Poetry Bulawayo

  Image (c) Carol Bales Every morning before the sun comes up there’s a feral cat on our deck waiting for a can of Fancy Feast. It’s been that way for years. It’s not always the same cat because feral cats come and go but barring a downpour of rain or an overnight pile of snow there’s always a cat outside our door, looking through the screen waiting for service, sometimes licking its lips. The same cat can appear at the door for weeks, months, even years. They’re close friends with my wife but not with me. We aren’t enemies but the cats favor my wife. I understand why. The cats find our house, I think, not because the cat underground says the food’s good but   somehow the cats know my wife was a farm girl that barn cats loved before she went off to college and took a job in the city. I think they begin to believe my wife is one of them because almost every summer she comes out in the afternoon...

Image (c) : www.mgcininyoni.wordpress.com Harangued by voiceless apparitions from numerous  encounters with his own limits  as a man, the comrade ruminates, considers his life. In the days when tuxedos were all the rage he could use a bowtie to suppress the truth inside his epiglottis, a Russian here-a Belgian there. He still remembers  that time when he would speak or conjure, how his men danced  as women wept while  he, cool as a bassist could raise a battalion with a finger, a village with a thumb. Today he collects mostly smoked cigarette  butts on Barrow Street  for attempting to distort  not only the truth  in this world, but that  which lives within the fields of our imagination.

Lust for power, prestige, privilege provides the energy propelling the few to outdistance many. The urge to attain fruits of ambition drives seekers to forget compassion, ignore morality, renounce decency and crush whoever gets in their way.

  Image (c) - www.mgcininyoni.wordpress.com If   l should die And you should live, Because l could not stop for death He kindly stopped for me, Do not make the same mistake   Least you end up being here with me. Live life with a purpose, To serve God and save humanity. Seek pure joy and the rest will be added. It’s so funny how all seems clear As l look on from this place. How l wish someone had told me Just like l am telling you. All is vanity. Just like the mist in the air It will all disappear. Joy, love and happiness This is the essence of life. The place l am seems a bit quiet And hence l took this time to write to you.   I died and you lived, Because l could not stop for death He kindly stopped for me, Do not make the same mistake   Least we end up writing together from here.