cholera republic

मद बोब REPUBLIC

वोइसस फ्रॉम वित्हीं US

VOICES FROM WITHIN US

“A chapbook of love poetry”


TENDAI र MWANAKA

PATHS OF LOVE

Like wild raging seas
rough are love’s paths

But a speck in the middle-
of this vast surging mass

In its paths to find,
claim and conquer

Of sunshine and honey
a paradise yonder

Love’s paths are rough
like little mountain lines.





FIRST TOUCH

I had assumed this,
would stay our first touch.
And I had hoped that,
we would hold through.

The blue and yellow butterflies dancing,
in September’s sunlight.
is the susurrus breaking up of the bubbles,
a short-lived awareness?

And like the winter’s pool on the dry,
we keep loosing our waters.
Always flying in the paths of our angers-
the eagle’s talons!











THE WOMAN IN ME

On a sunny lovely May-morning.
I found a rose red brightly blooming.
Besides the road, under a shade Baobab tree.
Oval features implanted so craftily!
Upon such a lovely shape and face.
Soft red-lips, spring of such a voice!
Doubtlessly sweet, fresh and promising.
I will suckle her lips like a bee on honeysuckle.

“Oh, you are so sweet like honey!”
Can I posses you, can I be possessed?
Fix you, fire you, cradle you, case you.
Come on, come nearer, I will reach you.
Breathe the same air that I am breathing.
I will circle you in my arms like ivy on a tree.
My lips on your lips, your heart on my heart!
Sating this awesome yearning, this thirst too!

Think of her as the Woman in me.
Let me mould my Eve, Sculpture her for you.
Let her candid doleful eyes seek yours,
And her sweet-song voice calls for you.
Let her footsteps as she comes and goes
Be like bird-markings appearing faintly-still,
After a full day’s disturbances and winds.
And she will dwell in you like the Woman in me.

I find in her eyes, an innocent heart-truthful.
No pencil can sketch her picture truthfully.
Neither the poet, not a song can sing a true song.
No words, not even thoughts can express her so.
She touches sympathies that are too deeper for words,
Too deeper for my thoughts and feelings.
And to my visions, dreams, hopes and heart,
She bestows life, strength, beauty and light.

She is as fresh as the sun awakening.
She makes us aware of our hearts.
That we have them, they are now timbering.
Awakened to the love they see lustring.
Welcoming this joyousness into our lives.
She fills a void in our spiritual being.
We are ourselves, we are now over-brimming-
In happiness, life and laughter.


She is nurse to wounds still painful,
A prescription the doctor ordered for.
She is stem to sprouting green leaves.
Against the Sun, winds, colds, and rains-
She nourishes and shoulders my heart tender!
And lets her love like the sunset surround me
Stirs feelings no other woman has ever.
Deeper sources no other woman ever sounded,

“O”, the sensations, I can sigh over them.
Pity me, despise me, laugh at me!
I will confess it with outmost humility.
I love her, “O”, how I love her!
I will be her wall against the suns, winds, colds, rains
Her faithful shield against all wrongs, trusting!
I will guide her through life’s shoals, rocks and thorns.
Living and loving, “O”, being loved too!


IS IT


is it your warmth
is it your beauty
is it your courage
is it your sweetness
what is it?

it must be your breath
it must be your voice
it must be your laughter
it must be your smile
what is it?

is it when you breathe
is it when you talk
is it when you laugh
is it when you smile
what is it?

is it husky
is it sassy
is it soft
is it sweet
what is it?

is it because
i am in love with you
what is आईटी?

IF YOU ARE GOING

If you are going
Linger a little while
Like the setting sun’s rays
Touching the coming night
If you are going
Touch the coming night

If you are going
Linger a little while
Kiss me good night
Hold me for the last time
If you are going
Hold me for the last time

If you are going
Linger a little while
Say you cared a little
Come for good-bye
If you are going
Come for a good-bye


COME BACK LILLI

Arise!
My darling,
My beautiful Lilli,
And come.

Behold!
The winter is lasting.
“The cold is over and gone.”
Flowers appear on the Lea.
The season of singing has come.
Let me sing that love song once more.

Show your face-
Let me hear your voice.
Come, my darling,
My beautiful Lilli,
Arise!

You went away,
Without saying goodbye.

A painful morning.
A hurtful morning.
A sorrowful morning-
So many years ago.

Did I hurt you?
Wound you,
Disappoint you,
I wonder!

What did I say?
What did I do?
What did you hear?
That made you walk out.

