A Chinese Sonnet
They call me impimpi*,a word fraught with scorn and smoke-
Yet I am the echo of truth inside the brewing storm,
Engaging the law,though no law guards me,
A river trembling by myself and singing my song.
Mount Moorosi keeps my secret vigil high,
While comrades who danced once for freedom's flame,
Are now com tsotsis who trade justice for comfort and coins,
And call betrayal what was birthed before courage,
From Kanaland to Zululand:I love Mzansi enough to bleed,
Love is treachery and betrayal,-love is truth, love is the light,
Still,I am unseen, they can unalive me-I shadow the moon,
My corpse lies,humming Freedom's hymn under the nations' feet.
*Impimpi or mpimpi---A S African term for a snitch or police informer
Mount Moorosi---A town in Lesotho
Kanaland---A munucipality in Western Cape Province in South Africa
Mzantsi---A colloquial term for South Africa
They began to quarrel,
After he heard ‘Squirrel!’
Instead of Stan Scammel
And he called him ‘Rommel’:
“The Not-Strong Enamel”
Who could Hitler blackmail
While it was ‘Same Barrel!’
Then, they stopped The Quarrel,
When he heard ‘Becquerel’
A Laureate with a Laurel …
Quarrels from Nicknaming:
A Purposed Misnaming!
Who would such start claiming:
A hateful Misnomer;
KGB’s Informer
For OGB Omar …
Far less the content of
a poem...and far more
its honesty – crossing intransigent borders...
penetrating sincerely into the hearts of global
societies: Poetry!--expressing our common
likes and dislikes; closing the gap, perceived
but often false assumptions dividing nations,
keeping humanity from amiable, manageable
solutions – love of families and pets
are shared and paramount concerns; protecting
blossoming nature and majestic vistas, our
cooperative eyes: Poetry!--the sincere articulation of
soulful spirits seeking freedom from
world strife, that of forced labor
and tyrannical politics – we are
a sensitive community, bound
by common affections – Poetry,
a blessed informer and compassionate
rhythmic
lyrical
peace
maker
yet a sword
when necessary...
Time sada chukay bilu Mori
Gal vich eday kali dori
Time sada chukay bilu Mori
Shayer babu ay munda lahori
Time sada chukay bilu Mori
Baanh vich kara chapal peshori
Time sada chukay bilu Mori
Ay laga phiray chori chori
Time sada chukay bilu Mori
Khuda janda recce de story
Time sada chukay bilu Mori.
Note. Ham kis marz ki dava hain.
THE FATE OF FUTURE
A romp of childhood, descending my steep driveway, to the bus.
My urgent path lit dimly, filled with compacted snow, shoveled
with steel blades. I wearing a woolen coat, always late.
Still on time, before great big wheels grind down a country road.
Youth, with hair still damp, long and fine, shyness hides inside.
Tired teens, all around me, I watch the wipers swipe morning flurries.
The repetitive motion, bestowing comfort, like a lullaby -
before the din of crowded classrooms and impertinent teachers.
My math teacher, with a schnoz that crests Everest,
an informer of intelligent students. Less inclined
to teach her fearful ones, to shame us with a shun.
A glare of eagle spectacles, nearly scorning our dark plight.
Yet, classrooms with nouns, adjectives, verbs spur me on
to serendipitous highs. I fly with Kilmer, dip with Plath.
I lean forward as psychology and sociology take me by the arms.
I feel the fate of future, the lovely breeze has dried my hair, sublime.
9/5/2017
Non Rhyming couplets
Felling like I'm trapped in the corner
Always looking over my shoulder
There had to be an informer
There was no icebreaker
Thanks to that skip tracer
The shadows are getting darker
And the nights are getting longer
A gorgeous reporter and her damn recorder
Now I'm racing for the border in this horror
I have to sleep just pray I'm not a snorer
Or I might not wake to see the undertaker
Either way I will end up with my maker
A risk taker in GODS acre
Staying clear of Hells half acre
All this cause they thought I was the money taker
Now I'm the Quaker trapped in the corner
3/20/2017
Onward ever onward down the awesome lanes of time,
Coming going, dying reborn, another life inclined,
One time in Tasmania the Pommy hunters killed us out,
A prisoner in irons, cat of nine tails cut about,
Ever suffering for my crime,
What is it all, this doubt?
