𝗕𝗲𝗮𝘂𝘁𝗶𝗳𝘂𝗹 𝗖𝗮𝗽𝗲 𝗧𝗼𝘄𝗻 𝗠𝘆𝘁𝗵 – Poem

Stellar blanket over Cape Town
I’d declare dead
Weren’t it for the
Table Mountain’s refusal
To let the blanket
Creep over
Roll into the sea
On the other side
For the Cape Point
To shred to pieces
In the eternal
Indian-Atlantic oceans
Dominance struggle
Metaphor for
Who owns the soil
Of my motherland
Land of my birth
Whales need no blankets in the sea
In freedom
Your elements cause no harm

Stellar blanket conceals
Miseries of the Cape
People alienated from their elements
Alienated from themselves
Their own
The living, anxiety-driven
Whilst breathing lasts

Disembowelled bodies
Decapitated heads
Bullet smashed brains
Mingled with blood
Flat on the ground
It’s not for nothing
They call it
The Cape Flats
You can’t run
You can’t hide

Little carnivores
Leave no meat for decay
Skeletons everywhere
Interstellar travellers
See no Cape Town rot
See no sewerage lakes ekassie
Inkululeko purgatory suffocates
The people in
Cape Town’s Khayelitsha
E-Langa
The sun is only in
The name

Liberation stinks in new-home land
Dark under
Stellar blanket over Cape Town
The
Interstellar travellers
Cannot feel
No-pains beautiful things attuned
In cyberspace
Interstellar travellers
See no deceptions
See no thefts
See no blasphemous
Brother killing brother
Brother selling sister
Son castrating father
Son hanging mother on the line
In Cape Town

God blinded in
The glow of
Stellar blanket over Cape Town below
Beneath which
Brown envelopes change hands
Corruption rules
Motherland sold
In blood money
Even burnt House of Parliament
The other day
Colour of money here
If any
Unknown

The Guptas have hustled under
The stellar blanket over Cape Town too
Nkandla knows
Colour of their money
They drink tea together with
Duduzane
In Dubai

People’s miseries
Washed down with
JC Le Roux
If not Bourbon tankers
As if Hegseth-Trump-poodle
Going to war in Iran
Pinotage bottle to
Father Jones on Sunday
At the mass
Fill up the alter
Jesus might be on
Table Mountain
Commemorating him in
Bloody Cape Town red wine
Bless me mother
Shebeen Queen
I’ll Black Label
Cape Town
With a
Free State
Lion heart
Cry Pula
For this land

Here under
Stellar blanket over Cape Town
Black and White united in
Power
In black money
Seeking laundry hands
On the streets
Behind the brick walls
Beyond the pitbull terriers
Within the smokes
No, no Cape Town inferno smoke
Just grass-and-more smoke
There are hands for the job
Coloured hands
Huh?
Oh, ja, broer
In Cape Town
No coloured is a Coloured, broer
The people are gatvol, broer, they are
Ons moet ons land terug kry

Original landgrabbers
White Capetonians are gatvol, jong
Blacks are never gatvol enough
Original people of the soil
The Khoi Coloureds are gatvol
Of Blacks
Everybody’s gatvol in Cape Town

So gatvol that under the
Stellar blanket over Cape Town
Concealed from the eyes of
Gatvol God
The piercing eyes of
Gatvol interstellar travellers
Everybody procreates with everything
Across blood lines
Or within
The urge is the thing
Morality a God thing
Ditched Cape Town
As it was in the beginning
Vuka, Tutu
You can still save this town
Let us pray
Amen
Useless performative sound
Who’s genuine
Who’s fake
On the alter
That is Cape Town
Under the stellar cloak
Only a creation of its own
Gatvol of Cape Town’s
Intergenerational trauma of
Slavery and racism
Denialism is survival

Sunrise arrives
Derobes Cape Town of
The stellar blanket
Hanging from
Table Mountain

Imposing
Detached

Regal above it all
Reveals deep-seated
Post-Apartheid racism sub-cultures
In South African racial segregative parlance
Broad-based but not exhaustive:
Afro-American Coloureds
American Coloureds
Arab Coloureds
Asian Coloureds
Bengali Coloureds
Black Coloureds
Boere Coloureds
Chinese Coloureds
Christian Coloureds
Congolese Coloureds
English Coloureds
Ethiopian Coloureds
German Coloureds
Half Coloureds
Half-Polish-Russian-Angolan Coloureds
Hindu Coloureds
Indian Coloureds
Italian Coloureds
Japanese Coloureds
Jewish Coloureds
Khoisan Coloureds
Malay Coloureds
Mix Masala Coloureds
Muslim Coloureds
Namibian Coloureds
Nigerian Coloureds
Pakistani Coloureds
Portuguese Coloureds
Rainbow Coloureds
Scottish Coloureds
Sotho Coloureds
Sri Lankan Coloureds
Swahili Coloureds
White Coloureds
Xhosa Coloureds
Zim Coloureds
Zulu Coloureds

When the night hours arrive
Stellar blanket over Cape Town
Shall return
Whilst the world sleeps and regenerates
The worst of Cape Town
Shall be doing what they do best
Self-annihilation
Side-by-side with procreation
In an odd series of events
In a beautiful world
As seen from above
Looking into the future
With wonder
Anticipation high on
Table Mountain
Spinning on Lion’s Head
Black is beautiful
Made evil
In Mother City
Defiled
In the dark of Cape Town
Beneath
Night time
Stellar blanket illusion

𝗘𝗡𝗗
©Simon Chilembo 2026