Half Sleep by Nhlanhla Mkhonto

Yesterday I woke up dead in my sleep

 I stared at the slow descending 

 bright beautiful beginning  called my life

I woke up with my eyes closed

 and a heart that smiled endlessly.

I woke up lying next to my soul

and I listened  as it taught

and showed me the divinity of my life

My body froze  in times  of pure joy

and my heart  smiled again. 

Yesterday I woke up to a new kind of fresh air

I woke up surrounded with love from the world

I woke up silent and could only understand

the world through emotion and slight movements

that depicted the world I  lived in before  I closed my eyes

I woke up with an open mind and the willingness to say yes,

Yes to all that brings joy to my world.

Yes to all that tingles my spine

and leaves my soul with positive vibrations.

Yes to my defeats that I have conquered 

while my sleep danced in the eyes of bewitching hours. 

Yesterday I woke up never to close my eyes

to the world that left my soul lying uninspired  next to me.

I woke up to a loud beating sound of my ecstatic heart

that sings with glory anticipating a better world that is yet to come. 

Yesterday I woke up smiling in my sleep.

With Buckets On Their Heads by Mthabisi Phili

photo by Resta Nyamwanza

what happened to Matabeleland’s water?

i hear the bureaucrats are stalling it in Harare-

and they speak of unity and impartiality only towards the ballot boxes!

so towards the vote we march singing songs they’ve forced us to sing,

but this is not Europe and snow is not an alternative for water-

no fantasy or reindeers pulling Santa

no games when people need the dam,

the chronicle reads:

‘Bulawayo’s water situation worsens!’

Some Kinds Of Blessings by Gracian W. Masiyiwa

The blessed have no lips and tongues

and never get misquoted

If they use signs

They are quickly forgiven

For each gathering is a minefield

Each question a booby-trap,

As manna falls from wrong heaven

Blessed are the blind,

As judgement is not by sight

They think all are beautiful

And don’t judge by height

Although they doubt, if

friend didn’t grab double-portion

Of that sweetest cake

The blessed lived among scorpions

And got wisdom in time

Not to lead or follow

To ditch the sight and fright

Sting and bite, backbite called sting

Whether friend or foe

They surely learn to fly

Blessed are the dump, the daft

For they are last to know

Who laughed at, or with them

They surely inhabit their own heaven

And piece-meal,

they gather their pieces of peace

Unaware of the toxic artwork,

Scribed on backs of their jackets

As  they sat and drool

The blessed are drunk with patience

Giggling in pain when hope is abused,

and scream with joy

Collecting  bowls of hail,

Near  the cave of a thousand chameleons

Praising long gone angels

For the sugar that Sheol poisoned

Blessings of some kind

But Holy heaven is in tears

Zimbabwe by Donal Mahoney

 

From shimmering oil

of ebony still

will come flailing of limbs

will come hacking

quick slashing

of hands now untied

tattooing no pattern

not even a maze

depriving gray walls

of their stone

will come spittle

wild churning rivers

agush from slack jaws

of blanching gray hounds

till one day at dawn 

will come quiet

My Friend Samuel by Lilian Dube

Photo by Resta Nyamwanza

When the worst comes to the worst
Tell your sister I loved her
Wore on my finger
Gazed at her everyday
Tell her I couldn’t help
But be the man
born for the road
with her tender in my palm
building dreams,
& still promise
that if I don’t make it home the same,
You’d still tell her
I loved her.

Mostly Basie With A Little Bach by Donal Mahoney

 

Whenever I see a new woman, I know 

I should look at her hair and her eyes and her smile  

before I decide if she's worth the small talk

and the dinner later 

and whatever else she may require 

before she becomes taffy, 

pliant and smiling. 

But that never works for me.

Whenever I see a new woman, 

what matters to me is never 

her hair or her eyes or her smile;

what matters to me is her saunter 

as I stroll behind her.

If her moon comes over the mountain

and loops in languor, left to right, 

and then loops back again,

primed for another revolution, then

I introduce myself immediately

no matter where we are, 

in the stairwell or on the street

and that's when I see for the first time

her hair and her eyes and her smile  

but they are never a distraction since

I'm lost in the music of her saunter.

Years ago, tall and loping Carol Ann

took a train to Chicago, 

found a job and then one summer day 

walked ahead of me on Michigan Avenue 

while I surveyed her universe amid 

the cabs screeching, horns beeping, 

a driver's middle finger rising. 

Suddenly she turned and said hello 

and we shook hands and I saw her smile 

dart like a minnow and then disappear 

as she frowned and asked   

why was I walking behind her. 

 

I told her I was on my way to the noon Mass

at Holy Name Cathedral and she was welcome 

to come along. The sermon wouldn't be much, 

I said, but the coffee and bagels afterward 

would be plentiful, enough to cover lunch.

And Jesus Christ Himself would be there.

She didn't believe me, not at all, 

and she hasn't believed me since. 

