Stand By Your Man

Stand by your man
or even behind him
since as you well know
behind every successful man

Stand by your man
in the name of fair play
anti-racism and anti-sexism
(will an honourable hand-shake do)

Stand by your man
duly chastised from above
(fined 30 pieces of silver)
some footballers close ranks
team-solidarity on a T-shirt
business is as is usual

I didn’t mean to hurt you
it was just a cultural slip-up
– I don’t talk to blacks –
it sounds almost like home
a tête-à-tête amidst kinsmen

(Perchance he missed
the Learning is Forever Programme
back in his native Uruguay)

While here we put up with
a jou ma se k- p- I hear
from a male taxi driver
on the Hanover Park route
and a mother-city-station hawker
offers someone her middle finger

But wait
maybe I am
getting ahead

After all it is
only a game
on and off of the field

The hawker and the taxi driver chided accordingly, doing the norm just up your Cape Flats street; while a non-local footballer makes the news with  his tribal greeting – a few times over – in Spanish, out in the old empire, deliberating its way into the new year. And you can read about the Learning is Forever Programme in the latest Adult Education and Development journal, number 77 2011 (Non-formal Continuing Education – The Uruguayan Experience).

David Kapp, david_kapp@yahoo.com.