River Styx

The Nile is a moving graveyard The ground is soaked up with blood The Nile has more skin than most The Nile? You mean river Styx, and what a price you have paid to cross it. The ground is shaking with grieve, The city is crying tears of blood, The streets are loud but quiet,…

Sponging

Maybe you will be a chronicle that none reads Except the one who makes the entry Or you will be a Facebook post Few will skim through Their fingers automated To click the like button. I don’t know and cannot tell And don’t care what you will turn out to be Because all I need…

A Deceptive Devil

You Chase her up hills and down valleys In the name of ‘love’ Easily she gives in Believing in so-called promises And ‘heaven like’ vows Luring her into indecent assaults Thinking she is impressing, She does it heartfelt Later you offer her gifts Penny in addition for ‘up keep’ Pretending to be loving and caring…

Hungry

I am hungry for a love my country cannot afford. I want a love that will buffer my mistakes even before I commit them A love that has mapped out the possibilities of my existence and made room for each one of them A love that doesn’t need me to clamour to identify as black…

Chioniso Tsikisayi

Chioniso Tsikisayi is a spoken word poet, writer, singer, and filmmaker from Bulawayo, Zimbabwe. She is passionate about creative arts and conscious storytelling. Her work has been published in Brittle Paper, Isele Magazine and Litro Magazine. Her first body of music titled Heaven Is Closer Than You Know was released in November 2020 in collaboration with award-winning…

L.I.F.E.

Life’s like living just at the edge of a knife Incredible, yet sometimes one’s choice is not counted Fear, one’s likely to succumb to courage’s rarely remembered Evidently, life’s not how long you live but how well you thrive Life sometimes wants to be a dictator It can twirl and whirl without one on hold…

Ellipsis

I am a poem unfinished. A color that was not good enough for the rainbow. A desert that never knew what a sunflower feels like in its soil. I am a coral reef that was touched and lost its vibrant colors. I am everything that is nothing. I am rubble of everything dismantled. I am…

Greet Africa when you return

I greet you AfricaI greet you from Cape to CairoI hug you with arms of my sister from SomaliaShe implored me:        Greet Africa when you return. At Southern Theatre we metOn a gray Scandinavian eveningBut the African sun still shone in her eyesThe effusive Nile flowed into our handshakeConnecting us in an…

Nyeri

I almost became that man’s second wifeI twisted my underwear here and thereI hynoptised myself that he was the oneI always thought of him. Whenever he sent me a text message“I suit you like the cover of a jerican”I would swing my hips to his tuneHe was my man. I waited for him at the…

The River

The riverThe unlimited waterThe beauty of natureDark in the night, blue in the day but am colourlessHow well I have been shapedHow soft I have been createdBigger than water but smaller in quantityI conduce smaller things like pinbut carry bigger things like ferryI Am welcomingI create power but reject powerThe river is my nameThose that…