Fight ‘Till Your Dreams Come True

Often your tasks will be many,
And more than you think you can do.
Often the road will be rugged
And the hills insurmountable, too.

But always remember, the hills ahead
Are never as steep as they seem,
With Faith in your heart start upward
And climb 'til you reach your dream.

For everything in life that is worthy
Is never too hard to achieve
If you have the courage to try it
And you have the Faith to believe it.

Faith is a force that is greater
Than knowledge or power or skill
And many defeats turn to triumph
If you trust in God's wisdom and will.

My child, Faith is a mover of mountains.
There's nothing that God cannot do,
So start out today with Faith in your heart
And "Climb 'til Your Dream Comes True" 

Goodbye Yesterday

It’s strange how yesterday felt 

like a boat-ride that never stops
like walking in an alley of flowers.

But yesterday is gone and the boat-ride

has come to a stop at where my dreams begin.
It’s time to step into my next adventure.

I’ve got to be brave and brace myself
for there is more in store for my soul

and I have in store smiles for the life I’ll live.

Beginnings can be daunting
because it means saying goodbye

to a life you've lived and loved,

But from tomorrow I’ve got to resolve,
to turn my dreams into a sky full of stars,
and my heart a field of wildflowers.

Expiration Dates

Me thought only Credit Cards have expiration dates;

Never knew humans too have extermination dates.

Even when you reminisce on a simple rural life

Clearly, a boy becomes a man and the girl a mother.

Our nights turn into days and tears into joy,

The bright yellow frock fades into a dark hue rag,

And the sweet long laughter of glamorous newly weds

Turns into screams when sweetness expires.

So what was once a new smiling lady in town,

Soon becomes the rotted, disdained face no one wants,

And the mansion once flooded by myriad wealthy families

Is no longer the adorable place, but a decrepit abode.

I am told, those who sow in tears, will surely reap in joy

And those who sit in silence eating the bread of sorrow

Will see the proud scattered and the poor exalted.

So we too like Credit Cards have expiration dates.

When I was young, I proudly kept dirt off my frame

But what was once a beautiful blooming giant tree,

Now creaks with old age and from the once adorable frame

Comes a decomposing smell enough to make you squint.

For The First Time

When first you placed your hands in mine 
You sent a shiver through me
What I felt was unusual.

Ever since that day
Thoughts of you have stayed with me

They stayed longer than I expected.

What did you do to me?
I'm afraid to love you, 
But my heart says you are my love.

Where’s the Love?

Often, when my eyes survey the world

They see joy lost and everywhere peace is gone;
And to earth falls flat pleas as dreams lay torn

From the lips of tears and misery I hear anguish

In panic my blood runs cold at things that unfold

When I shake hands with hurts and pain and melancholy.

It’s here I asked myself, where is the promised love?

With hope bereft and despair disguised as gentle arms

I went to the church and feathers of hope fell off me

I went to the village grounds and met open betrayals

On each street corner are greed, paybacks and spite

And all that can break your back left me dismayed.

I choked on the smiles on lips and the love on fingertips

And I asked myself, where is the love we talked about?

I cannot be at peace when people are not free.

And all that come to sooth the soul is angst
I ask myself is this what the revolution was about?

I see people who cannot marry the love of their lives.
I see countries and families torn apart by war and strife.
I met the nakedness of freedom, racism and inequality,

With a wounded heart that silently weeps

I do not think this is how it's supposed to be.

Like a seed that blows in the gentle breeze,
I want to spread love and put bigotry down on one knee.
Every human and every soul deserves happiness.
They shouldn't be harmed; we must lose bitterness.
But why have we lost love in our world?

Deep within my heart, there is a scorching flame
That demands I help my fellow man and woman
They scream at me to give them my hand.

My one wish is to deliver upon the world a soothing rain.
To cast away the reign of intolerance and fear,
To deliver humanity from tyranny's pain and torture

That a lifeless soul or a faceless one losses not the self

The Divorce

Fudzikomele, who will believe this?

I walked through the front door,

And you said, “Get Out of my Face!”

You said, “Else, you will find yourself finished.”

Today, I walked through the front door again,

And you said: “Look at the time! Look at the time!”

Thank you; I stepped out through the front door again

I didn’t see a thousand flaming trees on the road.
Instead, hills fell over each other, royally, to greet me.

By daily dying, I’ve learned to be.

I hope my silences are accurate and true

Maybe, it’s true, in the dark eyes begin to see better.

Ballard of the Sand

Fudzikomele my dear,

The mother we hired to birth you
Because she does not love me, leads you

Into deep waters, to the deep end

Where the water is darker.

