Packed in a hot car
three hour drive to parents
kinked neck and stiff leg
In the sandbox of my memory
reasons come and go
Castles worn in corners scorned
left without a moat
Granulated laughter
idle unreleased
Waiting for a last return
covered over deep
The jungle gym sits dormant
a mass of rusted links
One ring missing ladder gone
the rope swing short and kinked
The teeter totter frozen
its pivot rusted tight
The sliding board a one-way trip
fading into night
The sandbox of my memory
where feelings go to die
My childhood friends whose echo’s rend
timeless bye and bye
Still one last voice is buried
deep within the grains
The one I shunted until now
—calling out my name
(The New Room: August, 2022)
Warped tree, kinked man
Today, I will not argue with Walter on Facebook or Twitter.
I was reading poems from my last collection and was surprised
to find an internal rhythm.
To my horror, I find Walter has unfriended me my friendly thoughts
burned into insignificance.
When I had a motorbike, I often visited the crooked tree
I said:” you look better today, my friend.”
The roots of the tree curled in bashfulness.
At the entrance of the village, an old olive tree they came with an axe
wanted to cut it down, replace it with a signpost.
I protested, so did the other villagers.
The tree is perhaps 500 years old, and we are not
brutish settlers.
But someday, people with no sense of beauty will axe it.
Trapped in a maze
Days upon days
Red’s turning green
Blue tones are gray
I’m lost in a hall
Becoming more small
Available paths
Reveal a brick wall
A garden hose
Kinked at the nose
Water is running
With nowhere to flow
I’m twisting, turning
Not growing, learning
An incomplete puzzle
No luck, discerning
A sinuous riddle
Confined to the middle
A struggle to breathe
No room to wiggle
I’ve come to find
This permanent bind
Will cease to be solved
But, torture our minds
It must be a muss
This tousled up nest
My mess with no fuss
Untidy, unkept
Shabby and ragged
Rough I confess
A random done gust
Just there with no sense
They’re tangled and knotted
Dreaded, complex
Strands shoot across
In tattered up threads
Interlocking and snarled
Entangled like mesh
Disordered, slipshod
Disheveled I guess
Springing curls go untouched
They sway and adjust
Kinked flinging strings
Frayed and unbrushed
Then carelessly tossed
And tied with the rest
Sloppy I trust
Is how it looks best
So it must be a muss
This tousled up nest
So much of a plus
Yes, it must be a muss.
Who says a tree is bent, not straight, kinked?
For there are no straight lines in nature.
A line is a human abstraction, a connection between points.
Look around, all of nature is curves, coils, gnarls and bumps.
It's true that some spikes and spines are almost straight,
and beams of light are true,
but light has waves within
and the profiles of spines are wavy too.
All the lines you see in the view about you
are human-made structures,
with dead straight lines.
Most walls, roofs, bridges, buildings
are made plumb level and aligned upright,
by wayward designers, hell-bent on lines.
Bright future in sight,
have emerged victorious and mighty,
having fought a ferocious noble fight.
Engrossed in discipline water tight,
have made the kinked pathways straight,
delivered gains, booties in right hands.
Burying the past darkest night,
stamping, kissing the tormenting plight,
we, l celebrate the ray of light.
Time of restoration,
moment of restitution,
dispensation for promotion.
© Luckson Mupakamiso 2017