He had to get to the village, home to safety. He found himself running and did not stop until he had reached the fence of the village. By that time he had forgotten that he had left a white man dying under a smashed car, and he did not ever afterward believe that he had seen it. Fear drove the sense of that reality completely out of his consciousness and he could never speak of it. THE DOORS ARE OPENING TO ALL Sheila Fugard The doors are opening wide Like a scene from Goya Dumiie, you showed us the doors And they opened — The gaols where the thousands marched out . .. The hospitals where the hundreds limped back to life . The asyiums where the one, two and three wild birds flew back to the sun All the keys turning Cities Castles Houses Doors opening and shutting Releasing people In strange new ways of thought Look — People point First at the blue of bruises Then the green sea And the sun Whirling like a vortex against the blue of the sky Caught up in the cry of birds In the strange out of season fall out of Autumn leaves Palling Across faces shining russet, red and golden Crooked in greeting Those so hard to love Our brothers who limp from behind strange doors Black, silent and apart .... AN EASTER YODEL FOR UNBELIEVER- Peter Horn Now come, fire! break through the rubble-dump, saxophone, with a heart-breaking squeal and rumble! Explode our naked discomfort in this black-cursed brandy-land. Oh-yeah-men-neer, when our cerebration flees through the excuse exit into the kingdom of that blue heaven for whites only. Down world! Voertsek! White is my face, and down right frightening the jumping cat life on my throat. Hammerheaded silence approaches along the double track of red. Yeah! Sorely healed we wait for the saviour to save us from ourselves, yeah, we dream of him, cross and spear ready to crucify him who managed to rise from the dead, damn him, sing about him, yodellng up and down the tinny larynx scale. Halleluyah! Now come, blood-thirsty mad-house rabble: come! The marble game against death is in progress. The black constellation and the star-swarms have arrived on flapping wings to celebrate our resurrection from world-wide death. Eyes askew on blinking neon-signs which announce our return to international sports and life we read blood-clot legends on barbed wire, names which got caught in the steel-branches of grandfather state. Come now, saviour, come in the owl’s hour, risen from hell into another, climb into the black field, visit this landscape of RAND and CENTS, raining through our brains, and nail banners in jet writing against the stars. And tell us, from acid mouth to acid mouth, the simple monkey truth. Tell us, stammering anti-creatures, flooding the earth, tell us with whirling well-ventilated lips, tell us that all is fine in this best of all worlds, so that we don’t have to crucify you again. \h HOMAGE (to Notsie walls*) Richard Kiya-Hinidza I wanted to see them, I wanted to see those ancient walls Of old Notsie. So I set off gently, In one midnight dream And was thus transplanted. I saw them miles ahead. Could not even recognise me. But lay buried In the grasses. Oh! It Is pitiful. Tens of grandsons forgotten. At the elapse of ages! Origin of men. Through the early Ewes I heard. Who your first sons had been. Slashing whips they endured. Tyrannies they suffered. They laboured in flowing tears. Walls of Notsie, Fortress of men’s origin long. You live in our dally dreams. I bring greetings. That of ancient men and my own. Live not in the grasses! I’ll take leave of you now. And call if time demands; Your thickly shape will then be seen. Walls of Notsie, great walls. Grandsons will pay a call. If age will not permit me. My former mighty wall, I feel to leave but sad, My blood once lived in you. So I was told. *Notsie is an old town where the early Ewes once lived before migrating to Ghana where they now stay in a region named Volta Region. Notsie still exists somewhere in Togo but without the mighty wall which housed earlier inhabitants under a stern ruler. The walls were so thick that their remains are still said to be in heaps that can be seen. IN YOUR OWN BACK YARD Babs Cole How do you keep Your own back yard? Is it full of prejudice and trash? Does it have corners dark with fear where no light can penetrate? Are there patches of clarity; But so small that all the other layers obscure and overlay? To keep your own back yard clear and full of