Just like new Zealand
It’s nice to see the odd
Black face now and again
* Haiku by Cape Town poet, Gus Ferguson, on the (not so new anymore) “Neighborhoods Market” (UPDATE: It’s actually the Neighborgoods Market) at the Old Biscuit Mill shop complex in gentrifying Woodstock, an inner city suburb of South Africa’s second city, Cape Town.
Nice haiku. It has a certain ambivalence…..economically stated.
Was just there today…to buy overpriced bread and harissa made by white people (really good, what can I say). And of course: my pal and I the only two brown people there.
It’s the Neighbourgoods Market,
not the ‘Neighbourhoods’ – I tend to mark it
I like that place, although I rarely see ‘me’ there.
If I saw my face, in them halls, I wouldnt really care
In them stalls, they have mostly Eurocentric fare
@ebele: Yes on the ambivalence. I like ambivalence.
@Nelika: Yes, and I like to stroll through there when I am in Cape Town.
@Luso: Linton Kwesi Johnson would be proud. Thanks for noting the error. Though, naming it “Neighborhoods” may be a comment I did not intend in the first place.