Umhlaba uyahlaba (The world is a pain-filled place)

To all the people of my generation
Raising children
And helping raise nieces and nephews
And other little ones
Please tell the children the truth
*Umhlaba uyahlaba.

Love them. Protect them.
But please don’t end your lectures at,
“Listen to me:
You’ll work hard and pray everyday
And get married and live happily ever after.”

Life is hard. Even for the ‘regular do-gooders.’
Life brings the unexpected. It’s full of surprises.
Some of them unpleasant.
But don’t tell them that if they behave well
Life will be good to them.
That’s just not true.

It’s the virtuous thing to do. It’s the honorable thing to do.
It’s what must be done.
But, no. Being good does not lead to perpetual happiness.
Really, perhaps it’s not at all for our own joy. But for others.

Please teach them resilience,
Where you would have read them fairy-tales
Teach them ambition, instead of to live in a dream world
Teach them to love stubbornly
Even in the face of loneliness, fear,
rejection, segregation, the unknown, the unfathomable,
the incomprehensible, the unaccepted, the unacceptable
-when they stand to gain nothing but pain, included.

Read them myths, maybe. Of overcoming the impossible.
Then tell them that someone somewhere in the world
Made that myth reality
Because that would be the truth.
Tell them you are telling them
What you are telling them
Not so that they expect hardship and anguish
But that they breathe with complete abandon
and happen to be prepared when the terrible comes.

For the love of truth and honesty that may hurt but builds,
Please tell the children.

*Ndebele phrase meaning, ‘The world is a pain-filled place.’

By Tebogo G.H Ndlovu (Zimbabwe)

Picture Source : www.facebook.com/jadiliafrika

Come home Father...

Come back Father,
come home to love me.
Lift me in your strong and firm hands,
throw me up high,
hoist me above where the sun sits,
where such is the stature of your affection,
poised and robust.

Rise and awake from your lowly sleep,
where you slumber and slobber
in your unperturbed rest.
Dreaming the deferred, 
Waiting for the chiming of the trumpet,
to mark the coming of the unknown. 
But I implore you; be kind enough,
awake and love me,
where you left me lost and searching...

Come back Father,
where my love stands filial and loyal
and see me prosper.
My future yonder,my success is nigh. 
All awaits your return.

Return to me,
to be my harness and strength,
as I skate on thin ice,
to face the most tumultuous of all storms.
In the wake of the cold and gloomy nights:
give me comfort,give me warmth,
so I may be kept safe,
with your discerning wisdom.

Like vigorous children running up a hill
my hope fades away into the horizon.
My days are dark,they see no light.
Your light. Your vision. Your vigilance.

Come back Father,
and tuck me to bed,kiss my forehead,
I will no longer be sad.
Come home to me,
where I humbly hum the hymn of he,
Who vowed to bring you back to me.

Come back to love me..

By Alex Nyasha Dube (Zimbabwe)

Picture source- www.facebook.com/JadiliAfrika

WHAT YOU ARE TO ME...

You bring unimaginable joy to me

A spark of hope you bring to my world

A world hitherto sullen and solitary

When you talk, you address the fears of my mind

You sooth my aching soul with your honey-filled melodies

My heart finds a shelter in you, never to depart no more

In you I find my being, you bring back long forgotten memories

Memories likened to the titanic kind of love

How I yearn for your telepathic caresses

My oasis in the desert have you become

It is true we taste darkness, so we can appreciate day

Like a sweet scented petal, you attracted many insects

From far and near they sought your love and attention

Yellow, Indian, Hispanic, Asian, white they did come

Yet you chose me, an African man

Trusted the oceans when it was still

When it became stormy with its accompanying uncertainties,

You foresaw the end of the tempest and built your nest

I am married to your embraces forever

Through thick and thin, I will remain true

In life’s ups and downs, I will be there

Till your mortal remains is lowered beneath

I will remain yours truly and faithfully

I love you my love, I love you.                                                                                           

By Michael Dale-Asiedu (Ghana)

Photo credits : www.facebook.com/jadiliafrika

Her Iron Man

Agnes wasn’t easily fooled

By roses and confessions of love

Her beauty and the definition of “fact”

She had computed and found equal

So surprise stayed away

When nervous young men

Vied for her heart

And yet she came to me

One ordinary lunch break

No time for greetings

She dived into narration.

‘I hadn’t seen him in aeons

And then there he was!

Settled on a park bench

When the summer sun hit his cream skin

At just the right angle

It seemed that his pitch black hair

Hinted a shy blue

As he turned his head

There was a wise look in his eyes

And his gestures were humble but sure

Oxygen fled when he caught me transfixed

There was a grin plus a nod as he rose to his feet

A bashful child could easily shine

Aside my nervous form!

There was heat when he gripped my hand

A customary “hello” in order

But none issued…’

I listened in fascination

More than as a courtesy

Agnes’ chocolate skin

Glowed in these significant moments

Excitement prevailed in her tone

Her hands motioned for emphasis

Her eyes claimed the prize however:

I witnessed a dimension of emotion

I had never seen before in those eyes.

He was the victor

In the male species’ quest

For The Affection of Agnes Mathe

She had told me about him before

And the classic way in which they met

He was the librarian 

And she was the bookworm

The intellectual claimed the belle

Such was her only love

Her Iron Man from adolescence

She rotated her wrist

Helping the diamond to catch the light

He was no longer

Just her childhood Iron Man.

By Tebogo G.H Ndlovu (Zimbabwean)

First Published in Humans & Quills

Photo: www.facebook.com/jadiliafrica

I love her

When its cold outside
You make me warm inside
I pray that you don`t take long to decide
To take me as I am
For in you my heart resides

Love me...
I will be your disciple
Care for me...
I will be the shepherd of your soul
Like Paul i will religiously die for you
kiss me...
I will be your soul provider
Hold my hand ...
I will hold on to our love
Walk with me ...
We will create history.

By Njabulo Moyo  (Zimbabwe)

First published on http://www.njabulomoyo.blogspot.com/

Photo credits: Daniel Krieger

South African woman

Woman of her own
independent
meaning her alone
intelligent and relevant
as always shown

She identify herself
no dom pass needed
she can feed, take care, even give birth
no bass needed
she took to the union building, some with a child on her back
showing us how we need her

Carried you for nine months
carries a nation for 12 months
still she gets beaten
by this drunkard, the useless

her pain is melody
selling her body to her fathers to keep her siblings breathing
later she gets eaten
after being hunted by a virus that’s unforgiving
proving birth to death is an HI-Virgin

beaten by the rays of the sun
blacken just to get maize for her son
who thank her with a diploma in criminal science
later rapes her and kills her just to sell her phone for his drugs
goes to jail and released after months

That is an african woman

By Dloze Crack pack Matooane (South Africa)

Photo credits: www.facebook.com/jadiliafrika

BACK HERE AGAIN

I'm back here again
Where I left the chemical on the wall
After pitching a tent on the highway sideway
I'm virtually unknown and a legacy is restored
Taps now preside over boreholes
And houses have replaced tents
As the red cross stands on a hill
Side by side religious buildings of Italian origin

Obscured life manifests behind a school
Revealing a lost civilization of a bye gone era
High terrain stands all around
Bisected only by a highway and river
Supported vegetation withstands the simmering heat
As the sun manufacturers anthracite
For handpicking purposes close by......

By Kelvin Mpofu ( Zimbabwe)

 Photo credits: www.google.com/going-home-africa