I sent Christmas, the old year and the new year packing with praise poems. Now I'm going to sing my own praises, and then I'll pass on to start something fresh.

Peace to you all!

Mercy, Nontsizi, renowned for your chanting,

your poems are the nation's bounty.

No elephant finds its own trunk clumsy.

Awu! Mercy, old hen's wing in Africa!

Hen screening her chicks

from birds of prey,

the nation knows you, sky-python,

poets sneer but discuss you.

Turn Phalo's land on its head, Mgqwetho,

whack nations and sap their standing.

Wild beast too fierce to take from behind,

those who know tremble in tackling you.

Mercy, dusky pool-tinted woman,

your stench reeks like the river snake.

Peace! Elephant browsing the tops,

you've made a household name of Mgqwetho.

Mercy, Nontsizi, African moss

sipping moisture from under the ripples,

you stubbed your toe and felt the pain,

a slip of the tongue and they stomped on you.

Mercy, Nontsizi, African moss,

you strip poetry bare to the bone

and the nation's mountains swivel

as you sway from side to side.

Mercy, Dusky, Drakensberg snow

like morning dew on Mount Hermon.

I blundered in going to whites:

Oh I felt the cops’ cuffs on me!

Mercy, woman poet, Vaaibom's flamingo,

which thrusts its feet forward for take-off,

which thrusts its feet backward to land:

all creatures come out to bask in the sun.

Mercy, duck of the African thickets,

ungainly girl with ill-shaped frame.

Awu! Nontsizi, African moss,

with bow-legs like yours you'll never marry!

Mercy, woman poet, wing of Africa.

Make way! Ach, I was used.

Mercy, starling perched in a fig tree,

your poems dispense with feminine wiles.

Mercy, Nontsizi, African moss,

let old maids screen their bodies in bodices

for no-one knows your ancestors:

without skin skirts there'll be no weddings.

Where are your daughters? What do you say?

“We roamed the countryside searching for marriage,

we turned our backs on home and dowry,

today we're exploited in exile homes.”

What's education? Where are your sons?

They roamed the land in search of niks,

chickens scratching for scraps,

eager at dawn, at dusk empty-handed.