, order sickens and decay

Seeps insidiously into all values that govern

Life on a blighted Earth.

She watched your flagging spirit and your

Shrinking forms, and wailed from mountaintops,

Whispered in every cavern, spoke to your brothers

In the Womb to affirm and to inspire the feminine

Within them, urged the Earth to echo her song;

Sought to raise the tempo of the calling drums.

Hear her voice: Rise up from the dust, reach to

The summer skies, dare to touch the Sun.

Rise to the rhythm of the pulsing drums.

Let your feet beat a tattoo.

Dance in the circle of Sisterhood.

Twirling, leaping, let your chains slip loose,

Step free into the light taking your sister with you.

Sound your song into all of your life,

Let your voice ring out into every dark place

Where sisters oppressed and shackled

Seek freedom and light.

Too long your voices have been silent.

With laboured breath struggling to sustain your

Gifts of Nurture, Change and Growth

You did not hear her call when full of Love

You donned your girdles, bound your feet:

Limiting the Power of her Gift –

Divine and healing Womanhood.

Fail not her pulse in your blood.

Rise for when you rise, she rises with you.

Rise to the Councils of Decision- makers.

Breath your Wisdom into deliberations that

Foster wars, and poverty, and pain.

Infuse them with the quest to still the rage that

Sweeps this World with the violence

That once brought floods upon the Earth.

Daughters, the Ancients have spoken:

In soft hums on the wings of the Wind their voices

Come to you breathing a vision of light dancing

In gentle hues off sparkling waters where

The lion and the lamb together feed and sleep

And men and women seek to live the dream.

Rise to the fullness of your Womanhood.

Dance to the thrumming pulse, sound your song

Until the echoes fill Eternity and the Sun is

Dulled by radiant Serpentarius, the Androgyne,

Reborn in the great eclipse of Sakti’s rise to

Tepheret and the World renewed by all people:

Man, Woman, and Child

Aspiring to their Personhood dancing with you.

Jeanette Hess

I was naive? Well why not? I think that this naivety underscores the integrity with which we approached regime change. We were all hopeful. Many of us believed that if the tone of regime change was conciliatory that our white counterparts would join the change: instead we still have resistance to change and integration after 15 years.

So there was 350 years of oppression by and advantage for white people in South Africa and perhaps this also needs 3 or 4 generations for a real change of attitude but in the mean time we are being told by this sector of our society that their youth is ‘born free’ and have neither part or benefit of the oppression.

It is of course only true that they are ‘born free’ (during or post 1994) but that they have neither part or benefit of oppression is another discussion.

The review session for ‘African Sociological Review was full of energy. An observation that raised its head a few time was how the rest of Africa viewed South Africa as colonial and how this was in the process of changing but not quite fast enough. While this discussion (which focussed on the Shoprite and MTN entry into the rest of Africa and the BEE aspect of this expansion) the logo of the Book Fair was projected on the wall in front. I kept wondering how the Western Cape and especially Cape Town could be so hung up on a colonial image and be wondering why it is so hard to shake this colonial perception: this otherness to the rest of South Africa and Africa. Insert: MTN mapping.

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