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Best Poems Written by Athokoza Radebe

Below are the all-time best Athokoza Radebe poems as chosen by PoetrySoup members

Details | Athokoza Radebe Poem

Broken Shell

Broken shell

After a lengthy time of climbing
I sit on the hill peak of courage.
Drafting my testimony on an inkless page of my acquired voicelessness,
Looking down pieces of the shell broken scattered in the valley where
My identity had been locked with my background and sealed in that  cocoon of countless soul-crippling fears,
With the key not placed anywhere near but thrown to drown in the pool of my pain and tears


It was dark in there.
There was no air, I
couldn't breathe there....
But now I am free here.

There, lack of freedom is defined as obedience and I
No longer could bear the confined shells in which my wings were squashed and couldn't spread......

I could no longer endure how
I had to  scream with my voice so my heart could be heard
Because inked words weren't loud enough to shake the screens of crowds

There, humidity is enough to incinerate breads of dreams into crumbs that are bitter to taste even before nations can feast on them

But now, I sit on the hill drafting and looking at it broken.
Hearing echoes of those with whose ideas I had mine imprisoned
Their voices speak to me pleading
That I may have their stories too told in between angry lines of my drafted testimony and it hurts,
Hearing how the wind on this hill peak tells me stories of different occurrences that has transpired with me confined in a shell of formidable darkness.

Events of women from whose bruised lips had to come a song of courage every Sunday with a Hallelujah and A man who every weekday all day gives them punches as if they were gifts hanging from the ceiling like punching bags.....

I couldn't believe that such stories were thrown in the bookshelf of the untold when I was in the shell there yet

Now I sit on the hill peak and draft.......
The urge is too powerful,
The call is too loud,

As for the shell.....
Leave it broken and its pieces scattered far as the East and the West apart from each other so that I can breathe and the nations  cry...through my voice


Broken Shell

Poetic Rea

Details | Athokoza Radebe Poem

Ocean Harvest

We cannot afford to lose our sanity now
The graves have grown ears.
They listen and hear our sobbings
Feed on them in the cemeteries
as if they were holy meals,
Communion prompt for resurrection.
Tombstones twisting and turning
over the crumbs stashed in piles,
over billions of hungry bodies and bones.
The rivers and water banks hiss with so much deceit
we cannot handle it.
We are lured into planting our seeds into the oceans.
Sowing into sand.
Hoping that harvest in the sea sees no season,
Never ceasing to sow our hope in the deep
Stargazing
But at the sky's reflection on the waters
Where our eyes await for nations to bloom.

Poetic Rea.

Details | Athokoza Radebe Poem

Where You Sleep

"You are a child of this soil
These rocks were meant for your hiding
to shiled you from your demons
These grass blades do not cut into your skin when you lie your back on it to look at the sky
You are married to these trees and dusty gravel streets
Your grandfather's sheep shepherd you
Leading you to nothing lesser than green pastures
Wind here is music to your soul
When it dances,
You are caressed.

So when your pride wants to outgrow you and blow the roofs off these rondavels
Remember how deep the water within these valleys run in your blood
To your heart"

Poetic Rea

Details | Athokoza Radebe Poem

In Her Skin

she draws memories in melodies with her eyes.
she deceives the moon
with the stars,
backspace,
and the sun
back spaces
to lengthen her daylights of joy and shorten her nights of sadness.
the direction of her gravity is twisted,
she levitates when others fall.
she is my Great grandmother's grimoire 
filled with magic and spells
there are explosions in her tongue
when she smiles
she laughs
the splendor of her grins teleports to thousands of souls on her palms
It's as if God is dancing in her bones.
She is not a glass
half full or
half empty.
She dreams in Numbers.
She is heaven and hell
cohabiting together in your chest.
She is the gaps between the stitches of wounds.
She's not what lies underneath your scabs.
She's a womxn,
not scorned.

Poetic Rea