Pink Heart Blossoms by JoyAnne O'Donnell

I see the blossoms in your heart

winter is grey but spring is on the way

when I see you, I light up like a candle

like spring's honest way

warmth of blue sky and enchanted castle

stands like a giant eagle 

watching the cupids fly

into your heart of springs dash

with my hearts flash

with golden arrows of good thought

that can't be bought at any store

kind gestures caress the wind 

flies cardinals of soft mist

healthy bliss.

Kiss by Mitch Grabois

She struts her superior brain

around the house

and into the formal dining room

where she examines a piece of toast

from the artisan bread I baked 

for flaws and imperfections

Is this nutrition

her gaze seems to ask

or merely more calories I will have to burn

to maintain my svelte physique?

Even the reptilian part of her brain

is deluxe

a six-foot long iguana

that lives in the top of a palm tree

dives gracefully as an Olympian

into the blue-green lagoon below

and swims through the depths like

a Fijian pearl diver

 as the human part of her brain

also dives deep

to discern

the darkest dramas of patriarchy

She departs for work

leaving the breakfast dishes

scattered on the counter

where her cat licks egg yolk off her plate

(she’s capitulated to the need for food)

for me to take care of

She doesn’t keep office hours

she keeps office minutes

She is the Abu Dabi Hilton of academicians

Making an appointment with her is like booking a penthouse suite

At faculty meetings she vociferously insists

that the admissions criteria should be raised

Her colleagues have been through this a thousand times

and don’t even hear her anymore

She is disgusted that even the smartest of youngsters 

are insipid 

These dullards are crestfallen as she takes out a scalpel

and a titanium cutting board from a desk drawer

and dissects

a Hershey’s kiss

she’s taken from a crystal bowl on her desk

and using the knife edge

slides diminished portions of chocolate over to them

She leaves the tin foil wrapper for them to dispose of

She sees it in their eyes: they think they deserve an entire kiss

She knows they see it in her eyes: When you deserve a full kiss

you will get one

It’s a short walk from our home to her office

at Prestigious U

Her head floats atop her neck

like a barge floating down the Mississippi

She doesn’t hear

the music piping from the paddle-wheeler’s calliope

doesn’t hear birdsong

or a student playing his guitar

That’s all too trivial for her auditory nerves to register

Her head’s full of

ten thousand ways that women have been victimized

Today

if she’s on her game

she’ll impart a mere dozen to her students

In The Event Of My Demise by Adjei Agyei-Baah

When my I heart throbs to a stop

I hope I would have shouldered a cross worth a cause

Lived and left an imprint undimmed by another man’s course

When I am gone

Like Buddha will find peace in my grave

To have put myself at the tutelage of the words

Learned to string them at dawn

When the lazy bone basks in his wet dreams

When I am gone

Wish some things never remain the same:

The learned heads who should have known better

But fiddle the strings of tribalism and

Put on a spectacle of myopia in the name of partisanship

And tighten the nation’s purse-strings to build lasting hegemonies

When I expire

Let them know

I was also vexed with the doyens

Who had ‘their heads abroad and anus at home’

Leaving no gardens for the budding bards to grow

Upon my exit

I will be glad to have left no dreams deferred

Saw the world as a page where every man must drop an ink

And gallantly defended Poetry as a cult

Even if it never paid me much

Once Upon... by Tsitsi Gumbo

Image - bloodyshow.wordpress.com

I watched as the babe suckled
from sagged remains
of two bloomers
whose former glory
pulled many a man
into lustful gazes

fallen no more to rise
only solace being
givers of life
pure and fresh....

The Lesser People by Kay Akappella

Image - nairaland.com

They say Africa reinvented the civil war

Maybe we did

For we seem to constantly bend over pick our guns and rape our own selves

Our mourns to the rhythm of Gregorian chant the world continually hears

It is that third world orgasm that crescendos to a paralyzing seizure that makes sure we make it to the news everyday

With our drapes wide open the world watches as we shamefully parade our nakedness

A pageant of our political pubics in public

Bosoms and ballot boxes tempered with in broad daylight

We breathe deep, too deep maybe, as we French kiss each other in parliament

The rub of our tongues too course on the other

But seems we can’t listen to one another

Guess we got lost it in cadence –foreplay went too far

Now every man wants to feed his own filthy obsession

And surfeit his every perverted fantasy of greed

Today it puzzles me?

