the journey up south

it started in the middle of crossroads

beforehand was a list from the gods,

a sweet smell of loss and damp breads

in the pouch, a stack of short swords

cutting letters piled on sad ballads

curtains closing in, a night of words

smooth kisses had left bruises

on lips of the bitter one

voice muffled inside a heavy throat

yet found grace to mutter,

what are you looking at, old lady?

a boy, by no other name,

the broken,

dear Beatrice,

the long piece read,

this madness sipping in

won’t let me calmly express,

you’d laugh to see this one in the cold

sitting up in bed listening to the dark

hearkening from the cracks on the wall

groaning through the crevices stealthily

down the cuts on my arms like a spider

the dreadful silence sinking in my ears

dragging me on the midnight floor

the lamplight from above

reaches my tunnel no more

tell me you’re the balm in gilead

my scarlet heart’s now cold

my racing head knows no peace

would you care for a dance

long I’ve stood here

watching, waiting, still

this one time

for the wind to blow our way

one more time

would you care for another dance?

well, maybe just to have another drink?

this was the other year

before the bridge drove under,

the two birds of a feather

flew so far from another,

black cats at the end of the tether,

ropes cutting above the shoulder,

splitting blankets of lust in sunder,

such naked sincere daughter

whispered in the ears of a stranger,

never was he my lighter

he never was a good shepherd

to a soul gardener so tangled

in a forest maze running around

sands of time calling to the dead

like heavy tears in hearts of the estranged

still waters surely left seeds of love dried

passing a heart through the shred

thought the other was romance

for it did dress like it once

as it swayed to the broken dance

shallowly sown under the throne of lies,

chaos the only good friend of hers,

stale past shimmered o’er the rusty lens

old rooftops stained with memories,

the gory future stole a glance

grimaced by disgust and fresh ordinance

in it now knows no difference

it ends in the lost city of memories,

where children slumber in innocence

with broken cries, ghosts in disguise

bending fragile souls and flowers

in the arms of awakening summers,

cold street darkness of christmas eves,

fingers clenched tightly on blades,

humming last verses of hunters hymns,

sat a callous mind on dusty dreams

Mirror Face

to the city i run to in my nightmares
the spirit holding me in this cold fuss
eyes shutting inside memory gates
lips syncing to savoury diaries
under a slow steady sinking pace
when I ponder the rosy race

i’ve been running in my mind
chasing dreams of us around
now i can’t seem to stand
you breathing isn’t life, to me you’re dead
as i put your bones in the flesh of land
i recall your stance after the live band

you were tipsy
when you said you loved me
streets were coloured up
when my heart heard your voice
i drank the truth and the lie
so one night we stood
nice and slow you followed
now judas, you want to tease me
fair enough, go ahead kiss me

unwind the black ribbon on my eyes
to those sexy white lies
for i’m still caught in this fall
as i get lost in your eyes
up and down like the waves
you just wanted a ride

you were shadows and the light
around the circles you would write
on my mirror face
facing the past ace
stuck in an unending maze
you with your fancy games
look, it’s you running in the old days

sore lips singing another song
but it’s not you in the lines,
my rhymes when you’re gone
steady stunt still wind had blown
old pages that are creased and torn
are in eternity a deep book within
just a broken bit

and it’s a broken beat,
a crushed heart
is a broken beat,
a mirror face,
shards on the floor
cards showing ace,
no hearts, all lined up in a race
and it’s a broken beat,
a crushed heart
is a broken beat

More Wine in the Barrel

Waiting at the entrance of the morgue, I held on to a pile of letters in my hands and stars of recollections in my head. My chin sank under a black hat as I sat in silence. I could hear footsteps fading towards the end of the hallway. The other nurses had completed their shifts and were leaving the facility. I still had a couple of minutes to spare for self-reflection. A lot of things had gone wrong during the last PTCA procedure in the operation theatre, which made me think about how cruel life had been. I could hear the voices in the back of my head, infused in my cranial circulation. I wanted to clutch at something. A feeling I had carelessly shunned for a long time. I feared its magnitude yet desired the turbulence it left afterwards. It took my strength away and locked me under a yoke in a graveyard. My teeth gnash, shearing against each other tightly. I listened to the crackles, my eyes closed. I waited for a sign while cherishing my resentment as tenderly as a rose garden.

