They are lying there along the captured roads, along the roads of disaster Slender poplars, statues of the sombre gods wrapped in long gold...
Showing posts with label African Poetry. Show all posts
Showing posts with label African Poetry. Show all posts
Monday, 29 May 2023
Letter to a Poet by Leopold Sédar Senghor
May 29, 2023
to Aimé Césaire To the Brother I love and the friend, my blunt, fraternal greeting! The black gulls, the far-travelling canoe-masters have ...
African Communion by Tom Simpson
May 29, 2023
They came concealed in ceremonial robes: HIC EST ENIM CORPUS MEUM. White robes, beautifully bright robes: Behold, your new God! But this ne...
A Look in the Past by Jared Angira
May 29, 2023
Once I was a lizard cheeky and harmless and built clouds that the heat never could melt I learnt of the transanimation into a monitor d...
Tuesday, 9 May 2023
Hitch-Hike by Jared Angira
May 09, 2023
The Memory stands like a cracked bronze statue in a museum talking, smiling when we are tired with life we struggle to frustrate old pressu...
II On the Edge by Okogbule Wonodi
May 09, 2023
I wait on the shore for the turning tide and for seabirds, mouthful, with shrimps caught on wet marshes. Around me the sands burn, films ...
The Fulani Creation Story (Traditional Story from the Fulani)
May 09, 2023
At the beginning there was a huge drop of milk. Then Doondari came and he created the stone: Then the stone created iron, And iron created f...
Poem: Ogun, from Idanre by Wole Soyinka
May 09, 2023
Now I will chant a salute to my Ogun O Belligerent One, you are not cruel. The Ejemu, foremost chief of Iwonran Town, He who smartly accou...
The Beginning (From Idanre) By Wole Soyinka
May 09, 2023
Low beneath rockshields, home of the Iron One The sun had built a fire within Earth's heartstone. Flames in fever fits Ran in rock fis...
Wednesday, 3 May 2023
Benin Woman by Odia Ofeimun
May 03, 2023
Under the smouldering sun of this angry afternoon you sum up the ancient city in a quaint, moonlit stare, indifference. Rooted to the ear...
The Prophecy by Richard Ntiru
May 03, 2023
Who shall console the veiled woman who buries her head in her wet hands, who weeps at the folly of weeping tears that won't dissolve ...
To the Living by Richard Ntiru
May 03, 2023
Only those Who have survived The final anaesthetization; Those who have enacted the final epilogue; Only those Have the prescient perception...
Cycle by Mazisi Kunene
May 03, 2023
Part I So many are asleep under the ground, When we dance at the festival Embracing the earth with our feet. Maybe the place on which we s...
The Bond by Mazisi Kunene
May 03, 2023
Gumede son of Bdaba, here I am. I have come to present This grinding stone of Masilela, my mother. It is heavy, as though she weighted it wi...
Breath by Birago Diop
May 03, 2023
Listen more to things Than to words that are said. The water's voice sings And the flame cries And the wind that brings The woods to...
Tuesday, 2 May 2023
PORTRAIT OF AN OLD PAIR OF SHOES Oswald Mbuyiseni Mtshali
May 02, 2023
Tanned as a hide of a hefty heifer, carved by the craftsman's scalpel, and shined to a shimmering blackness a s of liquid tar piping ...
TWO CHIMNEY SWEEPERS Oswald Mbuyiseni Mtshali,
May 02, 2023
I saw two chimney sweeps scraping the soot inside a stack. They came out and wiped their faces and one said to the other 'I'm whit...
THE MINER Oswald Mbuyiseni Mtshali
May 02, 2023
At the strike of the noon bell he pops out of the shaft like a pea shot from the muzzle of a bazooka. He plods on iron spiked boots to st...
THE SONG OF SUNRISE by Oswald Mbuyiseni Mtshali
May 02, 2023
The sword of daybreak snips the shroud of the night from the sky, and the morning peeps through the blankets like a baby rising from i...
Monday, 1 May 2023
THE FACE OF HUNGER Oswald Mbuyiseni Mtshali,
May 01, 2023
I counted ribs on his concertina chest bones protruding as if chiselled by a sculptor's hand of famine. He looked with glazed pupils s...
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