Friday, 26 June 2015

A Troubadour I traverse Dennis Brutus

A troubadour, I traverse all my land
exploring all her wide flung parts with zest
probing in motion sweeter far than rest
her secret thickets with an amorous hand:
5 and I have laughed disdaining those who banned
enquiry and movement, delighting in the test
of wills when doomed by Saracened arrest,
choosing, like unarmed thumb, simply to stand.

Thus, quixoting till a cast-off of my land
10 I sing and fare, person to loved-one pressed
braced for this pressure and the captor’s hand
that snaps off service like a weathered strand:
– no mistress-favor has adorned my breast
only the shadow of an arrow-brand.
(Italian Sonnet)

...Dennis Brutus

Dennis Vincent Brutus was a South African social activist and prolific poet. He was jailed with Nelson Mandela in the 1960s in the fight against apartheid having their cells next to each other in Roben Island. He was born on 28th November 1924 and died on 26 December 2009.

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