The faulty lamp at the corner was making buzzing sounds for a while now and the echoes bombarding the walls made this particular night scarier. The lights flashed on my face, my lips were quivering and my eyelids flapped in distress. My eyes gleamed with angst. My fingers were clubbed and my legs felt numb. I was neither tired nor satisfied. I was not a victim of one dawn turning into a dusk. As a matter of fact, I was guilty. Of love and all those other things that are sure to make a heart break. I tried not to lick my dry lips, but I could feel pain sizzling through the cracks.

I took a deep breath and slowly let it out. I wanted to believe there was something better ahead of me. Something to make me vulnerable and strong once again. Something worth fighting for.

I had not seen Rosa in more than seven years. In that short period, my world had stopped and the devil herself was sneezing on top of it. Well, bless you! The far north of it was tilted, it was hanging on a thin thread down south. Someone had suddenly dimmed the lights and shut the doors. It was only a matter of hours, or maybe seconds, before I slipped and the curtains closed. Forever. I was convinced that tomorrow was not only a passing wind, or a bus I’d die to catch, but also a destination I might never reach. Mornings were new beginnings to newer struggles. The mark of loss stretched deep inside my bones. Everything I held close ever since always disappeared like a mirage on the periphery of a desert. My past hadn’t received the go-ahead to bury its dead, and my vague future watched from a distance as I wandered around in circles with skeletons of my existence. I was certain time wasn’t going to heal any of my wounds and death wouldn’t hurt as much.

“Don’t be scared.” Rosa said, tucking me in bed, ” Am doing this for love.”
She left home that night unannounced and ran away with her boyfriend. Cameron was one strange bearded man with a nose ring. He played bass guitar for a local band called “Yase Wi Kua” which was slang for “we live to die”. Everything was weird about this group of six, including the fact that they were all bald, homeless and never performed in public events. Ron was right at the center of this stoners’ sect. He had piercings on his tongue and ears. The phoenix tattoo on his back, I reckon, is what stole Rosa’s heart. Anyone would argue that she was just a girl following her heart. But no. She wasn’t just any girl. She was my sister, and so she was my blood. Just as embers flow in me, she ought to have been fire in flesh. She was not. She was only 18, gullible and innocent. He was 25, manipulative and psycho. The Pharisee in my mother would describe him as “a blind lost soul with little access to light and chopsticks”. I was careful not to add anything on such a heavy line of poetry that had become a burden and an anthem in our household. She would never let them be together.
Why would a teenager do so much for something she knew so little about? The thought of cheap love dividing a family was so lame. During those early years, I’d constantly ponder on this, how so wrong it was and stuff, forgetting I was barely 10.

And like any other young flower, snowflakes would tear me apart and the sun would tarnish my fragrance as I journeyed along destiny paths. I was not immune to life!
I had only felt it twice. Once in the cemetery where I witnessed Grace, the love of my life, marry my best friend. The other, at a church in Soweto as Olaf, my brother, presided over my daughter’s funeral. I could take my heart to a tailor right now and have it fixed, but removing my tents from the past I constantly visit is out of question. I have tried. I have failed. On my knees, in tears of a praying Hannah, I lay my pleas bare to the heavens every single night. Trusting one day, my wait will bring me a renewal of strength.
For so long now, my insides have burnt in a raging fire of having to live with voids I can never fill up. No matter how much I sacrifice, this has remained to be the same old script with the same old villain, myself. Digging deep has only left me with dirtier hands. These ashes have greatly plagued my future. I’ve seen it rise from afar. It comes in white and red, like a potassium pill on a cold-water surface, it douses as it ignites. A flickering flame withstanding the tests of time, not on my chest but inside my head. Most of my memories have been shrunken; small pieces that hang like bats on the back of my mind, are the ones I grasp so dearly. I still remember how cold winter evenings were warmed up by Maria’s presence. She was an angel, and I miss her every single day. All the things she was, growing up, and who she became, made me proud as a dad. Her passion for art marveled me. I felt so blessed fathering such a gifted soul. The best experience of being a single father was coming home from the hospital to her, all cuddled up with her cats on the couch. She would sense my arrival, sprint to me and spring into a huge hug. She always knew I got her gifts inside my bag or under my coat. Other days, this would be a surprise whenever I woke her up. We rarely talked about her mother’s absence, though I felt she’d keep on asking questions and I’d have to tell her the sour story. On my bad days, she’d grab her violin and play it in the lounge. I listened to her all that time as I wrote poems, a gift I discovered within me in my high school days.