You left,
Without saying goodbye.
You just went away Lilli,
Without a goodbye.

You left a deep void in my heart,
Return for the wound to heal.

All of my life,
I will never find someone.

To compare with you-
My love,
My Lilli,
My angel.

You are as fair as the Moon.
As brighter as the Sun.
As majestic as stars in procession.


As sweet as honey, with your delights,
“Oh love....!”

You helped me when I was down and low.
You helped me get through all depressions.

All moods and all moments.
All sorrows and all pains.
All joys and all agonies.
All passions and all desires.

With you,
I always want to live.

Without you,
Life has never been the same.

You, without-
Life will never be the same.




Life is so sad,
Signifying nothing-
A shadow so lone!
How loveless lies this heart full once of love?

Come back Lilli.
Come my love,
Come my darling.

Memories of one day,
One cherish,
One life.
Floods me like holy waters of the fountain of love.

When I was so much heartbroken,
Discouraged,
Depressed.

From failures in love,
In life,
In myself.
Suffering from the darkest depths of hurt and pain

Shadows, dark,
Frightening...., fiery
Over me, surging!

Want of light;
To guide me through this dark mine.
I could die from all these,
Unending troubles.

“Oh, Mother Venus!”
You took me into your arms.
Like the young Mother embracing her tot.

Warm, quite,
Peaceful Lilli!
Your arms Lilli!

Softly breathing,
Like the sigh of an Angel.
Your heart tingling,
Like bell tolls afar.

Could it be so?
It must be so.
That,
I still feel the tingle in my heart





Your voice Lilli-
A faint whisper,
Lovelier, soulful...
Caressing.
You said,

That you will always love me?
That you will always love me Lilli.
Love me Lilli!

“So much for love in this mortal sphere.”
Never was there a worry for tomorrow.

A day full of love!
A day full of happiness!
A day full of wonder!

Do you still want me?
Like I do.

Do you still need me?
Why did you leave?

Do you still love me?
Where is the love Lilli?

Come,
Come my love,
Come my darling.

The day you left the world collapsed.
The basis of my life and soul lapsed.
It touched the cavity of my heart,
Where birds of heaven lived-
A nestle of addled eggs.

Everything came crashing down,
With nowhere to go.
A world forgotten,
God forsaken,
Faith lost!

An endless circle,
In the desert,
So desolate!

As a desert plain,
As level.

A ceaseless painful treading,
Your feet so hurtful.
Sweet agonies;
When I think of you I want to cry-

Tears from this heart,
Tears from this soul,
Tears for my care,
Oh, tears for my love!

Distrust;
A disappointment here-
A failure there!

But hope like an echo is faint,
Yet it grows.
Like a thought un-spelt,
It feeds and shows.
Like the moss grows on top of the mountain’s stone.
Like the cactus defies the suns and sand.

As light with its brightness-
Lights up,
Dark nights.
As old give way to new-

I tried it with Cecilia,
With Lana,
With Norma.

Always in their faces,
I saw you.

Always in their voices,
I heard you.

Always in their touches,
I felt you.

“Oh, where is the Woman who used to carry this light for me?”

Second,
Minute,
Hour,
It’s just a godforsaken pattern.

Day,
Week,
Month,
A journey never reached.

Summer’s rains all through winter’s colds,
And with bloom-
Eliding into spring’s greens.




Year after year.
“Oh no, the years!”
Year after year,
The years...
Rolling away.

Yet there you are.
Always shinning so bright.
And it seems like yesterday,
That you were here.

Oh, hearts are victors!
Shinning so bright.

What are you doing?
Where are you?

Away from love,
In a land so far.

What are you doing?
As I cry for you?

What are you thinking of,
As I wait for you?

Bring back the light of your loving
Bring back all those happy memories

Do you still remember those happy times?
Do you remember them?
Like I do?

When tomorrow was there
Timeless..., always

When yesterday was tomorrow,
Forever...., was today.

Those carefree..., loving,
Flying happy days.

Let me be happy,
Just once more Lilli.

Come back Lilli.
Come my love,
Come my darling.









NEED SOMEONE?

You have let them come.
You have let them go.
When there was no reason
To hold onto them anymore.
You have walked all alone.
And it’s now a lifetime-
For you without meaning.

You are not free Caitlin.
You have condemned yourself.
To a life of solitary confinement.
You keep wanting to hide,
Behind that thick wall
That you have built around you.