I could fathom hate, spite and these constant aches when it was that “European Mistress” who killed us for our fields and mines

I could understand that maybe our black pigment was not his fetish

But why then is black killing black? Has the other discolored in time?

Maybe the other did? Let me tell tale!

The Tibu people and the Zitu people shared a rib

Siamese twins incubated in the same colonial box

Suckled from the same breast

Some salty milk from the tears of a mother nursing a bullet wound

We fought together, we cried together

We died together, we sang sad songs together

We were called baboons together, damn it, we were ugly together

And that was the beauty of it- We were together

Then the bloody grave stricken honeymoon ended

In the other we started to notice the little things

The Tibu had a certain click thud in their native lingo we could never learn

So we were taught to resent it

The fatter cows the Tibu had so we had to have them

Grass greener we wanted it!

So we fought!

But I’d love to undress the cowardice in how we fought

Men in suits arm wrestled across burnished oak tables

And thumb wrestled in word play

While little boys in Spider-man briefs

Drunk with lactose and innocence

Held guns and shot while they caught ‘stray’ bullets with their skulls

They were child!

This poem is an extract from the short story Our heads could fit in a shoe. by Kay Akappella. You can read the short story here: http://poetrybulawayo.blogspot.com/p/blog.html

The Great Betrayal by Mgcini Nyoni

Calm and firm voice:

“Forget that shit...

you have travelled this road before;

no difference between firm breasts

and sexy thighs...all the same

-          perhaps the amount of gonorrhoea?”

Loud, shrill voice:

“F**k the b**ch;

don’t be an embarrassment to manhood,

Epic battle

and sweaty rubber-less sex

and regret

-          Should I perhaps take a quick shower?

A Romeo's Comeuppance by Donal Mahoney

Image - dailymail.co.uk

Coming toward young Tony now

are the husband and his wife,

that older woman from last night,

the one he danced with New Year's Eve 

while downing Heinekens and shots of Jack,

the one he didn't know was married.

She told him he was tall for just 16

and that he danced like Fred Astaire. 

But now it's noon on New Year's Day 

and the husband just whacked Tony 

harder than the drummer

whacked his drums last night. 

Falling backward like a slab, 

Tony sees the golden halo of the sun 

swirl until it disappears.

Later on the gurney, Tony almost hears

the doctor give the nurse his diagnosis, 

"a Romeo's comeuppance, not to worry."

For A Time My Mother by Melissa Fry Beasley

Image - http://www.sou.edu

My mother spent the summer locked away in a strange place.

Root wrapped and holding

But we could not be certain for how long.

She wasn't so unique in her occasional ineptitude.

She used to walk barefoot from town to town searching,

Until she had turned every corner and run into herself.

Just like a dog can smell fear,

She could sense the indifference,

Confusion of memory and imagination.

She remembered humble beginnings among dirt and stone but

We are never the same person twice.

She was buried in loss,

Leaving only quiet desperation.

Staring in dumb silence,

We expected that past predicted the future.

So many elusive and subtle masters that enslave us.

Preserve your illusion because only the dead speak truth in this place.

We are all beggars,

Each in our own way,

Always an incompleteness somewhere.

Remember that nature is well suited for weakness,

And our skeletons aren't to be distinguished from our ancestors.

Madiba by Simphiwe Dana

Image -  Pan-African News Wire File Photos

The tree falls and winter comes
The giant saviour that became the saint
Is on the last journey back to his origins
Time worn, like an aspiration compromised
They wait on the sidelines
The whole world waits
For the covenant made with him is too strong a bind
To snap before the tree falls
Though bursting at the seams

The giant sleeps….their neediness keeps the saint alive
Incapacitated by the smiles of hope
Spread in the hearts of little children
It is easy to forget
That the dream is for all

Qhawe lamaqhawe

Ntsika yesizwe
Umhle umsebenzi wakho
Uyancomeka kwaye usithwele
Konke kwenzekile
Uyidlalile indima yakho
Ntsika yesizwe

The giant sleeps
Our fears keep the saint alive
To save us another day

http://simphiwedana.wordpress.com/

Waggle and Jounce by Donal Mahoney

Out on the lake 
the white caps leap,
old lions shot in mid-air.
Not far from the water
I sit on a knoll 
and open your letter.
You're in Sacramento now
singing for money.
Here in Chicago,
on hot August nights,
I lick in my dreams
at the scoops 
in your shoulders.
I prefer them to ice cream.
In a week I'll fly out 
and salute your nipples.
Long may your buttocks
waggle and jounce.

