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.