You will never benefit.
Not from this lonely walk
You will never benefit,
Not from them.
If you can’t let someone
Stay for a little while.

You will never be free.
If you can’t let someone-
Take care of you
You will never be free.
If you can’t learn,
To love them in return.

Don’t you ever need
Need someone Caitlin?
To love and trust,
For you to really live your life.
To the fullest.

अ पोएट'स MIMESIS

A POET’S MIMESIS:


Magnification

I was a small bit of blood in my mother’s heart and womb
I was not larger than a cherry plum but look at me now
I was born a poem.

Perpetual genesis

I can form a composite of genetic suggestions of me.
I can form a new kind of mimesis----,
I can form a poet’s something else sloughing away from me---,
which could have been something.
I can form a sum of all the things that I might have been.

Biological invention

Only faint vague shapes, which were once human,
remain on this collapsed foaming greyness.
A bit of red streaked bone, bones holding the form of checks and brows-
Very poor material to shape a new poem.

The sun of understanding

I am the middle of my own poem looking inwards because I know where it is that I live
I am the middle of my own poem looking in ways no inner eye,
no inner voice cannot see and cannot say.
I am the middle of my own poem looking in ways I cannot share.

Now I am this

The only thing that I truly understand is that I know who I am
and what I was, for once I was a child----, and now I am this.
And all the rest has been lost in shadows of memories, hidden,
all gone away.

I believe

There is no ceiling over me but only an open sky so full of changes.
And my moistures are channelled into this sky.
This sky is now an opposing synchrony that threatens me with turmoil

I am a mirror image

But the outlines of me are still there because I have always diverged.
I have never had concurrent points but echoes of bones and joints.
See my shapes, see my curves, and see my insides-
For I am shinning through your eyes.

My Mortal immortality

I have denied myself form so that I would remain formless,
hiding but not finding myself.
My life is now dominated by mystical caprices-
that relentlessly consigns me to a speculative realm.

The scattering

But I still have a connection here
if can only find my scattered bits before others have found them.
But I would let them scatter, run and hide anywhere.
Even in a poem of their own choice.

The choices

Let them, but I did not let them,
because I know that they would carry with them the seeds of their own survival.
that would make it impossible for me to find their centre:
Not to forgive.
And I am always fighting against this tide:
Never to forgive.

The time of the stomach

In the time of the stomach the words of my own poem precipitates
into crises unanticipated.
Maybe that’s always the way it should be.
But I always carry with me water when I leave the universe
of my poem-
because out there, there are just some few dewdrops
hanging on damp Acacia- leaves.
Each always a promise of pain.

Destiny

To the east, waits Nyanga Mountain and to the west there is Nyangombe River.
But one foot ahead of another I have always moved as I have.
Not trying to match anyone because I have my own destination.

Perseverance

A plodding perseverance would deliver me-
Thus I would create my own supernatural.
and sensing it at every turn by the sheer power of my own will.

I am a poem

I am a poem, a slanting shadow, a thin rope,
a crumbling bulge!
I am a poem, a tiny lip of rock---, here
And another over there, there.

And when this poem is not long enough then it is not long enough-
and any other way of thinking is not as long as this poem is long.

Climbing the mountain

I am a particle defying gravity, a finger-hold here---, a toehold there----,
clinging to the rock surface.
I have known what it is to be a poem with various, momentous meanings-
Look at me now!

The world of no birds

In a world without birds I have always invented my own poem-
to link one piece of time to another and when I have passed,
I would never be the same poem again.

The world of birds

And In a world of birds everything that I am drops into a no sound,
and I have created a common catastrophe that binds the decorations of my poem together.

Decorations, what are?

Decorations, are how we prepare for our own sacrifices.
Decorations, are how we refuse to reject,
and regret for what cannot be.

They are the decorations in all the poet’s poems,
and all their imitations but they fail to stitch together the essences of a tomorrow.
And all our inventions fail to fuel this tomorrow’s diesel engines.

I was born a poem

But life has made me whole yet I was born a poem-
like a mirror of my own life striking a river.
I would never die the way I came,
Plunging into the mystical and dreams of termination, no!

I was born poetical

And between the usual poem and the unusual poem there is very little space
for my own poem to be immortal.
And it is always poetical to thank yourself for this little space.

My dream, the collective I

A dream inhabited by glimpses of silver-edged things in water-
shimmering in their greying colours like trout,
Igniting an ancient memory of silver-flesh dazzling my appetite,
in a banquets of the uninitiated hungry.