Her open, encouraging arms
That never get nearer you are merciless.

You will dream of this water always
Where nothing comes nearer to your comfort,
Wasting your valuable breath now and then
You will scream choking , but no.

Unknowingly, she is drowning
In a forever thin air of the fog on her nose

Down at the deep end and she is doing nothing,

Really, she never did anything harder.
And you want me beside her. Maybe, in imagination.
Where the water is darker everyday unending.

Think positively and the sound will be music

And your moves will become a dance for you.

I wish I can turn this wry smile into laughter

And our long drought into a celebration of joy

But, you are learning how in this helpless water
It is with our skill we live else it will kills us.

Deep in the Heat

It’s a harsh light,
This summer sun, baking the earth.

But why is autumn
Coming with a soft light, wit

h long shadows?

Sad to say, winter lights are cold

And blue, and we shiver with our teeth 

clapping like cymb

It’s only in spring-time
That we see a new light 

that’s bright with daffodils.

Do you also have the light 

of understanding
in your eyes? 

I Love the Rain

Whenever it rains, I feel so free
Like a bird, that I want to kiss the rain.

I see the rain washing away our quandaries
Quenching our sun baked soul.

While others rush for cover under eaves
I let the rain beat upon my head like a song

Last night the rain played a sleep song on our roof
It made me love the rain more.

I wish it will rain every Friday

To make pools on the sidewalks and we all sleep.

Once We Were One

For once 

we were nothing, 

yet my people, we were one.

Somewhere in the forgotten world 

we both climbed each other,
cleaved and cleaved to one another.

We both heard the years hurtling past,
whirring like gears in a hulk factory.

We saw kin and kith breathing,
we gathered our thoughts like defetsui leaves

For the diviner and if some death was coming this way

it will go beyond our ears.

Even before we took Kete to Datsutagba 

there were no doubts swarming 

like reconnaissance planes over forests of sleep,

we were one.

We only heard words murmured in love.

What a grand time we were. 

Is it a grand time now?

What a grand time………………….

Where are we now?..

Where are we?

I Love Tennis

I love women's tennis

and God knows I do
but it’s more complicated 
to watch

in every shot

three balls bounce and bounce

and bounce and you get confused
about which ball to see

and my mine 

and Jesus wept

Jacob’s Ladder

Frederick Douglass, Harriet Tubman,

Sojourner Truth, John Brown, 

Ogalala, Adoeette, Nkrumah

Turner, Biko, Lumumba, Sirowiwa

Mandela, Martin Luther King and all

they saw the ladder

burning in their dreams 

and they climbed it

yet sleep today pressed us like a stone

in the dust
when we should have risen like a flames

to join their choir,

but we were too sick of running

and we closed our eyes to the Seraphim

ascending and descending

too conscious of the impossible distances
between our steps 

and we missed it

to mount the crystal ladder

and slowly we disappeared

one by one into the dark

beneath the stars to sleep forever 

and stone upon stone will thump
our cold shivering bodies into dust

wish we could have grown greater dreams

than desires

And I Sang Hosanna to God

She has a sign on her wall
Stop and smell the roses
knowing you owe
a debt of gratitude for the gifts
so plenty, oh many.

I looked round and saw no rose

She was the only rose by her wall

She has a sign on her feet
Drop in quietly without noise
Inside you can juggle six not ten times
Repeat, once again, only six not ten times
I’ve got no time to waste, I dropped in

I smelled the rose and I juggled not six but ten times

After the water she wants me to drink

I sang for the first time Hosanna not six but ten times

Nightmares

Every night my bedsheets are a snare

I swing, fling and punch my life away

Every night my pillow is a lake
I drown in my own tears without hope

The people I look up to are a harsh sunlight
and their smiles torture and slaughter my dreams

My pain goes deeper into my soul.
it kills my love
the Monster is asleep

I wonder why the sun sinks low
the sky above me burns every little joy I dream

I wait until morning
before my eyes close

in my tears I drown
in my dreams I die

screams woke me
oh, those are mine
I'm sorry
didn't mean to wake you
no, I'm fine
just a nightmare

just a nightmare
until you came in my dreams

The Monster eats pretty princesses when they close their eyes.

She and Me

The greatest news for a long time

Was when I heard she “IS DEAD!”

She was the graveyard of my youth

The leprosy you can’t endure

Right now, I am dozing between belief and disbelief

I remember how she made pain work over time with me

Night and day, my head was lost in the fog

My tears fall like rain before I could cry

She has a heart forged of iron

And her love was full of acid, sulfuric and nitric

I never knew this from the onset

Till she made me eat the bread of sorrow

Tonight, I pray God to grant me a belated solace

And I don’t care to skip work today.