Ironic is the suffering feel,
in Ireland I was starved,
Potatoes stole, caught and flogged,
Escaped and was at large,
Informer talked and I was caught,
Transported on the Belle,
Bonded servant, flogged, yes sport,
In the cotton fields of hell,
But I lived awhile orright.
Cannon roared, hot lead, aboard,
The yard was crashing down,
Over the side, a Spaniard to board,
Cutlass slashing blood n gore,
death there to seek me out.
In the dark, in a tribe away out west,
Speared a bullock for the tribe to eat,
The Squatter shot us with his friends,
The Troopers not so sweet,
The Crows would not be denied,
Another death I tried?
My bones are incomplete...
Don Johnson
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4vAvcSTzsYs
This is a story of a farmer
Who became an informer…
Displacement of this farmer
Was heartless, by a round belly
Robbing a Skinny belly
In a rock steady
See for any story
The context is essential
Like motivation,
An emotional state
Is the presence of stimuli
A thought ……..
But in this instance
There was no resistance
And the diction
Was nonfiction
But a contradiction
Of intuition..
To take ride of humiliation
And bear the scars of crucifixion……………..
TO BE CONTINUED>>>
Sudden as thunder they crack in the night,
the boys in the lane leap over fences,
bottles crashing into stone walls,
and bullets whistle with echoing sound.
Political war,
Tribal war,
Gang war.
The boys fight with one another for the release of "the Don"
they rampage in the little town,
and round up all the informers.
Night comes alive,
doors open wide,
then suddenly,
"Lord, someone shot Sammi Joe!"
Lights bang!
and everyone rushes to look at the innocent one
lying peacefully in her pool of blood.
"Sammi Joe is dead!"
Her frightened mother yells.
Gunshots cracking in the night,
smashing glass,
and chiseling walls,
the burning night heat,
people scatter in the street.
Mr. Crow pisses his pants when the boys spot him as the informer
Dragged in the streets,
Crow's face flushed with the wall,
bullets puncture his head.
Further down the road,
the innocents grip tightly to their beds,
trembling,
wondering who will be next.
Bullets dances around the walls,
wailing heightens,
The massacre begins.
Blood washes the street,
dead bodies blocking the gate of the little town.
©2013 Christine Phillips
for Thirugnanamoorthy
Remorseful, the noonday sun
Frizzles with the stealthy wind
Under the rubbery mountain green.
A calmness has come to rest
From having tossed in its sleep.
The forest has taken leave
Of the hunted horn and drum.
No more the tapper late of nap
Scurries to the haven of a nest.
No more the rattle whisper fades
To nothingness in a lonesome rest.
No more, no more, for the heavens
Sleep and all the troops sleep too.
The sinewy python stretched past
Clumsily the ragged rock and branch.
The Owl has called its reveille at last.
And the forest sleeps with the wind
Gently fanning some whisper closer
And closer, every wave, a venomous flick
Of a serpent, a kiss of rest.
(Letter describing the situation in Malaya and denouncing
treachery, written in 1952 to Thirugnanamoorthy who was banished
by a British magistrate to Ceylon in March 1952. The letter never
reached him.)
© T. Wignesan, Seremban, 1952. Pub. in Tracks of a Tramp : a
first collection of poems, 1951-1961. Kuala Lumpur-Singapore :
Rayirath Publications, 1961.
Onward ever onward down the awesome lanes of time,
Coming going, dying reborn, another life inclined,
One time in Tasmania the Pommy hunters killed us out,
A prisoner in irons, cat of nine tails cut about,
Ever suffering for my crime,
What is it all, this doubt?
Ironic is the suffering feel,
in Ireland I was starved,
Potatoes stole, caught and flogged,
Escaped and was at large,
Informer talked and I was caught,
Transported on the Belle,
Bonded servant, flogged, yes sport,
In the cotton fields of hell,
But I lived awhile orright.
Cannon roared, hot lead, aboard,
The yard was crashing down,
Over the side, a Spaniard to board,
Cutlass slashing blood n gore,
death there to seek me out.
In the dark, in a tribe away out west,
Speared a bullock for the tribe to eat,
The Squatter shot us with his friends,
The Troopers not so sweet,
The Crows would not be denied,
Another death I tried?
My bones are incomplete…Don Johnson
Looking for the formal definition, structure, and history of this poetry form? Visit the Poetry Dictionary entry below. Then return to explore how PoetrySoup members bring the form to life through their own poems.