No other place I’d call home besides nights like those. The sound on the strings she rocked deluged with emotions. It brought me peace on a parallel plane to what had grown inside of me for three decades. The years I closed my eyes hoping I wasn’t opening them to my ability to breathe, yet I remained stuck in a movie theatre that only played the putrid parts of my life repeatedly.

‘The deepest heartbreak poem would leave an audience soaked in tears, logic and rhetoric, unable to contend the overwhelming silence that strikes at the end of the last word. Like a watchman would wait for morning, they would wait for climaxes, casting their hearts in the profound depths obscured by the palpating pain. It would be poetry how vivid it snatches their imaginations out of reality into a sinister sea. Sometimes, in the dead of night, it would crawl behind them, lick the back of their ear lobes and hiss, a whisper so loud almost tearing their throats apart. Each single line would be carelessly placed, one after the other, hitting misery subsequently, with its fingers, tips on, and on.’ ~ I once wrote.

Lost on this side of the backstage, I listen to the tragic story of my life. I am almost certain that this monologue won’t eat me alive. Or if it does, it would have saved me big time. I’ve fought in wars, rang death occasionally, seen love crush me, and peekaboo, I’ve slept with a hooker! The common denominator of these sacred aspects of my life being not what they took away from me, rather, what they brought. A vase full of wilted wildflowers with spikes and thorns. They shifted through the layers of sand under my feet, gradually pulled me down and plunged a hole in my chest. From it, exudate and guilt flowed, into it, coldness and agony. Regrets and remorse peeped from a distance as I counted the curses I was blessed with.
My malicious mind keeps reminding me how failure has stained my mind. I giggle sometimes as I stare at the broken glass I press between my palms; this frail statue grimaced by disgust, my heart racing and a ghost smiling behind me. ‘Turn around,’ she would say. ‘Turn around and put yourself in a casket.’ I was tempted to but didn’t. Instead, I peered right into her eyes and shrugged, ‘You never broke me, Agnes.’ Even when I knew it was a lie, I said it with conviction to nurse my bruises. Wounds inflicted by isolation, indecisiveness and perceived failure. A plethora of illusions masking these tedious acts as the burden of emptiness gets trapped within me, falling in depression episodes and diminished death debris on a slippery cliff, holding on to a tiny string above abyss valley.

“The sun will shine again, you will sing again,” Olaf said, “You will love again!” His voice held a hint of wariness. The congregation barely said its Amen when I heard a muffled voice that sprouted right behind me, “So shall it set.” I felt stiffness in my neck as a warm mist deluged in my imbalanced brain. The silence that came at the end of his sermon was overwhelming. I paused to wallow in thought. I closed my eyes, bowed my head, letting my chin press against my beards over my chest. Then I opened and everything was before me again like a movie in Charlie Chaplin’s times, black and white. Agnes sat beside me and I could feel her glare piercing through the other corner of my skull like a needle. I pretended to be deeply lost in the pages of the holy book. My fingers ran through the verses as my eyes followed in unison. The words became vague with the passing second, but still Agnes wouldn’t get her eyes off me. She grabbed my right hand and pulled me close to her then whispered in a coarse disturbing tone, “Love is a weakness.”

The Manic Violinist

unsleek hair hanged down her back
soaked in the old wine of a putrid past isolation clutching in her arms,

fire burning ashore her hazel eyes resentment planting kisses on her scarred face, roughly exposing her unhealing wounds

at her feet where peace rested begging for some cents of mercy

in the silent storms of a lonely night
begotten by the ghost hands that fed her

years of drought and poetic holocaust
all tools of art destroyed
massacred poets buried and forgotten
hidden behind the solemn hills
with repressed hatred
and wild cloaking spells
no one caring to lay wreaths
on the cages above these raw objects of truth,
dead though living
as she moved her arm back and forth,
in every tear and note,
every stroke and key, she wrote
onwards to the promised day
when all will rise and reign
under the pointed edges of ominous clouds
with hopes of a brighter future
far away from the uncertain tomorrow
inside echoing voices and sorrow
a blackness painted in her head
harmony has fallen in the street, graven graffiti written on the walls alongside demise and torn posters, depressed souls hanging outside windows,

