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Bafana Bugs

Harry Owen

Thursday, June 3rd, 2010

1 Leave a comment on verse 1 0 *Vuvuzela-brash, clown-like in black, yellow,

2 Leave a comment on verse 2 0 green, they tumble in spiked grasses, mere

3 Leave a comment on verse 3 0 diversions, red-eyed amusements confined

4 Leave a comment on verse 4 0 to this inconspicuous stretch of dry bush.

5 Leave a comment on verse 5 0 Up above swallows sport their sleek pedigrees,

6 Leave a comment on verse 6 0 flaunt the superiority of earned grace

7 Leave a comment on verse 7 0 through air, while my locusts proclaim themselves

8 Leave a comment on verse 8 0 inept. “See us fly now,” they croak, “how we swarm!”

9 Leave a comment on verse 9 0 And our crackling, twitching, tweeting world chirps on

10 Leave a comment on verse 10 0 for out here there’s no such thing as silence:

11 Leave a comment on verse 11 0 the **Bafana bugs are waiting, and they yearn.

© Harry Owen 2010

Notes

Editor Note:Our 1st World Cup poem from South Africa & Harry Owen.
I was delighted to perform with Harry on a recent visit here at a poetry gig in Crewe, along with the irrepressible Dennis Just Dennis (whose poems also apppear on this site) so it’s great to receive this. Harry’s tells me he’s already definitely at the England v Slovenia game!

*The ‘vuvuzela’, is plastic, a metre long, brightly coloured, sounds like an elephant or a thousand bees and is the noise-making trumpet of South African football fans. Be warned!

**The South African national team is known as Bafana or Bafana Bafana. ‘Bugs’, commonplace in Africa’s heat, appear in this poem almost as a metaphor for the football bug in SA right now. Like-wise
‘ this inconspicuous stretch of dry bush’ suggests a random World Cup pitch..but maybe that’s just me? Crispin

ABOUT HARRY OWEN

Harry Owen On MySpace .

Harry’s Website

Harry Owen was Cheshire’s first official Poet Laureate,
inaugurating the post in 2003. Harry now lives in Grahamstown in South Africa’s Eastern Cape.

Harry is an acclaimed performer of his work, regularly giving readings and running creative writing workshops with many organisations including schools, colleges, libraries and community groups. Before he moved to South Africa he ran the hugely popular bi-monthly Poems & Pints open-mic poetry evenings at the Beartown Tap pub in Congleton.
Brought up in Liverpool, Harry became a teacher in 1970, beginning his career in Dunstable, Bedfordshire. He then spent several years in California as an English teacher and soccer coach before returning to Liverpool in 1982. For more than ten years he taught in the inner city before eventually moving to Cheshire.

His latest collection, Five Books of Marriage, i ( ..”an amazingly beautiful read.” Crispin) is now available either directly from Harry or via either Amazon or Authorhouse .

Source: http://footballpoets.org/poems/bafana-bugs/