Cheap perfume Misted over greying wool Lightly pressing against his chest Concealing that grizzly beastly self Sculpted around those not-so voluptuous Muscles rounding his gentle beastly self Do you ever sleep with your eyes wide open Wake bright and early inflated red-eyed Do you ever imagine shadows marching on the walls Wake ankles toes wobbly…
Black List
Merge discrete metals to smithereens blacksmith who ain’t black and don’t smith Black Africa a golden ring with a diamond a diamond ring with a golden rim? I am Black not because I am African Black is what I feel an explicit soul speaking lingo a never melting candle lighting deeper character Africa is my…
Child Not Bride
Under the silvery stare of the moon The children sat to listen to soul refreshing tales Beneath the starry blue skies, we laughed and galloped our ignorance of the world away It was in the nakedness of the breeze that I learned to smile my soul away And I enjoyed it A perfect peace But…
The Searching Cheats
Whirl of the wind Sing decades of familiar tunes Encroaching voices of old whispering stories untold Cold the breeze our bodies Freeze The Misplaced Birds they say they wail “We have lost our way” We are to show them their way We? We point They screech “Where?!” We point again And again Then we tell…
This is not a feminist poem
This is not a feminist poem This is not contorted metaphors with neither punch line nor chorus This is not a feminist poem It is a woman learning to trade possessions before her lover takes his last breath. She will never get the chance to say goodbye because those final hours are one match-point away…
You Must Know
You must know As little girls, we write about the struggles of our mums We glorify their pain as borne out of resilience in duties never understood The choring, the caring, the back-from-work, good enough to keep her a mother As little boys, we wonder what could be wrong with the masculinity of our dads…
Silent hate
“Am a man” he says, The first being Don’t forget you came from me and not me from you Keep your voice low Cry on the pillow Don’t let them know It’s a shame Just do this for me Very simple Cook for me Wash for me Part your legs for me And don’t even…
When is it right to rape a woman
Why? Silenced cries Sealed behind doors of blame Her breasts linger out Like ripe mangoes Sending me invitations Her skirt barely covered her thighs Made my blood hot I said, “Yes, that’s why it was right” She wanted the piece of my manhood into her Thrusting thrusting When is it right to rape a woman…
Beauty Knows No Shame
A new kind of beauty to embrace and to celebrate There’s no room for shame here There’s a power that pushes through from within There’s a power that will push out and bring my bloody insides with it… But that’s something of a pain that I’d love to succumb to in a natural, agony-sedating, physical…