despair is roaming along the alleys
like a hyena sniffing its prey

in the church with closed doors
beyond the land of shadows,
all who had gathered
marvelled at her brilliance and mastery
though none saw the wolf howling
inside her veins as she played
cruelly eating her energy down
yet passionately feeding their thirst

abandonment wooed from a distance,

hopelessness kept crawling in,

overflowing bins and emptiness

remained isolated

at the far edges

of the broken city,

chaos devoured the entire land

the stem of her presence
sank them into flooding emotions
every nuance of expression
was written across their faces
but one was evident in abundance
an image flashing before their very eyes
clutching at the tree of purity
not the pureness of thought
but the absence of darkness thereof

I used to hear her sing

Watching her beside another, wasn’t quite pleasant. This vision flashed against my inner bruises. Wounds inflicted by a false sense of belonging and a bubbling entitlement. My racing mind was unable to comprehend the sour scenes unfolding before my weary eyes, at the end of the aisle where she stood. I had never been in such a wrong place before. Yet after so long, of listening to the sadness beating within my chest and the priest’s lengthy sermon, I had to put myself through so much vivid imaginations, this felt so depressing.
A piercing wave through my heart pushed me towards stopping the proceedings but my frozen body wouldn’t let me. I sat on the last pew immersed in thoughts of what I had inside my pockets, sticks of cigarettes wrapped in an old ragged cloth, with stains of bitterness and nicotine from my old bad habits. I was a good bad guy who had fallen victim of the wrath of one wrong turn. The feeling of betrayal caressed me under my shirt, right above my ribs, via my inner thighs, down to my feet. Nothing would heal such a cancer spreading outside my body.
My world stopped, for a second, in a desert, losing grip of its fluids, pouring them out down my face. By sheer luck, a stream of words flew in my old springs too.
“I bought these flowers just for you, ” I’d say, “None of what you planted in my soul has withered.” She would look into my eyes for a moment, smile to her ears, hold my fingers tightly between her palms, “All the time, my love, in this life or what is to come, you will always be in my heart.”
Later on, I’d have Trevor deliver more flowers to her house with a note inside written, “there’s something about stars, those objects in your beautiful heart, leaving traces of you wherever you go”.
“The rhythm and quietness of that poem will sweep her off her feet,” I imagined, “her flight should be arranged as soon as she receives it. ”

Admittedly, a lot had changed over the years. Those words were blurred and made no sense. The symmetry line between us had been tampered with. A part of me was wishing that this was just a dream, but the woke self in me was pondering on the fact that it was time to let her go and face the truth, even if it would mean seeing her happily throw petals to the grave she was pushing me into.
Those gone good days had bled on the depression that outgrew on summer fields. It was a mystery to the ones who passed me by, unable to behold the darkness behind the letters I tailored to suit her smile, for the fine wine that she was. My head would shake often. Trying to imagine how far time pushed me to the black spot where I knew love for self was like a mass of dust blown at the top of a cliff.
With freedom came slavery, with clarity came confusion. I was getting used to the person nobody ever told me I was. That one boy I never knew, out of ignorance and inability to make efforts towards inner self seeking. The silent and calm born of rain and night. Always hiding in the blinds for ease of being misunderstood. Deliberately giving his small circle the benefit of doubt when it came to figuring out what nightmare meant when he said, “I have not been writing.”
I had no right to even appreciate that my continuous loyalty to solitude and trials of walking away from myself would one day lead me to the edge of living and offer me my last breath as a prize for bowing down before doom and kissing her feet. The brighter side of it, at least I wanted to believe, could keep me awake in an unending sleep, lying above a saline sea, keeping my head six feet up, for one two more seconds.
My childhood was brightened by flickering waxed candles beneath chandeliers, on Saturdays when a dozen of women would gather for prayers in my shabby home. The mood of those days crept into me like a damp into timber. Giving me a break from the long week haunted by the chaos that resided inside our door. Happiness, for a long time had seemed as a faraway prospect as the moon. However, this found temporal healing on such an evening. My best part of it all came at the end of the fellowship, right after the bread was broken. My sister’s beautiful voice would glow up the room as I played with her toes like a piano.
The touch of my fingers performed the magic required to make Rosa sing soothingly. Her hitting the low and high notes was angelic. Swells of power rose up in her throat. I couldn’t even tell if it was words that came from her. It was music, sweet music and grace, and the haunting feeling of knowing that it was brought out in a fit of rage, of pain. Sending healing and a steady spell across the evening. It was a promise of tomorrow.
I never knew that was just but the beginning of our story, happy or sad, it would still be a story worth being put into words and passed down onto sons and daughters returning home to forgiveness and a father’s warm embrace.
Her hair was lighter back then, chestnut I suppose, and she would let Nina, our cousin, braid it for hours in front of the mirror as soon as the guests left. No one knew when the rain would, out of nowhere, start beating us. It became rapidly plain that if we were ever to find peace, our meticulous grasp of what held our sanity in place had to be loosened. We allowed it to slip, without perceived contempt, out of our begging hands. How would we be if grass was greener on our side. Would we be bold enough to reap all we had sown in the thorny fields? A broken heart, we quickly learned, was nothing to be ashamed of. We always wore it up our sleeves.
Now years after chains of failed suicide attempts, I would lean on my table, in a foreign land, my cheeks resting in my palms, contemplating on what Trevor once told me, “When you open the window to strangers, you are shutting your eyes to those behind you.” I missed almost everything in those words, alongside my zeal for a better life with Grace. Life had taken me through its sharp teeth, rolled me beneath her tongue, thrown me up and down her corrosive mouth, turning me inside-out, squeezing the poetry juice out of my veins, perhaps an impromptu encounter with my muse, then pushing me down through a free fall. There I was, gliding on my way down, clutching at a thin straw, a tender hope that maybe one unprecedented day, all would be smooth and I’d trace my way out of her bosom painted beside the allure of darkness. With close to nothing but a song and a hunter’s prayer.
Mama’s words came to me where I sat at the back of the church, “Your path will always be slippery if you try finding it on their wet hands”. They hit me to the core. I was no longer trying to balance the uncertainties that truth had plagued me with. It was certain that I had slipped into a pool of melancholy as I witnessed Grace say yes to Trevor, my best friend.