light let integrity flourish. Speak up at injustice that you see around. Do not clutter up your own back yard with irresolution fear and apathy. Is this all that is left to us to keep our own back yard tidy? Is it enough? Should we not try to sweep a larger yard. THE ORDEAL ‘Long’ JgY six-thirty on that Sunday evening, a loose warmth had crept into all the twelve, crowded guests at Sello’s engagement party. It had crept as stealthily as the autumn dusk that had come. The guests had arrived In pairs that early afternoon. The married men escorting wives, the single ones their lovers. Having dwelled together in the location for so long, the guests were quite familiar with one another but were not close friends. Sello s parents, not knowing anything about such novelties as engagement-parties, had retired to the kitchen, ‘leaving the young people to themselves,’ as his father had said. The party had gone on for three hours. It had begun and had gone the way parties do when guests are not free with one another — a deal of embarrassing formalities, a deal of tortured smiles, a deal of reticence made the more unsettling by snatches of self-conscious talking and exacting dry laughter, in response to flat commonplace jokes. There were roving eyes that shunned other eyes and a good deal of underhand appraisement of grace charm and beauty among the ladles, as well as concealed boredom in the young men. For an eternity of three in- sufferable hours, the ordeal had wormed along its way. S h H been eaten, with affected delicacy and without any relish, in that tense air. Then the table had been cleared stiffly. Bottles of brandy, oi wine, of whisky, of a variety of soft drinks lor dash, canisters of beers, and many empty tumblers had all been brought in such a way that you would have thought they were being got rid of. Then followed nervous speech and mechanical clapping of hands, after nervous speech and mechanical clapping of hands. The speeches had been listened to and the hands clapped out of mere courtesy. The first thimbleful had been sipped with pretended » *be third. And fourth. And fifth. And soon, a quaffing of liquor had been let loose bottle after bottle of spirits and canister after canister Of beers were emptied. The ladies, as they said, ‘Going strictly for beers.’ And now a loose warmth, a vague sensuous feeling of '''’ell-being had crept into everyone. When Sello felt it, he was more relieved at the thought that everybody else was feeling it. A good secretive smile oegan to play on his thick lips. His fingers began to twirl Pleasantly. His round beaming face was grey and metallic ‘h the wash of electric light. He turned and faced his hanc6 sitting beside him and felt hot and splendid. He lowered his face to her hands which rested on the table, ^hd saw the new shining ring he had just inserted on her Inger. This time the smile spread uncontrollably over Ws whole face. His voice was mellow when he said: ‘Yes, Maggie. How’s it with you, Maggie?’ He lashed his arm around her shoulders and rose to his feet. She said: ‘I’m ^11 right.’ ‘Good,’ he said and belched. ‘Good, my love!’ The guests were now talking lively. He too wished to say Something but did not have anything in mind then. He was feeling great and very soft inside. He could even f®el his real self rise richly in him, like the froth of good Pome-brewed beer over the brim of a clay pot, and become ^ Part of the guests, a part of his Maggie, a part of every- thlng else in the house, and a part of this world too. Then Ps wanted music together with the coolness of air to go ^long with that noble feeling; wanted them the way an pverfed suckling would still want the feel of the nipple in Ps mouth between tight gums. The radiogram stood against the wall below the broad closed front windows on the right. He walked in that direction, saying: ‘And now for music!’ Everybody cried out: Yeah! Yeah!’ He parted the floral curtains. A clean line lace was re- ''caled through which the pale-blue sky could be seen ^agueiy. The wide part of sky that was revealed was stud- P®d with small winking stars each of which seemed to be eating and vomiting itself in smoke. Faint beautiful Indivi- Ppal-iooklng stars. Sello opened the windows A cool air, ^Plch awakened the smell of cigarettes and liquor in the Pouse, rushed in bringing close behind it the outside noises ^PP the odour of damp sweet-rotting vegetation of an ^Ptumn evening.