Long Fibre Poems

{Poet’s Note : I wrote this poem for the passing of my very dear friend & comrade, Cecyl Esau, Umkhonto we Sizwe Commander in 2021, as a contribution to his memorial service. Cecyl was given...

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Face to the sky,
Breath of the Caribbean
Woven with earthy Autumn,
Saturates the alveoli of my lungs,
Pouring raw impulses into the neurons of
My pleasure centers, so triggering a myriad of
Memories ... the demurring requiem to summer tide...

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Reducing sauces is a clever act that is not predetermined

Swimming in tepid waters often relieves tensions but a moose with a migraine prefers an ice cold bath. Bathing rituals signify statuses and this is referred...

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Nine times a fish tail is spun from thin yarn?

Swimming in tepid waters often relieves tensions but a moose with a migraine prefers an ice cold bath. Bathing rituals signify statuses and this is referred...

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AN ANECDOTE FROM THE PAST...

Names of places and persons have either been changed or omitted to protect identity.

It was a late summer’s night warm and balmy,
Camping we were high in the lofty mountains;
I was lying...

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I am given to you by Creator Himself
My Limbs long to grow straight and tall
Bathed in sunlight from above, paying homage
Fulfilling my God given task
From the dawn of creation, in the Holy Books I’m told
A...

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I am home ...

oh, my heart
      pray, hush its cadence
         for the sacred sake of unsated thirst
   beg its thrums...

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BREAKING THE SILENCE : NO MORE

Sponsored by Ink Empress 

Glass shattered a
Saturday afternoon tea ~

Silence holds steady
black fleeced momentum 
for its own ripping
when lightning as whipping 
fire from Heartbeat of
Sun slashes its Void
loudness to tumble...

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1.
and every time i see you it is for the first time 
still my heart skips a beat
and every time we kiss it is our first 
and there is nothing like that first kiss.
2.
and it is not...

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spun …

the dust devil did
(unusually strong, that)
but instead of leaving another layer of
light-blocking powder
it cleaned the solar panels like
Windex and microfibre -
shiny … as new
thus, the cells absorbed the
sun’s best rays
drinking in photons like a
parched...

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I know that I sail close to the wind
It's something I do to counter lack of confidence
Let's get in a frenzy of mixing metaphors now: I throw myself past the point of no return, seeing...

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No winds are winnowing enough
To put a quill back in the hands of the dead poet
Or confidence back in the trachea of the strangled speaker
In me
Because no words are as vile
As no words at all
Where...

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A song can be heard tonight
Swirling about me beating down my strength
Enfolding the whole of me with thick, terrifying captivation
That chokes a city with the roaring thunder of despair
Of the innocent obliterated in the unforgettable...

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I was sat ordinarily at my broad, modern grey desk, wearing my normal bottle-green cotton dress because my mother liked it enough to let me make it into my favourite one. Her first choice was...

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Atheistic beneficent credo,
dogmatically evokes fundamental
gnostic humanistic invocations,
joyously kickstarting literary

métier, native oeuvre
pulsating quintessentially,
rudimentary schema
traversing utilitarian vectors,
winsomely xing yore zen.
*     *     *     *  ...

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With the onset of advancing age, so I find,        
A man grows weary of all mundane talk;           ...

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A criminal is sane by their own logic, 
You can look into their mind to count them wrong, 
They can be confronted for their psychologies, 
And told that their song is long. 

ISIL is based...

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Echoes


Every morning a man is seen to climb upon a hill

His mission there to bare witness 
To the suns flooding as she rises 
Her painted fires airbrushed dawning through the skies
He stands alone upon the...

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We will read like our lives depended on it
Because to many of us, we assumed it did 
And then we will pass, or fail or sit on the fence 
Regardless, we will graduate 
What happens...

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So here I am, once again.
Enveloped in the sea of my ever deepening emotion. I continue to block out. 
Choosing to ignore and numb a lifetime of anguish from emotional pain.
My memories are tidal, crashing,...

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I trace my existence back to

Iye mwen N’ogie (My great Mother).

You see when I was but a foetus

In a womb of the homo sapien whom I will

Later call my mother.

I lay brooding, developing and

Metamorphosing in...

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Having the first experience with girls isn't easy,
   And especially when you're on a first date.
   Such a quandary...making sure you look your best.   

   All the...

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On my own, going it alone, shit, drugs lots of drink,
Then, tail end of '84 you came along and made me think,
You didn't see me, it was all set, an uphill struggle,
I tucked in under...

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without you pressing my nerves
may I ask you 'what is this life?'
intricately untangle every fibre 
set me down a moment

can serenity be practiced 

unravel connections
isolate and remove expectations 
ask me 'what is life?'
sit with me,...

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THE PARENTS IN RHYMES: THEIR LIFE, DEATH AND TIMES

BY JULIAN BOWMAN

 
THE PROLOGUE

1

Ten months apart, both parents dead
Their stories swirling in my head;
Memories I cannot neglect,
Compel me to write – and to reflect.
	
My father wrote...

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