Blues for baby Mamsie. abandoned to die in a dustbin
Johnny Fanteni is sitting
With a nice headache the size
Of mount Klimanjaro
Johnny Fanteni's problem
Is as long as the chain on
The neck of his dog Malunga
There's no food on the table
And the band of the acapella
Rats who play boogie woogie in
The night to scare the boogie
Man away and to keep Johnnie F. awake so
That he doesn't cause the scandal
Of falling asleep at work
Has dined on the skull of his
Beloved child Mamsie
It chills his marrow and he quivers
From his head down to his liver
And he weeps for his baby Mamsie
Abandoned in the cold to die in a dustbin
But Johnnie Fanteni's childhood
Sweetheart is not bothered
She steals his money and goes down
To the tavern to jive the latest monkey style
In hellish times with the boys from
Clippertown and the girls from Madlera
Now there's one thing a hard working man
Does when his one day old daughter
Is found dead in a dustbin and
The law comes to arrest his childhood
Sweetheart for voluntary manslaughter
Observe O wise river Zambezi
He takes his suitcase and rushes where
The walk away blues misleads him
Into foolishly rushing in blind folded
Into the hands of the bad girls
Who go where the good girls
Go under cover of darkness
Glossary
Malunga...Malunga and Ndlambi were king Chaka's deadliest assassins and spies according to author Thomas Ntsane
Clippertown...George Koch Location near Johannesburg
Madlera...Jouberton Township near Klerksdorp
poem by Ngaka Motaung
Added by Poetry Lover
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