Once, I was there

Clouds are poems Nature writes in the sky

They sing, for us to hear their songs

And what fear they bring us leaves us

When we sit still and what is stirring

In the ticket becomes quiet and like babies

We sleep away from what is afraid in us.

Then many days after laboring hours

When mute in a universe that roars around us

We may hear at last again the uneasy songs in the poems

And when we sing those poverty-stricken songs again

The clouds move as if their awkward task is done.

Sometimes, the whirlwinds sparkle like rollers and screeches

But the seamstress of the Universe leaves the scissors

To cut through shapes designed even though it wounds

When the designer draws the long thread to knot the corners

Like tomatoes nude on the ranks faces torments as it burns in oil

Its teeth only grits uncomfortable tense; but what can it do?

Soon, the designer will return like the evening swallow with smiles

To pour the sobbing tomatoes onto a plate and stretching a smile

Rejoices in the shadow of a cozy comfortable homey shade

Not remembering the discomfort of the destitute moments

When the unsuitable restless whirlwinds blew painfully all hopes

And disgust argues in the stomach and in the pocket was pennilessness.

Once, I was there, an unacceptable embarrassing needy, unsuitable

For the ashtray where I tried to stand up in the poem but rising

My dreams were like a bird without wings in a world

Where pain and disturbingly troublesome glances greeted every hope

Who wants that when we know 
The Titanic was sunk by only an iceberg? 

Yours Forever

Strip me, petal by petal and slowly;
Touch me…and fondly mold me in your open arms.....
Let me feel your breath and the heartbeat in the dance

Let imagines paint me with the trail of your tongue....
And I will forever dance for you and with you alone

See how slowly my body sways, and begs for you
See how my hips whisper to your fiery leaps,

To lead you to my temptation's gate...

Do you hear me? Do you feel me?

Can you gather my tears?

You are the one I have been waiting for

To savor in my well of elegance
To melt me into your waiting arms
Let’s fuse body and spirit when you run the tip

Of your tongue along my spine
Oh this will ride my pulse higher and higher
Leaving me wet and wanting to devour you.

Envelope my sweet surrender
And awake to my addiction to your devilish embrace
Sip my liquid gift of abandonment for you to know, I burn....
I burn for you and for you alone and please,

Take my soft sparkling surrender with you
I’m craving....I’m craving always for the singe that
Trembles my silky will and sparks my hidden desires
That we live forever on this playground with sighs...sighs.

Ooh! Why did I do this? I’m yours forever.

Do You Remember Me?

Hello Dear, do you remember me

We danced together at Tip Toe Gardens before

That was many years ago, many, many years ago

And I couldn’t let you go because of many things

Your love was so divine and your embrace so warm

That I wanted you to be mine though you belonged elsewhere
Do you remember when you made me surrender that night

Today, I’m helplessly helpless, your memory is all I cherish
So when next we meet again I'm going to hold you tight
And squeeze you with all my might because
I am head over heels in love with you
Remember, if you love me like I love only you
No knife will ever cut our love in two
Hello Dear, do you remember me

We danced together at Tip Toe Gardens before

That was many years ago, many, many years ago

To Whom It May Concern

To whom it may concern:

The words stood long by his side

Like a watchdog at the entrance of memory
This is how he will be remembered.
When they say the last farewell.

He stood looking as if he was solidified
He remembered his dreams for his children
On the verge of difficulties where he saw death

Where he lived without life and faced terror

And danced through profound darkness.

Yet, before the sun set coldly that noon
One walked to his window and looked at him

You are not my father, my father is God in the sky
How odd, he thought, to be blessed with a cuff

But of course, he was blessed to know it now.

To whom it may concern:

The words stood long by his side

And he remembered the journey, the tight pants
The sea-lions barking, and he smiled at her

Who saw a doctor of misery in the father.

Give us this day our daily bread

Our Father, who art up there

You have given some folks life

And an easy breeze to blossom.

But some are struggling to escape slaving.

Why not fill their nerves with laughter,

Just for a while, as they’re still here?

You feed some with hope every bright day

And they taste their soul's desire in freedom,

And they come to flashing waters with smiles.

For some, on each dark night, at every hour, oh God,

They ebb and eke with life clinging to a stubborn will,

And they die beating their ways towards the rising sun.

Stranded between despair and the grave,

Many live with fronds of silence and hushed music,

waiting for miracles and crying for a revelation.

Oh God, I have faith in you though you left me lonely

in the world of struggles, but I hope to meet you

on Judgment Day to discuss the weary hungered child.