A Suicide Note from the Grave

I saw myself in a brown wooden box,
inside it my pale numb body lay still
wrapped in white fabric and excruciating pain,
a black veil covered my face,
ears burning in a summertime sadness,
my lips quivering to the dull beats
of the slow sand pouring above me

darkness crawling into my cage,
a new home in the flesh of earth,
my eyes floating on lost hopes,
head beating with wounded horse’s gallops,
black blood dripping out of my nose
forming pools in my ears

my daughter stood near the putrid pit choking on words I never told her,
clutching tightly at her rosary
her vision partially blurred
by tears rolling down her cheeks,
breath came in ragged shallow gasps,
her sun fallen right in front of her,
all her cards scattered across the mud,
spades, diamonds facing up,
aces stolen by the piper at dusk gates,
hearts shredded inside my house of suffering

agony seared around an approaching demon
as laughing bats hovered above the escapade
singing me to sleep with a soft serenade slumber song,
no forever to behold
no one around to withhold

then a loud whisper from a drunk priest’s mouth
‘ashes to ashes’

a memorial which occurs in every thought of me
till eternity
‘dust to dust’

stars tracing dark fingerprints on my heart
evidences of the wars I had fought in
slowly crawling out of oblivion into reality
to feed on the emblems of my sanity, racing thoughts sailing in future clarity

now we are found in the dark pages of an old book
sunk in wailing whispers and broken dreams
hiding behind the last words of a bitter letter
sometime in a grave moonless night
bleeding into the shadows cast by candlelight
faulty lamps humming in the hallway
oppressed by the steady shade of grey
like an awful weight on a beggar’s shoulder
darkness hissing excitement into our ears
cloaked by twilight’s blackness
muscles cramped inside a gilded cage
immersed in the reassuring embrace of a forgotten love song
a thick blanket clinging to every inch of our pale skin
a foe dressed in the woes of a friendly stranger
an unknown map leading us to a black hole
wishing for a shooting star to stick its hands into our solemn pools
cast a spell on the coal corners of our hearts
for we are all travellers on a journey
navigating across midnight’s myths
utterly obscured by our densely clouded heads
seeking solace in the crude rhymes of a sad poem

a look into the tear stained face
of a lonely soul
holding tight on the forever you invented
when you first looked into my eyes luring me into your passion seas
with the storms of your love

