By: abstractadorned@rocketmail.com
16/06/2009
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Blessings on all in this truly beautiful place;
House of Stone
the kinky crown on my head
has roots so deep they defy history's textual limits
starting with my mother,
my grandmother
and her mother
and her mother
and her mother
and her mother
and her mother
before her,
before her,
before her,
to a time when women made rain with their hands;
taking a pinch of sunshine, covering it with six days of prayer
to open palms of cloud and thunder on the seventh.
across these sabbatical heavens,
my name is written in praise of a new day,
for this is where my roots begin;
sculpted by lineages of black hands
who built this house of stone
(from where i rise),
long before bullets and bibles scarred us,
but never scared us.
long before when we were bantu
not bantus living in bantustans
that caused bantus to birth revolutions
that soon became illusions of grandeur
as greedy ganders once gandangas*
gorged their gluttonous souls
on house harvests
before markets
opened
with stone in stock
so this house of rock
now stands a
mis-elected,
neglected,
dissected,
mass infected,
house of hunger
vanquishing many in anger
into sunless asylums
where the moon never sleeps
and the sun never awakens
for only the labour of hands
is known in these strange lands.
i pray for a long after,
a long after of before.
i pray with my hands
as my mothers prayed before.
i pray in these roots
for a long after of before,
that's seen tomorrow's suns rising
in my womb
and my daughter's womb
and her daughter's
and her daughter's
and her daughter's
and her daughter's
and her daughter's
and her daughter's
womb's womb
long after,
for nothing can move this house of stone;
nothing can move my womb of stone.
Tendai Marima |
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By: lianne.kojak
16/06/2009
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Abstract Welcome :)
Thank you that was quite incredible
Took me to an unknown place |
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By: abstractadorned@rocketmail.com
16/06/2009
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| Most welcome Lianne, Tendai Marima is a Zimbabwean currently undertaking a PhD in Zimbabwean Women's Writing at Goldsmiths, University of London. There are many wonderful black writers and very educated too. |
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By: atonspark
16/06/2009
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Interesting poem...Bizarre doctorate!
lol
:-) |
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By: abstractadorned@rocketmail.com
16/06/2009
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Thank you - I think Atonspark!-:)
I believe our female poets have written better poetry than most of their male counterparts. Their poetry is less self-conscious - at least as far as language goes, direct and straightforward, pared of all meretricious rhetoric, overblown lyricism and contrived diction. |
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By: atonspark
16/06/2009
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| Mmmmm....:Sexist. |
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By: abstractadorned@rocketmail.com
16/06/2009
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NO!...not at all! merely my opinion and I have been known to stand corrected on many occasions.
The apparent immobility of thought and perception in our contemporary poetry is, I think due to the fact that our economic and socio-political conditions have remained largely unchanged from those of our forebears in the early seventies and eighties. |
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By: abstractadorned@rocketmail.com
16/06/2009
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| The literature of every generation is not created by the mere coming on to the stage of a group of younger writers at certain intervals of the passing years, but by that age at which the writers' sense of perception and apprehension of the world with which they are coming in contact is keenest and profoundest. |
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By: abstractadorned@rocketmail.com
16/06/2009
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Jolademi
He creeps into my bedroom
when the night is most alive.
Unafraid, he feels for the walls
that will bring him to my door.
It has been four years since I spat him
from a lip in my womb.
Yet every night, he crawls back in.
The first light pries through the curtains.
He kisses sleep from my eyes
and pinches my lips to seize my first words;
he wants them for himself.
I breathe in the smell of milk
that has never left his forehead.
God, if I could birth this boy again,
I would.
I watch him at breakfast.
His face is crushed like an eggshell.
For him, food is slow, fist-under-chin torture.
Mother, let this plate pass over me, he pleads.
At once, he attacks the sweet jar.
He's a boy soldier.
His face is ever smeared
with chocolate paint.
I watch him from my window.
Bent over like a rainbow,
he scours the garden for things
his fingers are drawn to.
He seeks me bearing gifts:
hollow beetles, strange stones, flattened cans.
I push them back into his metallic hands.
At night, he pulls me down
on my knees and moistens my lips
with kisses.
Good Night, Mum, he says
and walks away
from me.
My insides flap about like a wet loincloth.
Come morning, come soon.
Lola Shoneyin |
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By: abstractadorned@rocketmail.com
16/06/2009
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Lola Shoneyin's poetry has often been called "daring", "different".
Author of "So All The Time I Was Sitting On An Egg" and "Song Of The Riverbird", Shoneyin is a graduate of Ogun State University and alumnus of the International Writers Programme at the University of Iowa. |
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By: lianne.kojak
16/06/2009
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| Stunning!!! |
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By: abstractadorned@rocketmail.com
16/06/2009
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Seems a shame this site is not used more often, there is a tranquility about it - I have travelled into a few others but this is by far the most comfortable.
I shall return no doubt. |
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By: abstractadorned@rocketmail.com
16/06/2009
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| Thank you again Lianne. |
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By: lianne.kojak
16/06/2009
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Please do Abstract
And your gifts will be well received
TY :) |
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By: orange_roughie
16/06/2009
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communicate with a poet, lianne there is no difference
we are all the same, and have all the same inspirations if
you step out there!! |
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By: abstractadorned@rocketmail.com
16/06/2009
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| You really think so? - I'm very into ethnic, ancient and traditional literature. |
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By: lianne.kojak
16/06/2009
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| Out where Orange?? |
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By: lianne.kojak
16/06/2009
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Abstract
Your posts are a taste of elsewhere but carry the flavor of everywhere :) |
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By: lianne.kojak
16/06/2009
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Laughed as a friend
Spoke with ease
Flowed by itself
Twas easy to please
Captured my heart
Claimed my soul
Turned life around
Made me whole
Can move me to tears
And fill me with fear
With merely the thought
You'll no longer be here. |
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By: goldendancer@rocketmail.com
16/06/2009
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Thoughts of you illuminate my spirit;
Never a flicker of flame, but with
Arching bolts which strike with a force
That disturbs my equilibrium.
My mind races as waves of passion flush over
My pale skin, causing me to gaze upon visions
Of impossible romantic possibilities.
Pathetic is this woman who anticipates the
True rhythm of love, with a man she will never hold.
My imagined discourse of thoughts leave me suffering,
As my lips quiver with the words I shall never speak
to his: "I have loved you more than anybody in this world." |
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By: lianne.kojak
16/06/2009
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| Spoken with passion Golden :) |
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By: abstractadorned@rocketmail.com
16/06/2009
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Kilimanjaro
You are
I am
Melting.
Those patterns etched into your face
Are tears carved under my eyes
Draining through the mask.
A glacial screen
The landscape of my life
Frozen into the familiar.
Snow-cap
Washing away
As men in their folly
Plunder the spoils of the earth.
Face-to-face you say
Do not weep for me
Weep for yourself
And for your children.
For the Sahara
And its spreading.
For your soul
Marooned on an
Island of dreams
Unfulfilled.
Hana Njau-Okolo |
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By: lotoyespls
16/06/2009
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| Beautiful poetry deserving of a Golden Site...:) |
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By: abstractadorned@rocketmail.com
16/06/2009
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| I see you write Lianne, and quite beautifully too - sometimes in simplicity lies the classically exquisite. |
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By: lianne.kojak
16/06/2009
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They probably dont come much simpler than me Abstract...but TY :)
And to you :) |
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