Cape Town Haiku

The mountain is cursed -
here poor black bodies lie strewn
while rich whites chink glass.

Settler

What does it feel like
   to be so good at
   everything
   you do?
Paint, create, imagine, invent,
write, construct, calculate,
assess, read, understand,
analyse, synthesise, communicate,
articulate, and even gesticulate.

Success comes so easy
     to you.
You breathe it.
That wild hair, and those
     steel
     eyes don't hurt.
You were born
    for
    this.
You were born
    with
    this
    in your mouth.

This
cost
a hundred-thousand slaves
     lashed
and worked to
     the
     bone,
entire families
     displaced,
forced to
     wander and
     trek,
women - no girls,
barely fifteen -
     raped
and with child
    beaten,
families
    ripped
    apart,
men
    imprisoned,
children,
     left fatherless,
communities
     dispossessed.

You're so good at it all,
     that even you know
     this.

But tell me,
   does it feel good?