no words were exchanged,
no letter was left between us
when you broke your vow,
a void filled up the space leaving me in a wild party of one
carrying pepper balls and nothing inside,
all that was left was nothing but resentment, an acrid stench of blood lingering in my nostrils and burning depression episodes

you were betrayal looming in a distance,
a black charm hiding behind that smile,
that damn smile,
an interlude between going into an open room
and getting high on every last of your words
in a land of shadows and deceit
stopping once in a while to quench
at these bitter waters
full of empty promises and citrus lies
flowing down the shoulders of a broken valley,
a breaking soul in her chest
and gallons of lost hope
in her bruised stomach

mounting chronic hallucinations in the skin of our minds
building castles and burning down bridges
above rivers which once were, forever dried up
by the love and tides of seasons
trapped in the wake of a dream
across twilight’s deadness and nightmares
brewed in a conscious sedation

and maybe this is the sweetest poison
i’d ever partake on a Christmas eve

A Game Of Cards

Strong, charismatic, happy
all the things I was,
stronger, more charismatic, happier
all the things I could have been,
weak, sad, depressed
all the things I became
after staking my life in a game,
a game of cards

I trusted them with cultivating my gardens
but they dug graves all over the lanes,
each step I’d take
would always lead to me feeling sad
or as good as dead
they always dressed in white
yet deep within them,
they were all in black
waiting for my funeral

I have risen so many times
like an eagle in a cloudy sky,
they have always been throwing spears at me
I evaded them so many times
this time round though,
they hit bullseye
and I came crashing down
like a skydiver under a faulty parachute

All my pieces were spread all over,
my wandering soul hovered
above the sacred scene
looking at my fallen self
choking on dusty air
letting out death rattles
at the end of my lost battles
for I took a blunt penknife to a gunfight
not wanting anyone to get hurt
fighting toxicity with love
in a brook of hatred
ending up being swept away
by storms of sadness
into this ocean of melancholy

Those vultures were never done with me,
they descended within a blink of an eye
in the depth of the night
coming along with bats,
everything happening so fast
in that vast field full of dry bones
and black crows roaming over sad stones,
my body was right at the centre of it all
dancing to the tune of my perdition,
a nemesis I sold and bought
like a slave in Hitler’s courtyard,
I earned it

My eyes still filled with tears
watching them fly into the dark skies 
my remains lay lifeless on that fracas
yet there I was,
still raising my arms
with the last bits of strength inside my veins
hoping I could still save them,
my breaking heart
pumping slower than ever,
breathing
breathing

Of course those blind birds wouldn’t see
they had flown back into their sinister seas,
my demise was so vague,
though I saw it coming,
I called it via the sweet sound
of the shell in my heart
colliding with the clouds of the air
turning into a wave of love,
that’s what attracted the birds,
that’s what drew the vultures

In a pool of my remains,
my soul sat sewing my seams,
putting my bones back to position,
my heavy eyes
swimming in discontent,
fixed at the blank sky,
and my numb nose
feeding on the disappearing fresh air

As my skin slowly begins to grow back,
with every second across twilight
giving me a hope of meeting light
when my night and damnation is over
just right after my stars take a long nap
into the elegant expedition of daybreak
and my skin will glow again
with infectious fragrance,
my strength will return,
I’ll howl once again

Strong, charismatic, happy
all the things I was,
stronger, more charismatic, happier
all the things I could have been,
weak, sad, depressed
all the things I became
after staking my life in a game,
a game of cards

I have given love where it wasn’t due. I have always taken the blame for crimes I have never committed. I have always been the lesser one; the one who gets less just because I was too kind to say no; for no would hurt them and make them sad. I have always taken second place just so that they may be happy at the expense of my own happiness. I have taken half for long enough.

I have sacrificed myself rather too much,
willing to put my life on the line
for people who never cared
to give even a fraction of the same back

I missed the train while roaming
  in their fogs
of hate and unrequited affections

I have totally failed
in finding my own happiness
by holding on for rather too long
waiting for the redemption of devils,
forgetting this here is hell,
their kingdom
and I am no Messiah

I have sinned against myself                           

by settling for less than what I deserve

For that, I’m punishing myself with a long break to put my pieces together. I’ll curve the best craft of my misused resources. No matter how long it takes, I shall bounce back stronger than ever before. I’ll only go for first place. I’ll only give love to the right people. I’m not settling, I’m choosing.

