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Tshego Khumalo Poem
She comes along
Dressed in her golden flowing
locks
Her skin adorned in pure white
robe
She carries grace down to her
feet
Her presence echoes rest in
peace
She comes to me
Gently she whispers
My innerness shivers
Softly she kissed me
Her pure essence lingers
She brings to me endless
dance
I find the nerve to take her
hand
Our path exudes serenity
Divine to all eternity
She's beautiful in every way
Don't think of this as my last
day
And when I'm gone, don't shed
no tear
Though flesh my rot beneath
my wreath
This angel held my soul at
peace
Copyright © Tshego Khumalo | Year Posted 2014
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Tshego Khumalo Poem
Mama I want to be a star
I want to grace stages that host the world's revered faces
Fantasies shameless my pipe dreams contagious
I want to be famous
Not one for fictional frivolity
I speak of what's in front of me
A new city called Poetry,
I watched as the has-beens soaked their dreams in sewage streams
Unphased by rodent plagues
These ones embrace their own rat race
I still try to navigate the avenues
Negotiate the ones and twos and find a way to tell the truth
Young and unstable I stumble in the giant footprints of those who stood before me
Tip toe on verbal terrain as desperately I pray the weight of immaturity won't bury me,
Admittedly this spoken world is new to me
-But-
Is it possible in any way the gift of verse will carry me?
I see me breaking grounds, earth shattering and in my dreams these words resound
I'll turn cacophony into somewhat of a sacred sound
I want to craft phrases that serenade, deliver sweet-somethings that emancipate
I want, in some way to bring meaning to confusion
Dear world of poetry
Sometimes when they're floored I'm in awe of how my flow's flawless, I hear applause no pauses, waving arms and stinging palms bear tribute to those timeless charms, classic tales still bent with intent to succumb to new pens
Pave way for insecurity
For fear of gift escaping me
See I fail to write when I'm trying to
I get it right with no intention to
Am I...within my right to claim potential true?
Tear ink off her hinges, her blue ball point cringes
Left hand in debt
My blank page bereft
But in the back of my mind
I see standing ovations and soul drenched invasions..
I want to pierce every being I encounter,
I want to penetrate faith, tear doubt asunder,
Let me to speak to the valleys
negotiate peaks and make friends with epitome
I want to part oceans and in the grips of my - pause - tempt emotions,
mold momentum to set in motion the wheels of adoption so that poetry.....may adapt herself for me
I want to write poetry, I want to speak
I want to reach within,
pen something...
A remote reflection of her
This...this brand new city
I present this piece as fantasy
when in all reality
I do hope she's prepared for me
Copyright © Tshego Khumalo | Year Posted 2014
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Tshego Khumalo Poem
Ok I'll get to the point
I'm here with a list of fears, needs and demands
So I may get on your nerves sometimes
Truth is I don't know how to play this girlfriend game
I get needy and vulnerable and messy
You should know this
I'm not used to this dating thing so I might break a few rules
Like that "thrill of the chase" or "don't be clingy stuff"
I want to throw myself at you
I want to find something in your presence that reminds me of how we make love and when we do,
I want to lose myself in you
But I'm awkward and clumsy
Sometimes I leave these insecurities lying around, if you bump into one, say hello
I left my fears all over the floor with last night's underwear
So....if you happen to trip over them don't turn a blind eye
Get fully acquainted with whatever ugliness I have about me
I'm bossy, I'm fussy and I nag a lot
But you already know
I had hidden a host of imperfections underneath my eyes, my smile, my hair, my silly jokes
Or whatever it is you like so much about me
I was afraid you'd find them
But I knew you loved me when you stayed
Copyright © Tshego Khumalo | Year Posted 2015
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Tshego Khumalo Poem
We ran through shy-scraper's maze
Amazed at how they set our pace
Trapped by lack of space
We butted heads through small door frames
All part of our frantic paper chase to escape the rat race
One day we'd run this concrete jungle
Yet upon broken bricks and faulty foundations we stumbled, tripped and fell cause we couldn't spell
Expanding vocabulary was involuntary still we had a lot to say
School was hell
Conforming to the norms of uniforms made us look socially uninformed
So we let our shirts hang
And awaited applause
Moved by the prospect of popularity, propelled by our passion for pathetic glory we rose above assembly filled mornings
When failure crashed with brutal force
We were not sorry
Instead - we subjected ourselves to brand new curriculums
'Lokshin Management Module 1'
The jungle was won
By those whose books we burned
They tried to teach us how to learn
They run the concrete jungle
Now we wish we could be there
Too bad they don't wanna share...
Copyright © Tshego Khumalo | Year Posted 2013
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Tshego Khumalo Poem
What did they say?
Their songs of misery and pain
What did they say?
Choral impressions of how they were slain
Oh those sad songs
What did they say?
Sorry - it was
All in vain...
Perfection of impurity
I shake hands with simplicity
Brainwashed and blinded blissfully
I resonate epiphany
Where vision fails
Insight is gained
And finally I realise
All it takes is just one smile
Then surely it will be alright...
Copyright © Tshego Khumalo | Year Posted 2013
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Tshego Khumalo Poem
Find me in classrooms
Frantic page flipping in search of
the tools
Who'll one day equip me
So I can make rules
Find me at the helm
Bare-foot and big bellied
Home-makers to boardrooms
....And woman tells you what to
do
Stereoptype make me those
types
Opposing sex finds it perplexed
A timid female's muscle flex
Lady, don't you show your
strength
Woman, lay there
Here curves so fine, her hips so
fair
Born to be spent
Please him, please him
Bear him an heir!
