Caseworker Determining Eligibility by Donal Mahoney

                 

        Cabrini-Green Projects

        Chicago, 1963

The child, age two, hammocked in the half

moon of his mother’s arms, is locked

in palsy, yet moves an eyelid as I ask,

moves the other as his mother answers,

application form interrogation.

The father was a white policeman.

“Curiosity,” the mother says. “No more.

I didn't go with him for money."

Elephant Grass by Christopher Mlalazi

Image - http://zimsiffs.blogspot.com/

We were two, mother and I

Deep in the bush behind old Pumula township

Mother wielding a sickle

And I a catapult

 Eyes searching for anything that moved

For I was the guard

Seven years old

The grass was as tall as gum trees

Yellow as gold

A world of weaver birds

And insects with long knees

As mother cut and cut the grass

Tied it into two bundles

One big one small

And we would emerge from the bush

With them on our heads

And I walking behind mother

The bundles slowly accumulated

At the back of our home

And we would watch them slowly dry

As the seasons went by

Sometimes playing hide and seek amongst them

Or leaping into their bosoms

As if they were our parents

And we would open the buttons of their blouses

And suckle to sleep

Then months later

A lorry would arrive

And our grass friends

Would be on their way

To gogo and khulu in the rural areas

Where they would be reborn again

As thatch on roofs of huts

Providing shelter and beauty to the rural landscapes.

Mornings in Venezuela by Neil Leadbeater

(i)

  

        Strangers found them belly-up. Their barbed mouths were

            jaw-wide

        as if they had tried to draw down great gulps of air.

            Every man-Jack of them

        was a Xerox copy of blood-red ventrals.

        Before you go, she said, I will tell you all that I know.

        Aside from the oil, the gold and the diamonds,

        you will be like a man who suddenly sees through a gap

            between doors:

        the one

            half open

                the other

            half shut

        where the poor pound hoes into parched land, their one hope

        to survive all this, to come through hunger and be thankful.

(ii)

         It was

        fast-fast

        that I raced in my sleep

        to the sound of the long-tom

        the dollar and the rocker:

        dredges whose nozzles, buried in deep,

        flushed out jewels

        from alluvial beds

        to pay off debts

        for barter.

        Seeing the burst

        escape from the dam,

        I ran and I ran

        to the river-run:

        I watched the dross

        choke the drains,

        its pulse like blood

        in the seams of veins

        and my heart pounded

        at the empty drums

        alert with the fear

        of poison.

Beyond These Walls by Batsirai E. Chigama

Image - peopleofcolororganize.com

My blood is cold beneath my skin
Frozen with shame
They undressed me
In front of a thousand strange men
Stripped me of all pride and dignity
Laughing, pointing at my withered breasts
Hoping for subjugation they beat me
Beat me in my nakedness
Then they chained my hands, chained my feet
Trapped me with dank sour smells of lost hope
In a cold cell with rusty bars
Then clanked the door shut
Threw the keys in a forgotten mine
Hoping I too would be forgotten

My body bleeds from the inside
My spirit is wounded
I am chained 
Yet my thoughts roam
In places far beyond these walls
Places I have been and those I will soon be
My visa to freedom 
My mind
they can never
take
Away
From me. 

#ZimRef by Mgcini Nyoni

Image - swradioafrica.com

Over imported cognac

They incinerated our views;

shook hands – ‘job well done comrades’

And shared mines and ‘indigenised’ businesses.

Over exotic coffee

they agreed on povo enslaving clauses;

shook hands –‘ job well done comrades’

And reached ‘compromises'

-          inflated parliament and oversized cabinet

On cruise boats in Kariba

and in massage parlours in Vumba

they struck political deals and ‘alliances’;

shook hands – ‘job well done comrades’

And drove us to the polls

to vote yes

for growing fleets of luxury cars

expanding waistlines

expensive holidays

and offshore accounts for them and offspring.

Death Of A Child by Clemence Chinyani

Image - guardian.co.uk 

A child was killed,

A little boy,
A son,
His body was burnt,
His crime?
It was time,
To vote for a new president,
Who would extol no-one,
But himself,
Make it rich and,
Shit on everyone,
While his troops make merry,
And the rest of us wept.

Summer Ablutions by Donal Mahoney

Image - www.thisoldyard.net

Stunned by July in a hammock

he remembers the apricot wife 

no longer here

one curler more and the flutter

of leaves in the orchard

the sound of trees 

letting go

a downpour of plums

flowing over

the wicker

propped open 

below

Leaving Dreamland by Artwell Masuku

Image - commonhealth.wbur.org

He wakes up from a dream
Hears a crashing sound
What was that?
He thinks
Tries to see something
In the darkness that surrounds him

There it is again
That sound
Two times two as in maths
Reminds him of something
Something he can’t grasp
Still half asleep
Suddenly it is back
The memory
Of another night
With thunder and lightning
And rain clouding his vision

The memory of valentine
Of a happy evening
Which ended so badly
When she went into the bathroom
Just one second too early
One second
That changed everything
One second
That woke him up
Every night and the only thing
He could do was scream
As the shots rang out.

The Crowning By Christopher Mlalazi

I shall crown your waist with a bouquet

Of fragrant blossoms

I shall plead with the kind sky

Just to drop one Silver Star

From its shimmering bosom

That I shall press upon your navel

I shall ask the sucked out sickle in the night sky

To lend its softest shine

To the warmth that courses through your blood

That your skin can drip milk

And be textured as the finest silk

I shall plead with the wind to be merry

And waft freshly and briskly past your dale

That I shall fill with birds

Of the sweetest song and finest plumage

I shall ask the setting sun

To turn down its fierce wick

And become a soft crimson

Above the wrought boughs of ancient trees

That you may look up to behold this vision

And Oh, I see your angelic face turned my way

Courage by Sifiso Mabena

Image: http://worldswithwords.wordpress.com/2012/09/23/adding-value-at-will-and-using-theory/

I have glimpsed her in still moments

Against the glint of broken bottle-necks

Without justice delivered

I have seen her body shiver

With my face pressed into her shoulders

My back is turned against

Truth damned up; threatening

an out come

Is it a right one?

Is it a right one?

Trembling I turn around

facing truth’s trafficked sounds

Words speed and a buzz is roused

As I stand, my silence is loud.

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.