Against All Odds by Thandeka Gonde

Image - biyokulule.com

Break the ice cold silence
Not a woman's heart
Bruise not, oh shameless one
The tenderest of her feelings
She's seen all kinds of weather

Yet she stands tall and dignified
Battered and disgraced,
Tried by the world, the unjust judge
She still stands, unwithered
She crumbles inside
But they still gather in her shadow
Deep into her soul,
The pain has burrowed
And sorrow fills the hollow
In the nurturing soil of her soul
You sowed seeds of bitterness
Exchanged her dreams for emptiness
Yet she lingers on
For they gather in her shadow
The little ones look up to her
When the heat of your temper terrifies them
Know ye not oh shameless one?
Should she wither in the heat
Like the tender flower that she is...
A nation withers away with her???

Mntakwethu by Suku Thundabathole Zikode

In your eye I think I see
On your lips when you speak
What is this I think I feel?

In the nearness of you
Is it your body radiation!
Is it in the scent of your skin?

My eyes glaze like a drunkard
What is this I think I feel?
In your eye I think I see
Although your lips refuse to say

There is certain calmness in you
It humbles me down to the ground
And I'm at a loss for words to say

Will it be asking for too much
If I asked you to love me
And still allow me the space to be me
And to be with myself sometime?

To Youth by Philani Amadeus Nyoni

And what shall become of you

When Time’s hands have done their art?

Crayons of hue re-coloured you in shades of dusk,

Graffiti etched upon your brow,

Flawless grace reduced to caricature,

Once impeccable beauty redrawn abstract

And the stains of his oils mock your portraits?

His fingerprints plastered across the wall of your soul:

Your essence withered to the stench of pending death

And your confidence shaken to infirmity,

Shall these suitors, princes in Chevrolets -if not to dust returned-

Still whistle their impotence through toothless smiles?

Bite deep into the flesh of youth but wary the stone,

Cast by those who perceive themselves sinless

Should three words turn to three letters.

I do not wish disease, pestilence or plague upon you,

Only true fruits of old age, regrets grown

To appreciation of possibilities

Chastised by the rod of Time for the road not taken,

Insolence blossomed to wisdom;

Blind valour to meditation.

Subtle pencil strokes to Time’s masterpiece evolved,

While I on his easel remain a fool,

Loving you in more earnest than when I was a boy.

Tell me by Artwell Masuku

Tell me that life
Is not about waiting
For the storm to pass

But about learning to dance
In the rain

Tell me about love
That the most painful thing
In life is seeing the one you love
Love somebody else

Tell me that it is okay
To lose your pride
Over someone you love
That it is okay
Losing someone you love
Over pride

Somewhere between all
Our laughs
Long talks
Stupid little fights
I fell in love.

From The Dual Chambered Organ by Su Jay

Image - imgfave.com

Solitary Musings
From the Dual Chambered organ
encased

in the prison of my ribs
A Sonnet misbrewed underdone overdone
only “THE GREATS” can say

from the two boiling chambers a volcano awakened
spewing
unbridled emotion
with galloping intensity
Writhing with each laborious Heave of breath
-
Breath Hot on hearing
Each pouring
Each outdoing
Each outviing
in rage
with bulging phlegm of half proverbs

Spilled out
split out
still spilling out to barren wildernesses
of humanity
bereft emotion, feeling
only
sometimes, sometimes
@ odd intervals
Lava – this spewed out lava
can should MUST
melt these, these taciturn hearts , into

LOVE.

Bitter Sweet by Tsitsi Gumbo

so it goes on
ecstatic climax
my end
your pleasure
deeper I sink

for your priceless smile
...your smile
my death warrant
anything, anything
just to see it...

so on it goes..
sweet torture...
I love it
more than I do you
...so on it goes