Poetry Bulawayo

  Image - www.recordedfuture.com Listen, young lady, this is the man  who will  cut off your legs and this is the man  who will  cut off your arms and this is the man who will cut off your head if you fail to tell us where    your parents hid the gold. Had we known about the gold, they’d be here, not  over there in chunks, baking in the sun.

These are tears of my African mother And its colour that shows all her fears She still hopes the darkness will clear Divorced by life now married to poverty One’s a wife now just a nobody At night she cries inside I hear her cries as I sleep In the morning she puts a beautiful smile to the world But deep down I know all those glitters are not gold

The months came by the visit, June with her sunny disposition and April with her warming charm. December was silent and deadly, as usual. August was barely dressed and October wore his favorite costume, munching on candy. The evening came and they swept away to set the rest of the year’s gradual time.

A flying saucer whirrs  through the kitchen air almost hits him in the head flies out the open window followed by another saucer sailed at him by her  angry that he's earthbound can't take her to the moon one more time tonight. He's getting old, he tells her. She should have come aboard when he was 23 and flew all night from star to star. He ducks again and gasps, "Once must now suffice."

Madam says to always keep your eyes open Stare at the ceiling Don't look into his eyes Wear black panties Lace is very pretty But it tears easy Some nights get real busy But you look like a clever girl, You'll catch on quickly

When Martha gets home from  cooking class this afternoon, Martin will be gone  after 30 years of marriage. Martha won't know why but it's the same old story another woman this one young and beautiful but deaf and mute as well a woman Martin likes  because her body speaks  a language of its own a woman who stays home unless Martin chooses to walk her  along with his dog, Sparky, an old sheepdog his wife  gave him as a pup.

Isaiah wrote about the stump Left behind in the world After the sweep of judgment fell The oak and the terebinth remain The sawed tree leaves a pattern Ridges and narrow passageways You could trace a star with Its end a raw, gnarled appendage Isaiah wrote about the ravaged Field and ruin, while juxtaposed With the remainders, the seed The excerpt implies a peace Larger than truth, that even when Broken and crumbling, twisted There is a small grain of hope It lies beneath the surface, small Inclination of a behemoth below Blessing is a small wordless child Sitting amid the curses and fears.

The dark days have come! When I dread to walk around, In school I can’t keep up, Those days make me sick! The red liquid keeps flowing, Why can’t I just stop it? Surging pain in my abdomen, Every single limb in me aches, Yet I have to work and read! Mama struggles for me, Leather she borrows for my sake, I sit on the damp soil till dawn, Mama pities me, she cries for me, And I along with her, will relief ever get here? In school the students mock me, I’m embarrassed, I’m ashamed, This is too much - why me? No tampon for me, no sanitary towel, Nothing to shield me, to hide my shame! No one to protect me! My heart aches for that day, When I can dance through my cycle, When checking becomes a vocabulary, When the period of shame becomes the period of pride, When my heart falls in line with natures phenomena!!!!!!

Victor Kunonga during Bulawayo Culture Festival 2013. Picture by Tswarelo Mothobe If everyone could make music then everyone would be a musician. It is the finest of the arts. So in tune with human desires, so emotive when done right. Music can move people like no other medium. I wish I could make music. All I have are these words. And they will have to do.

The last time I saw Sekai She had dust on her feet and grasshoppers in her hand She loved chasing dreams and always danced in the rain Hoping, secretly, that her cynical and old great aunt wouldn't catch her With her feet in the sun. She had the heart of lion, used to go round places Stealing mangoes into her old panties, and showing us the chocolates that her father Sent to her, ''Where is he?'' we used to ask...''In the U.K'' she used answer simply Nobody, but she and her cynical and old great aunt Who had hair full of years and no teeth, knew where that was. Sekai loved catching fireflies That Was Before Her Father Took Her Across The Ocean Now she wears polkadot skirts, and little polkdot tights And talks in a tongue that her cynical and old great aunt can't understand No one calls her Sekai anymore, but Sarah or Susan or something like that And no...the girl in the polkadot skirt doesn't remember ...

I sit alone In a room filled with people I cry alone Amongst the hubbub and bustle The Clown wipes a painted tear From his eye The clown lives solely to entertain Watch him die Death mocks him with his fixed smile A crocodile grin Death challenges the Clown to cards Knowing he’ll win The pale mask slips from his face It reveals Truth A child questions it all Slay the youth But I do not dare to do so Nor does the Clown care to do so One by one, they all file out From the room, they all file out Leaving me to sit alone Leaving me to cry alone A witness to something more than myself Too preoccupied to see beyond myself I sit alone In a cold and empty room I cry alone Sitting, waiting for my final doom.

Spread 'Em for Anyone Edna had always had trouble with men. It started in high school when Edna, big for her age, hosted the soccer team, one by one, provided they won. Edna had strong school spirit  but the players were not sportsmanlike,  telling classmates Edna was a bad goalie. She had let everyone in. Edna's largesse continued in college  with lanky lads on the tennis team. Tennis players had more couth, she said, and they certainly knew how to serve. They would take Edna to dinner and a movie and she would send them home smiling,  victorious, three sets to none. Then one Sunday morning while home on vacation,  Edna took Grandma to church,  a place Edna had never been. She found the preacher attractive.   He stared at Edna throughout  his fist-pounding sermon,  fire raging, brimstone crackling. That Sunday, Spread 'Em for Anyone E...