Long Veld Poems

The Echo Returns Not

Sponsor : Unseeking the Seeker 

[ Poet’s note : SOLOMON MAHLANGU was a South African Freedom fighter & cherished leader in revolutionary army, Umkhonto we Sizwe. He was sentenced to death by...

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MEMORIES OF WAR 


In prison we turmoiled 
packed up cards to fall 
whilst they sucked 
genitals like bonbons 
a quartz on a table
gleamed its knowing

War torn ghettos with 
swollen stomachs 
stretched wide, auras 
shattered, splintered...

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The mighty roar of the King of the
Bush at the crack of dawn,
Its majestic sound, being the first
Thing you hear, as you yawn,
And the laugh of the sly hunch backed
Hyena, as it creeps, slouched
Close to...

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Israel Beckoned...In A Dream

This secular skeptic beheld,
eyes hallucinated, harried, felled
and haunted by
holographic images gelled
that didst silently scream herald
ding exhaustively

roaming, schlepping, meld
ding and trudging across
elapsed, nor quelled
blinkered, bloodied dead souls
across fractured wartorn veld,
where bludgeoned ghastly

eons of...

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Only in August        moon boundaries
                   rise    ...

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A BUSH FIRE  
               
One scorching afternoon,
A sudden splintering sound was heard,
The nearest was the buffalo herd,
They smelt the smoke...

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Aluta continua
Was that word another message replaced
And the room spun dark as web
The tree no longer walks the night
The bush is silent on the veld
Madiba has passed the lion sleeping
Has left the fruit falling
Has left...

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Love transcends all 
By Michelle Morris
18/03/2023

When we were first separated
It felt like a shot to the heart
Feeling like I wouldn't make it
The world becoming grey and dark 

People thought I was fine 
No one looked...

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I
I was walking in India's jungle (Dehra Dun)
At the Himalayan foothills, alone
Ten thousand years before Christ was born
I spied a plant, barely a meter tall
Graced with red and green fruit: "May I?"
I prayed to the...

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Ive seen Skies light up my mind with interludes of lightning so breathtaking
that the aftershock of the Thunder served as a reminded to breath
Its power and beauty danced along the background of a shadowy mountain...

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Holding out my unchained hand,
light as evaporated air
is the emancipation accrued debt equity

By making reparation demands,
this long overdue affair
has a short tabled legislation probability

Many moons of unpaid slave wages owed me,
fills my bosom with hollow...

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In the hearts of eastern side,
One day I will return.
Ashamed and with the spirit of abandonment but 
I’m sure you’ll still be standing,
Holding on to the wheel and spear,
That you were told it’s your savior

Leaders...

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the poor old tree,
so long,to tell a story,
a story of scars,
a story of axe-wielding men,
a story of clown monkeys and squirrels,

suffer so,like an old,old tree,
rooted on earth,clinging to life,
so stagnant,in tears,perspiration,
bear fruit at old age,

do...

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"The sounds of Earth Is the Music of my Soul"


Earth Seeks to Entertain

No sound pleases me like falling rain.
When it drums on my roof
It banishes my every pain.
Its little drops both cheer and sooth.

When it...

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I’ve asked you for love, but my heart
Is a playground of pains like matchsticks & veld,
I’m a broken-pieced soul.
I prayed for success, instead all I see
Is them whammies in numbers of mega bus,
All tight up...

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As you can see I am very big,...
One of the biggest forests in the world.
I belong to a major league
Of chief forests of the veld.

I pack, daily, tons of oxygen
Which I release to the atmosphere.
That...

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A bird of grandiose stature, he struts the veld
do not anger him for his powerful kick
can main or even kill. Gently he watches
over his brood their mother left long ago.
It falls onto him to incubate...

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The jungle veld

The veld was thick with grass
Burnt grass charcoal black
Shining black like gates of hell
Ashen clouds were fleeting the sky
Spraying tiny sobs of snow flakes
The wind whistling a chilling sonnet
The horizon a Gothic potrait
Twin...

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Well if you insist

I am not the color of my skin or the clothes on my back.  
I am not who or what you assume me to be. 
I am not a foul mouthed...

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I love the quiet and long shadows of winter,
Thrown as I walk in the veld through brown grass tall,
When the sun is low and the cold is bitter.

Finches and waxbills no longer twitter.
Under foot the...

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Anticipation

 
This morning the sky was bright red
Before turning to a dirty milk
The air is still
The heat is intense and dry
You can hear the leaves crackle underfoot

You can feel the energy in the air increasing
Like...

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I
You have seen them tell ... of things Indian
In dark South Africa, in the 1960s, BOMBAY ...
MADRAS, and CALCUTTA were destinations
As great as LONDON! We didn't know NYC, or Paris
Yes, old cultures have stories, much...

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The accident
Its as if I can see you rolling on that veld
With your head hitting on the stones.
Its as if I can hear your loud cry as the trees keep on ripping your clothes.
I can...

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