Foolish Talk by Sifiso Mabena

Scratchings of conversations past
Love stories I believed would last
Hands clasping mine you promised the start
of a gift of love where I'd have your heart
I never received the gift you proposed

When I reciprocated my love you froze
In terror fled, abandoned the dream
I was living it already...
I'm foolish it seems...

Ode To Suleja by D.M Aderibigbe

Photo (c) Juju Films

As tiny as you are,
you swallowed six
years of my life,

and digested it,

and shared it ,
with your rocky
children.
Among them is the

Leviathan Zuma Rock,
Always keeps his
Eyes opened to cloister
you from evil,

Yet, he could do nothing
when his younger ones cry
from the punches of
volcanoes,

that has left
my grandmother's
well-founded house
black-eyed.

As tiny as you are,
you sipped the blood
of my teenage years,
and shared it with;

the dry and flowing rivers,
the water-less and
water-filled wells,
the brut and watered streams,

the harsh and gentle sun,
the violent and unflappable
rainfall,
the grey and green grasses,
that make up your
teeter-totter
personality.

As tiny as you are,
you stole six years of
my mother's familiarity,
and shared it

with your peopled market,
the fence-less schools,
the hut-governed villages,
and the
mud-clothed footpath.

As tiny as you are,
You stole six years of
my siblings' understanding,
and shared it with

the scruffy nippers,
the dishevelled youths,
the moth-eaten aged,
and unforgettable peers.

As tiny as you are.
you stole six years
of my experience,
and shared it with

my sweet past,
my sweeter present,
and a sweetest future.

As tiny as you are,
you clothed my teenage years’
secrets.

Just Fine by Clemence Chinyani

A lady,

A rarity these days,Like a dodo,

Asked me one day,
Which turned out to be fine,
If I was ok
Then she began to leave.

In response to her request,
I said hold on,
Then I began to lay out the basis,
For my saying that I was fine.

Said I,
Holding all things constant,
Freezing everything in time,
Bridling even the wildest gale,
I was fine.
Then she did one thing,
She beamed and said excitedly,
Ceteris Paribus!

We locked arms,
And danced round and round,
In the middle of the street,
Sounds strange now that I am writing about it,
But we did a happy little jig,
And the sun was almost dropping,
Into the pocket of the earth where it was carried,
To the next day.

So,
We did this little happy jig,
That never existed anywhere else,
Till that moment we met,
In other words,
We invented it in our happy moment,
And forgot about it after,
Now it only exists,
In this piece of poetry.

Then we stopped dancing abruptly,
Just as we had started,
Laughed awkwardly and agreed that,
That was a very odd moment,
And we decided that we go our separate ways,
Then she began to leave.

I called out after her trailing her,
STOP!
She did,
And I said that I could not,
Just let her go away,
Before my madness went away,
So I decided to remind her,
That holding all things constant,
Taming even the wildest cat,
I was just but fine.

Ceteris Paribus!

And the cycle repeated itself again,
The happy jig with arms locked,
And I said to her,
‘Your Latin is good’,
And she said,
‘Give the dead language a chance’,
I agreed and she also said,
‘If all people ceased being so gloomy,
And devoted their time and effort to find good art,
Then they would be healed of their mental ailment’,
I agreed and she went on,
To God belongs worship.

‘Ceteris Paribus’!
I yelled, 
Not knowing exactly why the switch of roles,
So again we locked arms and danced,
This time backwards,
Backwards as in rewinding the whole experience,
Then I let her go,
In fact she slid out of my lock,
And I did out of hers,
And the wind carried us away,
I watched her polka dots walk away,
Suddenly she was gone,
And I was left holding jumbled words,
That I knitted together on paper with a pen.