Title: Untitled
Author: Kudsvalor
People are not pillars to lean on
Their foundations are so weak
Weak enough that they cannot wholly carry themselves
Weak enough to shake and quake your world if you ever try leaning on them
People are not windows to bring in sun shine to your dark bed you lay on
Their darkness is so deep
Deep enough to absorb all the sunlight of world
Deep enough never to allow any light through them to you
People are not walls to surround you with protection
People are fencing made of thatching and twigs
Flammable enough to melt your bones in their heat
Flammable enough to eat your flesh in broad daylight
Sometimes people seem to be peaceful
Peaceful as though rivers that you lay on their chest and sleep
In your sleep of trust the river’s water start to boil burning your skin
Sometimes people seem strong
Strong as though hills that you show them your weaknesses
In your weakness of trust the hills shake throwing rocks on you
Sometimes people seem deep
Deep as though the ocean that you drown your sorrows in them
In your swim of trust in the ocean sharks smell the aroma of your blood
Sometimes people seem special
Special as though jewels that you bury them in the depth of your heart
In your richness of trusting this jewel the jewel melt to magma burning your heart
Title: From The Hood
Author: Raycee
We were a drop inside an ocean
Dragged and Driven off our little valley which had marvelous flame lilies at it’s edge
Trying to paint a picture blind… Eyes waiting for It’s auction
Morden slavery not being considered to be the game in action
I was starring at the bible
As I was writing
Staring at the blue trying to get a clue
Staring at the blue to see if GrandDad would pass by and give sweets of apologies for his failures to nurture us as a nation
Staring at the bible
Just to write a better verse
My flint fingers are now an igniter to the paper
Set aflame all pages of yesterday in our minds
Ooo yes it’s a revolutionary movement
Now I’m dying for this…
This Anglo language wen I’m reciting my poem
The Anglo language that set apart our families and packed like potato sacks while shipped from our motherland
When I’m tripping over the offer brought to my table
I believe my imaginations are a reflection of my long and daily depression
The nation was an innocent young and committed virgin you ripped off her pride
Her legs wide open, everyone seeing her wounds before she was even a youth
She raised us in anguish, full of vengeance and chocking remorse
We became rebellious infants, toddlers, teenagers…up to our youthful appearance
We’re the bleeding victims
I’ll be with my people whose goals are too addictive
Im dehydrating your souls especially when you hear me dangling swiftly on this subject and making you dangle too and your fellows doing hiccups
Im from the underground
The precious mineral for my local people
Title: The Dirty Dancer
Author: Elias M. Muonde
The dancer enters the vestibule of the arena of common justice
The audience is the soiled and stained and scarred walls
Which stare back in expressions of contrasts:nonchalant and maudlin
The dancer crosses towards the audience,
Gait affected by the music slowly taking tempo
Music only audible to the dancer,
It starts as sentimental plainsong,
Then peaks into a filthy ditty
Laced with profane vocals and a vulgarised conga medley,
The dancer gyrates
The dancer twerks
Long legs splayed….the dancer
The dirty dancer…
The dance is about pain
The dance is about grief
The dance is about tears
The dance is about loss
The dance is about death
Ok, the dance is about anger
Anger!
Anguish!
Why did she die? Why did she die?
Did she had to die?
Death.
Death like an imbecile
Death like a pickpocket
Death like a mugger
Death like a rapist
Death like a paedophile
Rapes the delicate
Picks into the pockets of the talented
Molests the juvenile.
Says the dancer with vitriol:
Which one of you bastards,
Which one of you imbeciles,
Which one of you paedophiles,
Which one of you rapists,
Which one of you scumbugs…which one of you exactly…is Death?
Title: Persona Non Grata
Author: Elias M Muonde
Void papers;
Dry inkpots;
Sullen expressions
Silenced voices
Banned words Blacklisted opinions
Censored and sectioned;
Strapped and stripped of all right and worth
A person without humanity
Humanity without personality
They said I had a mouth of severity
My tongue a phial of potent
My mind a threat to orthodox philosophy
My very existence a pain in their groin:
A sore pimple irking the genitalia of high society
A plebeian embarassing the plutocracy
Hence,
My mouth had to be severed
Tongue clamped
Mind castrated
My existence nullified
Papers seized and burnt
My inkpots destroyed
Fear breathed into me
My family alienated
My own people antagonised
The future captured
It was all I struggled for;
The future
My message was about the future
A future where my children are allowed to be beautiful
A future where my sons and daughters are creators and leaders
Not hewers of wood and drawers of water
Please do not capture the future from my children
Was that too dangerous to mention of?
When a mind is captured, detained, molested and even raped. ..
When humanity is bundled up and shoved down the drain.. .
When dignity is demoted to low sunken levels. ..
When everything has been taken away from you
What’s left is nothing but…resilience
Resilience against silence
Even in this state of voidness
Im writing a new book under the halo of the twilight
Persona non grata yes
But I wont die
Not before the future.
Title: The fire
Author: Chioneso
The dreams get wiped out
Pain and tears gush out
Past hope past doubt
No wings no flight
Morning bird sings yet there is no light
Lift me up
Light me up
My spark is gone
My soul is torn
I am all thorn
Break me a dawn
I can’t even crawl
I cant roll
No knees to get up under
To my heart aches I am plunder
Pounded to my bone
Mama I am gone
Pour me back into your womb
Remove the the rock from my tomb
Bring me back to life
Take out this knife
I have given up on me
Every bit of me
I can’t swallow my pain anymore
Knocking on death’s door
I am too heavy too sore
Drowning take me to shore
I am dying
I am dying
Gone mama
Hear my calling
Gone mama
Soon you will be wailing
Title: Hell, Heaven Home
Author: Nkosoyazi Kan Kanjiri
In our home, there is a map to hell.
I followed the fury in father’s eyes
Until I gathered hell resides where
Father’s palm meets mother’s cheek.
When hell breaks loose,
Mother becomes different shades of heaven.
Her face cracks into a thousand splendid stars,
Her voice splits into the colors of the rainbow.
She sheds no tears, she was told
The sun is majestic in the storm.
She was taught the moon shines in the dark, where,
Upon its gaze, children gather around a bonfire
To share beautiful stories.
Title: Your Majesty
Author: Khumbulani Bandula Muleya
Silence stretches in anxious sky
I woke up screaming
My heart ripped
but there you are sleeping
peacefully
You were reaching for tall dreams
Past resurrected
I’m so hurt I wish I could be left in perpetual twilight of amnesia
Remembering only good days
when your spoken word ruled the plains
Instead of tears you smiled.. your mystic eyes seeing beyond into infinity
I know…
the memory of you
will leave me down
on my knees
Forever left wanting
my abandoned soul
trying to catch
fleeting shadows as I try to imagine who will replace your rhythm
Im going through texts, memory of you will be my talisman
The winds of destiny have reached out but you shall rise again to reincarnate in a billion..