I am heading to win my life back

MAMA LET ME WRITE

Did you hear what the beggar
in the corner down at sixth street
just say?
That I’m just like him.
Did you?
Is it true that I’m sick?

Then why can’t I be like the other boys
Why do you always lock me up in the house
Why do I keep craving my last breath
Only to cheat doom at the end
How did I survive all those attempts
How am I still breathing
Where is the charismatic me
Where did all my zeal and energy go
Who is the dark lady in my room every night
Who is the elf she carries on her lap
What do they want from me
What is the date today?

When will you let me go play outside

When will I be okay
Which is truth,
you or the beggar
in the corner down at sixth street?

And there will come a day when
 my words will lose their meaning

All these rants will be gone
as the last dew before noon,
tears wouldn’t have a place here,
my sinking sun will forever be
 swallowed up
by the cold horizon
as the moon will burn red
with blood from my eyes
causing the stars to rust
and the earth to loosen
its chains of gravity
on our bodies

Fears of existence will take
 centre stage of my scope
like a rose trampled on the muddy ground
never getting the chance to bloom again,
thence the whistling wind will cease to blow,
the dust on the floor will flare up
causing an uproar from the air riding on her,
vicious vapour around my precipitation
 will deluge to clog my lungs

Slowly I’ll fade away
as an injured wolf’s howl
disappearing from the shadows
 of the vicinity
as he staggers heavily
to his gracious grave,
I’ll raise my palm
with the last of energy
in my shaking body
just to catch a glimpse
of my sad setting sun

A tenacious tango will commence
from the crying weeds within green pastures
to the drying seeds amongst stormy sees
followed by a last rattle from my camp

before taking me to a mental health facility,

Please get me to your room,
smile at me as your groom,
stitch all my fraying seams,
hold me in your arms,
rocking me from side to side
as though I’m your best bride

Cover my cold cruel cries
with silent screaming lullabies,
sinking stillness to the bees
in the hive inside my haunted head
with sharp stains of a rusting blade
cutting through my water and bread

As your eyes swim in despair,
look down with a blank glare,
let your tears drop into my visage
to raise restlessness on my reckless rage
furiously flowing down with mine,
down as streams of pain
into the ocean on my hurting hands

When the pools are too full to dry,
bring me a feather and a scroll,
collect my blood in a black bowl
for we’ll need it for ink,
grace the ritual with magical tales
and vital swaying spells
of beautiful words of poetry
to swiftly sway my insanity

Turn off the music,
sickly switch off the lights,
stare at the sparks in my nights,
look keenly at my glowing light,
listen to the voices in the quiet,
watch me sink the most intimate
with profound depths of my diet,
Ma’ , let me write

Shadows, Flames and Roses

Shadows, Flames and Roses, a treat for lovers of poetry, sees the return of two major themes infused together (love and mental illness), to the literary collections of fiction books category. The poems in this collection are vividly told in a captivating and fast moving narrative that creates a stubborn conflation of thought and feeling. This is the first part of the long-awaited series, “Sunrise of Eternity” that provides uncensored illustrations of how living with mental illness affects interpersonal communications and associations.
However, readers coming to read these great works of literature in expectation of a fat wedge of short shallow poems and stealthy revelation along the verses, say, of that article published by the editor last year might want to adjust their expectations. Mowo, it turns out, has delivered a mere silver of a book, one that takes us from a young couple struggling with depression and anxiety disorder; by incorporating the themes of love and loss, lost love, death and destruction; through a journey of recovery to healing by love.
Its prologue is certainly precise: it captures rather beautifully a glimpse into a hypomania episode of depression.
Right at the start of his writings, the author introduces his readers to two protagonists; a young man in his early twenties and a teenage girl who lived with depression and anxiety respectively. Their relationship is going through a chain of turmoil due to a series of misunderstanding between them. This first poem creates a play-like scene. This captures the reader’s imagination of what the entire book is all about by creating a tense but exciting atmosphere.
As the plot is advanced, the author engages the reader into deep thought about the actual connection between the two protagonists by introducing a third character, a male who happens to have something going on with the girl. A love triangle is clearly outlined, conveying the impressions of dishonesty, distrust, betrayal and unrequited love between them that uncontrollably worsens their mental upheavals. He takes on the bull by the horn, he separately yet deeply describes the torture that both parties have to go through due to the confusion caused. He later on depicts the inability of the two to move on despite having all the reasons to, heightening the suspense even farther.
Skillfully, he combines the use of both lyric and epic poems to achieve his chief purpose, which I think is, to reach out and create mental health awareness in the society. He uses literary devices, including imagery and symbolism, simply and powerfully told, to adroitly evoke unspoken emotions; a realm largely lost to us now.
Love and mental illness are mostly smoke and mirrors. Modern writers really don’t know what it is like to be in romantic relationships while living with mental illness — no matter how much research they do — so the success of their enterprise depends largely on creating a convincing illusion. Mowo, rises to this challenge with great skill in his accomplished, atmospheric and thoughtful debut book of poetry.