Bear him nations
Honour him with cause for
earth-shattering celebrations
Family portrait
-Picturesque-
Yet I am portrayed...
As part as a future that I did
not choose
They took me from school
Paint me heartless, silent
canvas
Muted muse erase my colours
Deafened maestro sing in
silence
Made of soil, a bag of bones
Numb my soul
So I won't know, how
Wretched prison locked its doors
Who sold my dreams to cement
floors?
Who stole from me my room to
grow?
How I still breathe
I'll never know
I lost my soul
When I was sold
Copyright © Tshego Khumalo | Year Posted 2014
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Tshego Khumalo Poem
I Met Somebody
I could only write
I met someone who blew my mind, shifted time and sort of...effortlessly
Switched the essence of reality
All at once, I felt fantasy trickle on my fingertips,
clasped unreal with my own palms, and succumbed to the rapture of his fine charms
I met somebody
I could've sworn it was surreal, the way he played to my appeal
I saw him born among the stars
Still man enough to tread the dust
That somebody
A joy it was
Co-exsiting with this somebody
For a second I met earth and divinity at the same time
I saw sunlight and oceans craft horizons where heaven waited patiently,
My skin sunkissed,
I dreamed on as the warm winds listened
Later when the night stars glistened
I knew it had to be real
I met somebody
I came to a place where bliss was mine to keep
Encouraged with a smile so keen
This moment crafted just for me
I met somebody
Copyright © Tshego Khumalo | Year Posted 2014
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Tshego Khumalo Poem
Teach me how to cry
So that when it hurts I may be able to untangle what pain lies between the angles of my arteries
I want to excrete what is obsolete
To pave way for the exit of that which makes me incomplete
I want,
To never hold on to what could have been
Or what I imagine with crippling confusion may somehow... become
Rid me - of inexplicable intrusion
The kind where I can not comprehend
how a piece of entice consumes my insides only for it to shrivel up and die before my inner eye coincides with my mind to make sense of why the though of it was so intense
Give me the wisdom to reject pretence
Let all that is not meant to be leave me
Fill me with the kind of something it takes to embrace what is real, even when my perfectly constructed fantasies are hot on its heals
Give me strength
To no longer just inhale to survive
Teach me how to breathe so that I may find release on those days when even a sigh is out of reach
Share with me what women were given to thrive on those days when the heaviest clouds burdened skies and it seemed,
That even heaven had fallen deaf to her desperate pleas for a little bit of sunshine
Hand me, my generous dose of what its take to make women smile on those days when the knives in their chests pierced the very place where they're faith was set to emerge
Where, the pain was so fierce that each time they heaved they're bitter tears were met with a lukewarm sorry at best
And when my heart is left in pieces
Guide my soul to where His peace is
I pray for my dreams to never shut their eyes or hide
I pray that nothing ever beats me cos I never tried
I pray that I find truth where reality lies
That I may learn to sift through the dirt and discover, what little bit of bliss is mine
Tell them I did it
Tell them when possibility was no longer revered I was the one who pushed beyond fear
Tell them that I will dream until the oceans reject the streams
Tell them I did it
Tell them I dreamed
Copyright © Tshego Khumalo | Year Posted 2014
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Tshego Khumalo Poem
She bares a striking
resemblance to early morning
mist
Pure and innocent her scent
reflects on the faces of those
who devour the finest incense
She has
Coloured the world with her
smile
Captured our souls for a while
The birthmark she carries looks
so much like mine
Bring back my baby
Bring back my child
Oh young sir, have you no soul?
I see dead holes where sockets
once held eyes
I grieve at the sight of your
frown's hardened lines
I saw blinding sweat beads
emerge from your rage ridden
chest
Grotesque, the sight of a rock
where your used to rest
Sir, I know not how your rage
was conceived nor how your
hatred learned to breathe
I assure you, it was not me
Don't punish me please
Give me my niece
Were you not a child?
Did you not tear through the
walls of a young woman's
thighs?
Were you not born into her
warm embrace, cradled,
sheltered one look and she
melted
Why then, is my angel
shackled?
Sir where is your heart?
I too bore a living, breathing
being from these very parts of
mine
My own innermost parts ripped
open when she tore through me,
pushing
As I wailed
Pushing, pushing to claim her
rightful place among the queens
that grace our planet.
What joy!
To have been honoured and
blessed with a fraction of the
Lord's perfect grace
Am I not here to build nations?
Why then Sir, do you deprive
me of her precious face?
Son, have you no sisters?
No teacher?
No mother?
No daughter?
Bring her home, I'm begging
please
So I may teach her to bare sons
just like you
Hard, lifeless structures,
breathing corpses
That exude your heartless
nature
Ones to inherit your venemous
stature
Bring her home please
Let me teach her to bring your
grandsons to their knees
I beg of you,
Let me teach her to bare sons
that will rob you of your own
granddaughters.
Tell me sir,
Have you died?
Has your soul left you?
Do you not hear her cry?
Do you not cringe at her gut-
wrenching screams
Mama, I want to come home!
Mister, I want to go home!
I want to be free
Someone
Save me
Please?
Copyright © Tshego Khumalo | Year Posted 2014
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Tshego Khumalo Poem
Just me and my pen
In our little den
We fly
We soar
There's more...
Our eyes saw bliss with scenes we invented
Our souls were kissed
Just me and my pen
We built our own heaven
We believe
We hold
We fill our own mould
We meet on blank spaces
To filll empty spaces
Plausible perfection
Pure pleasures of places
so rich and
So fair
We go there...
We're bold
We're free
My blue pen and me
Copyright © Tshego Khumalo | Year Posted 2013
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