My soul

A spangle of shattered flesh
attempting a butterfly design,
my soul, my poem---
Digesting its own experiences.
Not answers, not questions,
for it is time for conjectures.

The language of If

“If I had only----- “
It is only fools who prefer living in the past or even the present
‘If we can only---“
Immerse ourselves among these fools,
their past and this present.
In a time of pure alternation.

The present and the past

Unless if you are trapped you can’t built your future out of your present---,
a present which is not even existing.
But as if it were rows on rows of eyes with senses lost,
like eyes of a gasping fish squirming in pain.
It is a future furrowed in this present and the past.

I was there

I know-
I was there---, at the instant that has left you.
I want to assure you that it is forever out of your reach.
And that there is no substitute of this instant and time,
Time as an alienating device.

There is no time

There is no time---,
just a little bit of time to shape the edges of the weather-
which always have square meanings that stoutly refuses arrangement.


The patterns

These patterns, this poem in my mind,
conducting the waves downwind.
And the wind of the south hungering for empty spaces.
The wind’s fingers sifting through the clouds---,
driving dark clouds toward me.

Judgement day

That the cloud-darkness of holly judgement might appear?
Silence threatening hearing, and anything-
And everything else is possible.
For it is not silent in my mind and nothing tells you apart from me.
If you were me you would run too.

orientations

ORIENTATIONS


We are these cells, this soul, this being.

We are the choice of our own awakening.

We are light that pours through the generations.

Innocent little children dancing to the rain song,

For a season of green to atone for our wrongs.



We are a hunter caught in his own snares.

We are a tidal wave in a sea of broken dreams.

We are flickering whimsy - a breath’s laughter.

The sacrificial dove, the hooting owl, the forlorn falcon

“O, those surreptitious angels in their sweet anger!”

Muttering of dreams lost, deep in our own silences.



We are haunts cries in the aftermaths of battle.

We are fine theatre made out of lost relics.

We are a spider’s webs, a tender weave of time.

Over here the wind blows, over there a story told!



We are dry leaves in this intricate whispering.

Augmenting to a morning of silent conversations.

We are this pen conversing to these sentences.

Lighting the threshold to that wordless portent

And if we turn, what do we see, a river or a shiver?



Or had we bitten more dreams than we could chew,

And we are now waiting for someone who never comes?

memories लिखे stones

MEMORIES LIKE STONES

I count the words in the rain.
Raindrops in which,
A lifetime trembles to take shape.
And we walked that ever-shifting line-
Between the ocean and the land.
Measuring our own fragility-
Against the ways of the tides.

We remain dedicated to this pattern-
That reveals as much as it cancels.
Like nudity that hides inside itself.
Within which a life happened.
Which filled our senses-
Lingering on this beginning.

The days slipped away touched-
By the sun that sinks like a,
Song running through our hearts.
We were a song, yet-
We were trees most of our lives,
Of our necessary self-doms.
Perfection in things always missing.
Out of which we made sacrifices.
On raged-ends of human doubts.

Guide my hand to touch your heart,
Between the scars.
Leaping into tongues!

We entered into each other’s menu.
Savouring sweetness for a living.
The soft shadows of your voice.
The voice you never learned to use.
The unspoken things within words.
We delved into experience and,
Reached for lives furrowed by sorrows.

Memories like stones, like-
Perennials coming back in summer.
Laughter opposes a sad breeze.
Like the way light enters a time.
Lighting our world on fire.

अ वर मेमोरिअल फॉर MUGABE

i wrote this poem in 2008, and when i wrote it i was so troubled with Mugabe such that even seeing his image on the television was haunting. it was that time when things were unbelievably difficult for Zimbabweans, this poem is part of my collection of poems, VOICES FROM EXILE, that will be published in Ireland, by Lapwing poetry in August---enough of this, please have a loook at the piece and comment, or even pass it on

A WAR MEMORIAL FOR MUGABE


He never touched a gun.
Not even in Mozambique.
He never died in a battle.
Or liberated a prison camp.

He fought the war of leadership.
Killing rivalries-
Chitepo and Tongogara
Are still unclaimed.

He fought with the generals-
Of great respect, short mind.
He fought every adjacent difference.
And the masses he longed for,
But never understanding them,
Despised them.

He fought his own wars-
And there is no medal-
Nor a memorial for such brutalities.
There is not even a suitable court to try him.

How could a single man wipe out millions?
In and outside his country.
And gorge thousands in daylight,
For over three decades-
Whilst the whole world keeps mum.