To order : Shadows, Flames and Roses by Herbert Sakajja Mowo for USD 7.77 go to
https://www.amazon.com/Shadows-Flames-Roses-Sunrise-Eternity/dp/1980675058

Or USD 4.35 for kindle ebook edition of the same go to
https://www.amazon.com/dp/B07BTDN66K

Last Letter

I hope this gets to you before it’s too late
I’m under the sheets,
naked, from the streets of my bound body
to the empty sky of my sour soul,
touching no one else but myself

My fingers run reckless rounds on my  skin
in between my tender thighs
through the throngs of black gold mines
to the solo single apt ape on me,
my legs shake to the beats of each stroke,
rising and falling like a tide
under the monthly shift of the moon,
my bed is deluging as an ocean
and I am the island,
the ship lost at this sea of grief,
caught amidst two estranged tsunamis,
paying pressure with putrid pleasure

I’m just but a wounded wolf
howling from a distance,
weeping through this stance,
seeking help by myself,
maybe one day a stranger
will pass by my deserted home,
hear me moan and mourn
behind these stained glasses
and come to my rescue

I’m playing in my raging rain
hoping to drown in something not pain,
the wetness in my palm smacks sensations 
to the chemicals in my brain
causing my monsters to slide slowly out
to join in my damnation,
throwing me into perdition

Their presence is felt on my arms,
my absence cringes from without,
as I play with the apt ape
they enter the gape
coming early but late
like foes masquerading as friends
ready to dine without wine,
getting under the reserves of my null nerves,
stopping the gory game abruptly

I was just but a lonely cloud
wandering alone in the black bosom
of the shady strangled sky
before I met lightning flashes of chaos
that rubbed ruthlessly against my single spirit
tapping tainted trauma into my atmosphere
causing me to rain down as thunderstorms
while bringing the sun to his knees,
rusting the facade of my fuelled stars,
strengthening the earth’s chains of gravity on me

I have been falling ever since,
trying holding on to heavy droplets of fear
and thorny roses of unpleasant memories,
I’m constantly being pulled down by weights,
I’m choking on the acidified air
that flows through my basic brain
causing an uproar from the alkaline within,
like an asthma patient gasping for breath
while shooting a monologue under water

My palms are done limping over egg shells
on these miles and miles
of open road across my fragile flesh,
the tip of the apt ape is still now,
her redness is relieving
leaving my body less agitated,
I’ve lost quite a lot tonight,
my skin scales the blood on my arms
that had poured downstream as brooks
into the lagoon in my palm
causing wetness and numbness

My body is filled but my brain is screaming
silently behind the caves of my mind
waiting to come back again
to grind and reign,
to blind and stain

My 6 a.m. alarm goes,
my head is horrifyingly heavy
and my limbs are still shaking
like a leaf in one windy winter morning,
I’m moaning and mourning,
this surge disturbs the vast profound
wailing behind the cages of my ribs

I am still perturbed,
I want to know if I’ll ever be okay,
maybe when you drive into my home

symphonies will lead you to my gardens,

there you’ll meet terrains of unmarked graves,
graciously, you’ll be welcomed by my tombstone,
I hope you’ll see these words curved on it
‘ he was brave ‘
please don’t forget to lay wreaths
on the shade of my new home
I prefer purple flowers
‘ he was royalty ‘

light candles as you sway

to the dull beats of the blind wind,
come singing this song
‘ somewhere out there ‘
this is fair that I’m happier
lying straight sixes under

I hope this gets to you before it’s too late
I’m under the sheets,
naked, from the streets of my bound body
to the  empty sky of my sour soul,
touching no one
No one else but myself