Friday, November 25, 2011

Nust Days/ (for Marie 26 June 2007) by Mthabisi Phili

Image - quintessentialfeline.wordpress.com

I missed you-
the very moment you turned to go into that Harare
train,
I saw the cold night already –
the racked night red and empty
I shivered
put my hood-on
my hands in my pockets
and walked away from warmth
…with a broken heart!

Tuesday, November 15, 2011

Song of Solomon 7

Image - mota.ru

1 How beautiful your sandaled feet,
   O prince’s daughter!
Your graceful legs are like jewels,
   the work of an artist’s hands.
2 Your navel is a rounded goblet
   that never lacks blended wine.
Your waist is a mound of wheat
   encircled by lilies.
3 Your breasts are like two fawns,
   like twin fawns of a gazelle.
4 Your neck is like an ivory tower.
Your eyes are the pools of Heshbon
   by the gate of Bath Rabbim.
Your nose is like the tower of Lebanon
   looking toward Damascus.
5 Your head crowns you like Mount Carmel.
   Your hair is like royal tapestry;
   the king is held captive by its tresses.
6 How beautiful you are and how pleasing,
   my love, with your delights!
7 Your stature is like that of the palm,
   and your breasts like clusters of fruit.
8 I said, “I will climb the palm tree;
   I will take hold of its fruit.”
May your breasts be like clusters of grapes on the vine,
   the fragrance of your breath like apples,
 9 and your mouth like the best wine.

   She

   May the wine go straight to my beloved,
   flowing gently over lips and teeth.
10 I belong to my beloved,
   and his desire is for me.
11 Come, my beloved, let us go to the countryside,
   let us spend the night in the villages.
12 Let us go early to the vineyards
   to see if the vines have budded,
if their blossoms have opened,
   and if the pomegranates are in bloom—
   there I will give you my love.
13 The mandrakes send out their fragrance,
   and at our door is every delicacy,
both new and old,
   that I have stored up for you, my beloved.

Monday, November 14, 2011

I Love...by Clem Southpaw Chinyani



I love peach halves,
I do,
You know what else I love?
Marshmallows,
I love green pepper too,
Yellow pepper but not red,
I love people with smiling eyes,
And extreme hair,
What does that mean?
Well look at my preferences,
I love the air,
Because it's there but I can't see it,
That thrills me a lot,
I love to be fair,
Every time I share,
I take the smaller piece,
Yeah I started as a kid,
I also love the stars,
To stare at them out at night,
And wonder what might,
Happen if the shooting star hits the earth,
I like to discover,
New places and new people,
To hear different languages,
Different chimes at different times,
I love New York Taxi Cabs,
And the Zebra's stripes,
I like to feel good,
And to surround myself with love,
And to give out as much love as I could,
I love the fact that there is God,
And to live in the reality of that day after day,
I love a rainy day,
In a street side restaurant,
Sipping my tea while staring outside,
Seeing trench-coats and drenched feet,
I love thin wisps of smoke spiraling into the sky,
From a round thatch kitchen deep in the country,
I love to live and I love to love.

Tuesday, November 8, 2011

Le Musique! by Matilda Moyo

Image - taintedcanvas.com
 The musician
Tugs the strings of my heart
As he strums the guitar
And caresses my ears
With the saxophone
While stirring my being
With the drum
And soothing my soul
With his voice

Such joyous sounds
Creating beautiful medleys
That awaken
Countless memories
Tinged with regrets
Endless hopes
For better things to come
Diverse sentiments
About people, places and things

What more can a woman ask?

Thursday, November 3, 2011

Such Is Life by Abel Phiri


Photo by Mgcini Nyoni

The melody of rain
pounding on the roof
amplified by the ceiling
watching cold through the window
in a warm home

Glistening tarmac
a stretch of colours
a kaleidoscope
along a bend to eternity
seem to stretch ,
fantasy of a bitter dreamer,

in  a scotched Kalahari
of excoriated longings
scorpions
spiders
lizards
wanderlust
and lust.

If fate waste life
and life was fate
she would say such is
fate
but fate are feaces
fate is a torn skirt
fate is a perforated trouser
fate is fighting  for a dollar
no
fate is a fat man
at the state house
but such, is African life. 


Monday, October 31, 2011

Because I Cannot Sleep In Viet Nam by Michael H. Brownstein


Image - layoutsparks.com

When the morning sky flowers white petals over Ha Noi,
the dark rind of the mank cou fruit breaks it's skin open
and reveals everything red and beautiful like the way you smell
fresh from sleep, gorgeous and enough, the taste of sugar—
and when the sun spreads it's halo of pollen
and the I bite into the white fruit inside—
the exact color of morning in Ha Noi--I know
why I cannot sleep. An ocean, forests, mountains
between us, your life winding down as the sun sets 
and my life winding up as I watch it rise--
but we cannot watch it together—
you are not here with me, I not with you,
and the tasty fruit of mank cou in my hand alone. 
I need your hand to feel it too, I need you to share 
with me its taste, I need for you to inhale its breath,
I need to love you that much more.
Then I will sleep.

Tuesday, October 25, 2011

Twisted by Heather Dube


Image - Charcoal by Sylvia Slaff Langer, circa 1930s

I don't blame you
you had to go.
You had to go
like those before you.
You couldn't stay any longer.
You didn't trust what I could do
to you or to myself
because I'm twisted.

I'm so twisted
I get myself tangled,
stranded in the rotting stench
of the skeletons in my closet.
Too many phantoms
spilling out the cracked door,
I can't shut them in.

Yesterdays...
when my passions  became obsessions
obsessions turning into addictions.
when I had many mates,
when I could have many babies.
Babies I dissolved
in my forbidding womb of hatred.

Now their screams haunt me,
my dreams are tainted crimson
by the innocent infant breaths I extinguished.

 What I fear the most
is not the noises in my head,
but the silent whisper of my conscience.
Though my addictions never seem to stop.
I also fear
I shall be lonely forever

The one after you
will be gone like you
and those before you
because I'll tell the same twisted lies I told you

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