Zambezi's strength rules
who can harness our river?
electricity from water?
Nyami, Nyami
Kariba Dam damaged
by six decades of water
the Tonga tribes celebrate
Nyami, Nyami
May 10, 2022
Joseph May's contest on Naani.
Two naani of 24 syllables each
current statements about currents
When the Kariba Dam was built on the Zambezi, the Tonga people had doubts.
The dam was built on gneiss and quartzite and is made of concrete — 80 feet at its thickest point. But over six decades of the waters' rushing through it, tumbling over it and crashing down on its other side have carved a pit at its base and erosion threatens its foundations. July 22, 2020
The very thought of a naani about Nyam Nyami sparked my muse.
It is the River God of the Tonga people.
Amphorae, beautifully crafted,
Delicate, exquisite, fire-glazed,
Heated in jumbo kilns,
Lovely molded necks,
Opaque pigments,
Quartzite residue-
Symbolic, timeless, utilitarian
Valued- with xanthic yellow zirconium
***
October 22, 2019
F T I series 5 beauty
Brian Strand, sponsor
***
Poetry notes:
Poetry form: ABC - In this instance, a poem in which every word begins with a successive letter of the alphabet. The first word begins with A, the second with B, etc.
Frozen to perfect, stiff, fixed and fast,
Forever replicating exact,
Transparent colours of love and beauty,
Forever being abstract,
She’s a water kingfisher, with a purple song box,
Or ocean wave smashing to shore,
Forever being a shimmering dog,
Or a magnificently powerful horse,
She can be hard and solid, reliably strong,
Unflinching to hurt, rage or pain,
Or she can be a delicate fragile of perilously weak,
Carrying your toast of champagne,
She’s our beautiful glass, our goblet of glaze,
Our sculptured trichromatic quartzite,
She’s everything beautiful wrapped into one,
Illuminating a rainbow of light.
Bronze tint glints from fractured
surfaces, peppered planes of salted
quartzite, eons old:
attributes peculiar to rock,
to stone, whose strength
no soft tissue could ever know.
No iodine suntan ever quite
approached that shade, nor ivory
smile's glow blinded
as its glassy show:
To this flinty hardness mind
never swoops; no human heart,
though cruel, could ever reach
its crystal cold.
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.