Peace, your absence is annoyance.
Annoyance in our hearts and on the land,
On the land, we want to discover you.
You hide yourself in your whereabouts,
Whereabouts preserving your existence.
Peace, your nonappearance is frustrating.
Frustrating, as we ignore where you have gone,
Gone forever out of the land, out of our hearts.
Our hearts madly desire to meet you,
You are needed desperately, peace!
Peace, you are missing in our minds.
Minds dominated by wars and hatred,
Hatred widowing mothers.
Mothers crying for their orphaned children,
Children regretting the killing of biodiversity.
Peace unfound on the land, for gone forever!
Forever, back you’ll relocate among us,
Among us we'll welcome you.
Welcome you as needed for your absence,
Absence causing profound disarray.
Disarray in hearts and on the land. Peace, we need you!
You make us speed to find you, peace!
Poem by Ndabuli Mugisho
Decaying bones wash up on the shore
And it is the ravens who keep score
In their eyes the skeletal shape
Of the Grim Reaper who haunts the cape
Brave though the men were
The line between life and death began to blur
Blessed with Poseidon's wrath the sea began to rage
Writing the last chapters in blood on a drenched page
For those who respect not the sea will not see tomorrow
Widowing wives who weep with sorrow
What must it have been like to see the hope die in their eyes
As they slowly began to realize
This was to be their final story
And oh so gory
Decaying bones wash up on the shore
Just one more tale in the Grim Reaper's lore
Various animals, Almighty God created
In water, on land, in the air them he placed
Like a tick, others on other bodies he stuck
The frog on land and in water, he acclimates.
His slippery skin, good protection it makes
Into the water, he dives and swims like a fish
Lob him on the land, he leaps to gulp worms
On the land, he bounds and makes croaks.
For you dare fling him in the air, God he meets
In the air, he will suffocate for soaring he cannot.
Prayers he says and clemency he begs for soul purity
He cares not; he has confessed heavy and light sacrilege
Widowing insects, orphaning others but divine justice
The frog awaits, her eggs to leave and die in the cold
And so, the frog in pieces has slept eternally in peace
Poem by Mugisho N. Theophile
If left to my own ways of being
I’d surely find a way face it down
Bring it away from what I’m feeling
I can’t find that smile for my frown
Lost upon the hopeless canals
That life springs upon me at times
It doesn’t mean that this is final
It just brings with it a lot of chimes
Those that mention the falling of hearts
That does spray the nest at my home
I’ve not enjoyed the widowing apart
Of her voice that showers me to come
Though we’ve been away for many years
It still stings to this very day
That she took my heart with the shears
And took my soul away…
Russell Sivey
*Pure Fiction, for me anyway!
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