That was thirty years ago and now

her smile is still a minnow

darting here and there but now 

it's more important than her saunter 

which is still a symphony, 

mostly Basie with a little Bach.

And I no longer traipse Michigan Avenue 

as I did years ago looking for new moons 

swirling in my universe. Instead, 

I take my lunch in a little bag 

on a long train from the suburbs

and I marvel at one fact:

It's been thirty years since I first heard 

the music in her saunter

and Carol Ann and I are 

still together, praise the Lord. 

Who can believe it? Not I. 

Carol Ann says she knew 

the ending from the start. 

Lord, Almighty. Fancy that.

Daddy Why’d You Do It? by Kevin Heaton

You said “all girls who love their

daddies, show their love that way”.

Daddy why’d you lie to me,

And take my pride away?

Now Mommy hardly looks at

me, I’m sure by now she knows.

Daddy, why’d you do it?

You know I love you so.

Humiliation walks with me, I lie

awake and cry. You said that love

was beautiful. Oh God, please let

me die. Dear God, please let me die.

Writing with light winners

1. Jazz by Lilian Dube

Photograph by Resta Nyamwanza

I met jazz in a dream

Down by the river

Leaning against an amarula tree

Playing the pennywhistle

To the sound of my heartbeat

& the smell of the last rains

She made love to my senses

Drowned my soul

I can’t breathe, can’t let go.

2. Between A and B by Babusi Nyoni

Photograph by Resta Nyamwanza

Lines, LINES

Electricity lines

Zip-zapping over skylines

On city grid guidelines

Load-shedding nine-to-nine’s

“Danger! Electricity line!” signs.

Deadlines...

Telephone lines

Long and entangled like telephone line lines.

Telephone line fines, paid

To nourish telephone line vines.

Weaving... Over-under.

Mashed.

Confused.

Hooked up on telephone line twines.

Trapped between the (04)’s and (09)’s.

Or is it C4’s and Tech 9’s?

Underground cables? No. These are landmines.

Landlines, to our foreheads add lines. Call them headlines.

HEADLINE:

 “Information highway knocked out by internet lines.”

A lineage lost.

Punch lines...

3. Women – Uhuru by Sammantha G Ndlovu

Photograph by Resta Nyamwanza

 As I  bled my soul on the microphone

From a place within me thats tattered and torn

Shattered by life’s social ills

that women swallow as bitter pills

Violeted and trampled upon

As the rest of the world simply looks on

I am the voice of womenkind

I speak the words that feed your mind

Women Uhuru , for a new day has come

Shout it onthe mountain, for your life has just begun

Let our voices resonate,

let us shout as one

The power in the voice is way beyond that of a gun

I cannot be silent, and I can no longer weep

I can no more suffer, while the planet is asleep

I cannot accept the rape and violence in the home

And no longer can I accept

To spend the night alone.

Pindirai by Mgcini Nyoni

Photo by Resta Nyamwanza

We have danced

and sweated

sweated and bled a river.

We have sung and prayed

We have played our drums

have hit our percussions

to a shrieking crescendo

prophets clad in

red

green

yellow

have shaken our heads

into dizzy confusion

dirty fingers inserted

into girls and mothers.

We have sung

and danced

and prayed

And have hit

the same brick walls

We look up to the heavens

and say

Pindirai Mwari*

* Pindirai Mwari – please intervene God.

Mother and Child by Anesu Katerere

Old war lord barbell fish in tin pot roasts
Eyes curse tormentors one more time before bursting into soup
Conscious that it’s grave be the stomachs of two fatherless
Generations
Never school, nasty disease between thighs
But mother and child

Seven day school uniform, hips for stale chips
But mother and child.
Two figures lost to the present
Dipping unwashed hands into old chemical container
Now plate
Smiling sadly
But mother and child.

Love Is Not Always The Same by Thelma S. Katt

They say 'if you have loved before,
You will love again'
Love is a game
And every time its not the same..

Once upon a time it played out like a song
One with a message so sweet and strong
Carrying lovers to a world only imagined
Full of adventure and places yet to be discovered..

Then it became a dream
Not a nightmare,but a sweet and sensual dream
Where lovers shared every minute,every moment
In poems from emotional poets
Full of hope,peace and eternal bliss...

Of love stories,
Time passes,sadness reigns
From dreams of 'what ifs'
To shattered hearts,
When lovers are torn apart
Some for a moment,
And others for a lifetime...

So love is a game
And every time its not always the same
Some rise from the pain
But not everyone can regain
What they once had
And nobody can change it,
Its just the way it is....

A Dance In A Dungeon by Amy Huffman

I pushed my fingers

through the glass.

Amazingly,

it did not break.

Rather, it absorbed

and dissolved

me.

Bleeding my elements

into its own.

And what a home.

So fitting.

A disguise.

You will never recognize

my latest form.

As you smash me.

To find me.

You will set me --

finally --

free.