Poetry

Shona


Shona

Shona, 31 december 2011

Immigrant



Immigrant


Transplanted immigrants


We grow roots in foreign soil.


Struggling like weeds amongst home grown desired


Shrubs, bushes, flowering plants,


We scatter seeds that blend with these


As we appease the greater garden,


We, tenuously, escape pesticides


And weed wackers: we blend,


Cope and adapt;


Growing luscious, emerald, flourishing, flowering;


We become grafted into alien foliage,


We give back or we take back


Moisture from damp soils;


Become prominent in ways sometimes seen


As invasive and intrusive; bearing strange fruit.


We become overgrown at times;


Tangled masses; branches, roots intertwined; seeds
scattering


On winds, on time, on nature.


We struggle for deeper roots.


number of comments: 0 | rating: 10 | detail

Shona

Shona, 29 december 2011

BURDEN



1. Burden


I hold the world on my head,


The whole world, as I know it.


Tilted precariously, perched atop


My head; I have to keep it steady, keep up


This balancing act, because if it falls off my head…


Well, if it falls off my head, it will crash down
like the


Wrath of a thousand, seriously, pissed-off gods.


Oh, so I move this way and that;


A flemenco dancer, a contortionist,


The world makes an unwieldly hat;


Perched, precariously, petulantly on the


Top of my head.


I have the world on my head, the whole damn world


As I know it.


And I am never too sure what to do with it.


My world tilted
timidly on the top of my head.


And I really wish I knew what to do with it.


number of comments: 1 | rating: 9 | detail

Shona

Shona, 29 december 2011

PAPA



1. PAPA


My
father was a spiritual man;


well
worn spiritual shoes soled with Psalms and Revelations,


He
spoke with the voice of Leviticus.



The
Bible, his umbrella,


Protection
from Satan’s reign.


He
went, door to door,


Late
nights on London’s granite streets.


He
came home,


head
bashed and bleeding,


Jesus
in an ill-fitting suit;


Set
upon by wolves and romans who saw


Only
that his skin, khaki brown,


Was
different, desired to devour him.


“Go
back to Asia” words soldered to bats and fists.


All
he could reply, before one tooth let fly,


“Lord,
Lord, me Jamaican, man”


The blows became a flood.
























number of comments: 1 | rating: 11 | detail

Shona

Shona, 29 december 2011

gratitude

1. GRATITUDE


She looked up to the sky


To blessing, gift of water that


Washes away layers of dust from fields


From crops, from the ever present


Ever looming haunt of Hunger.


Water feeds hunger; water keeps them here


On this land, in this place; kept them from becoming
dust.


No water, no life.


But now the rains fell;


Deluge, it was truly a deluge!


The fields heave with new breath, quietly at first


As if awakening from a deeply, comatose state;


The land pulses; water flooding its veins.


And the rain it fell


Swirling muddy rivulets forming, and the rain it
fell.


Quenching,
quenching, water hitting dirt and


The smell of it, the rising, aromatic, earth scent


of rainwater
blending with dirt. It made her giddy.


As she felt the earth drink deeply drunkenly, as if
to forget


Being made brittle and unyielding.


Symbolism of loss and of hope, it fell and water
careened into dry riverbeds.


Children ran screaming and laughing; clutching
buckets, pans, tin cans,


So that they too could drink become drunk, with water


The rain clouds had brewed stored, distilled, now
released.


She looked up
to the sky and felt those giant teardrops


Of gratitude roll
down her cheeks.


number of comments: 1 | rating: 12 | detail


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