Long Paraffin Poems

Humanity Canteen

My restaurant is exclusive and classy no paupers allowed though I
have to declare that I picked up the chef near the township where
on a paraffin cooker in his garden of plenty lots of dishevelment...

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(1.)

(*I wish I didn't know now, what I didn't know then.*)
Bob Seger, song lyric, from, " Against The Wind"...

I Wish I Didn't Know Now, What I Didn't Know Then

I recall rambunctious racing boy of a...

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Can I lend my brains for a day, year and minute only?
My heart only left to see if poetry will exist

Yet poetry is taunting me, trying to reconcile with my past
My step father’s abusive days,
Days...

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For “EARTH HOUR” we pledged  without words rearranging,
Let us try and attempt to stop things from changing
Am doing my bit as promised to myself and me,
wrote a poem on “earth hour”, published it and...

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(continued from Part 1)

Two points create a line
A space from two words
And on and on a verse
A poetry line is sound and sense
A dense fabric of many textures & hues
Woven on a temporal loom
With patterns...

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Maggie Skosana
cut down in your youth
for the simplest reason
telling the truth
'twas the hand of your brethren
that cast the first stone
your supporters have fled
leaving you on your own
No one came to shield you
No Police siren rang
No...

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How effortless you seem to write

Under said paraffin oil and candor 
lit background

It's almost as if one can hear the nib of
your feathered quill draped in ink

Scratch away at the parchment you
are scribing your every...

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9.
like the light 
like the dark 

yet it is full of the sound of steps 
again it wakes up on the forest-road  

taking leave from the yellow construction 
all the sound of the bamboo-flute...

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I had to cry on the inside,
As aunty laid spread on the Kitchen floor weeping.
She somewhat gathered herself and stood sobbing,
“They shot him” were words that escaped her lips
And she repeated these words like a...

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I lay in my hospital bed after giving birth, Could hear the murdering, raping 
Hutus approaching my bed
My baby was no more. They ravaged me.  Left me alive...........
Could hear the battle getting nearer
All I...

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Jesus Christ and Karl Marx seek lost children in the City of Gold

In shackled shack with weight of broken bricks on tin roofed promises
she rest her head against the precious paraffin cooker empty and cold

Five...

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If you see father Ken Saro Wiwa
Tell him about me as a mouth to his songs,
Tell him that they have removed the meat
He gave to us and gave us grasses;
Dirty grasses to replace our milky...

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We endeavor vigorously from dull dawn to dusk,
As we fly from bloom to sprout in quest of nectar,
Men stand to amass by swapping honey for bulk,
The hive will be mostly empty and left slightly ajar.

As...

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cravings, like niggling whispers,
flit on covered tables
skitter on the floorboards
shiver nerves like humming cables

racing up my backbone
trembling spinal pathways
as I dive for pantry's knob
in a glucose fired craze

tearing through the shelving
jumping for the flour
cracking eggs...

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you may say now 
those demerits relate to the seeds of the gm oranges
but just think the scanning of hibernation of the philtre
or of the kite the thread of which is cut off
they can’t escape...

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			The Test by Nicanor Parra, Translated by T. Wignesan

	What’s an antipoet:
a trader in urns and coffins?
a priest who does not believe in anything?
a general who entertains doubts about himself?
a vagabond who laughs at every thing
...

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A walk to school out of the backdoor, through the homemade back gate, through a narrow alley,
Cars parked on the curb, guarded by paraffin lamps, no garages, no parking area,
Walking down my road, past the...

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The Lighthouse
                                
In years...

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Your light delights me,
i say your light delights me Lord. 
Timber burns and leaves behind impotent ash,
your sun shines day to day without any ash .
Your light delights me King of kings.

When i am condensed...

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My Grandma smelt of peppermints. 
Her kitchen of boiling bacon, 
and margarine - it was always steamy 
and 'welcomingly' warm. 

The bathroom, off the kitchen, 
smelt of carbolic soap, and a layer 
of talcum powder...

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By a rotted down shack 
Near an old railroad track,
The trains rattled past and sometimes came back;
There’s a thin plume of smoke
From the old chimney stack,
An underfed scar on a night painted black.

Hangs a dead...

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If you can find shelter when the firmament rumbles
And drips spears of weighty waters
Keep about you the hope that clear skies might come,
Be glad for the storied house that a seed built,
That you might claim,...

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The Artist’s Tower

In a tower a lonely poet sits
Memories of his past life elude his thoughts
The stifled scent of burnt paraffin clouds his thoughts
There is the light from candles which lit thousands of works
Flickering against...

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Snow is on the ground
Children are getting bored
No television  in those days
Games you played aloud

Snap that was a noisy one
Snakes and ladders made u shout
With either a groan or a yippee
As the counter move...

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I see...
I see his eyes blink
each morn on the western reach
each trembling twilight
they hide, soft, behind the bracken
when day melts the noon sun
to drip like paraffin
upon the sacred slope of you -
nape-to-shoulder, down -
its naked...

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