Busking on the bay
Performing to their audience played the sleek wet seals
tumbling through the ripples for their small fish meals
Framed inside a backdrop of the sea and sky
while humans sat and watched them from their own fish braai
Plodding through the desert of a haze-hot sun
a sound-mirage swept over us and made us run
We came to an oasis with a tide of sound
swelling out our dryness as we almost drowned
In the minim-crotchet-quavering bobotie-beat
slurping up the rhythm through enchanted feet
There was a man with a sweet potato face
flirting with the trumpet in his gnarled embrace
Syrup pouring music as he bent and swayed
to the yellow-curry rhythm of the tune he played
The cheek pillows and skin puffs round his raisin eyes
danced above his body with his dip and rise
And the writhing of his spirit jerked our limbs alive
as we answered in the language of the Cape Town jive
Behind the sweet potato were his old-block chips
sizzling on the trumpet with their flaming lips
Plonking at the banjo with a twing-twang beat
pouring their guitar-balm on our itching feet
And the anvil beat our eardrums as we joined the band
our bodies forming orchestras from heart to hand
Our feet a stomping tribute to the warm embrace
of the sweet potato music and the criss-crossed face
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