Deep down inside you are angry with someone. Forgive her so that you can be yourself again.
Copyright © Nomzi Kumalo, 2018.
Tag: poem
Published: Blue is the quietest colour
I am thrilled to finally be able to have time to announce that I was published in Ons Klynti; an independent South African cultural magazine. To have my poem Blue is the quietest colour in print in this issue is still like a dream. I keep looking from time to time to check that it’s still there. The magazine is published and launched annually at the Oppikoppi music festival in South Africa.
Thank you so much for appreciating my work like this. Read more about this incredible magazine @ Ons Klyntji
Thank you 🌸
Copyright © Nomzi Kumalo, 2018.
Activate healing
“When we give ourselves the chance to let go of all our tension, the body’s natural capacity to heal itself can begin to work.”
Thich Nhat Hanh
Copyright © Nomzi Kumalo, 2018.
Open your hands
“Open your hands if you want to be held.”
Rumi.
Copyright © Nomzi Kumalo, 2018.
Focus
“When walking, walk. When eating, eat.”
Zen Proverb
So simple and yet so profound. Indeed, it is the distractions that make life quite miserable. How invigorating it is when I am in that zone, concentrating 🌸
Copyright © Nomzi Kumalo, 2018.
Editing
Life can get challenging sometimes, so when it does, find the light; in a poem, a song, a good conversation, a shared meal, rest, under a tree or by the sea.
I remember going through a painful period in my life that pushed me to write my first WordPress post about returning home to South Africa, essentially to myself. Some day I will tell you about how poetry chose me back then. For now I keep writing and editing my poetry book.
Over 1000 followers later, I am truly grateful for your support, guidance and inspiration 🌸
Copyright © Nomzi Kumalo, 2017.
A Poem’s worth
Each poem is a tiny surrender
A peace offering to you human
Something to slow me down
Long enough to remember you
Long enough to remember me
Home where we know that song.
Copyright © Nomzi Kumalo, 2014.
Originally posted 28 November 2014.
The Fabric of love
All the same
Sexual reflectors inform us
That we desperately seek love
So I sewed the hole in my pocket first
For what remains sacred
What keeps me warm
In my heart.
Copyright © Nomzi Kumalo, 2015.
Blue is the quietest colour
I can hardly breathe for the love
When light makes our skin so real
Scars and marks I won’t recognise
I have no want to join such details
Many tones of blue before dawn
The colouring of regret and hope
Blue ink drenched all the surfaces
To soften the stretch marks of life
Curling up into this our ordinary
I can now smell the quiet of you
Hearing that love can’t get closer
For love is sleeping outside of me
Your skin now glowing blue milk
I do forgive you, I do forgive you
I reach out to celebrate your body
Make you witness your choices.
Copyright © Nomzi Kumalo, 2014.
Originally posted 22 May 2014.
Summer break. Wishing you peace.
I am love
Listening to my heart
Honouring my life
I am love.
Copyright © Nomzi Kumalo, 2015.
After Hell
Brought to my knees
Yet I am still calling out an Earthly name
Whose claims of love I never believed
Even when he stood in the fire with me
Because there is not enough desire
No not in this world
To drink disappointment away
Devastated that you are always thirsty
As God and death wait patiently
For me to leap into love once more
Without a single promise
What is my name.
Copyright © Nomzi Kumalo, 2015.
Forgiveness
I scrub away your burden
Down the drain
Everything softens in the shower.
Copyright © Nomzi Kumalo, 2015.
Published 5 March 2014
Pray for Spring
Warm gentle rays
Briefly unclench the concrete town
Winter draining into the swollen underearth
Whose bowels digest the dark of your discontent
But who am I to mistake your magnificence
Your cool air invigorating life’s purpose
Oh lift me up
Once more.
Copyright © Nomzi Kumalo, 2015.
Will you put down your weapon first
She winces as he mashes the food on his plate
Salty gravy oozing between his dark fingers
She wonders how to turn this into a documentary
And misses the tender textures of love.
Copyright © Nomzi Kumalo, 2015.
Nothing like the wind of truth
In the season of black confetti skies
He is still playing the redeemer
And she dances around that song
While she can still skip the adverts
But for how long.
Copyright © Nomzi Kumalo, 2015.
International love
You tell me how much money he makes
When I am asking you about his character
His passport holds no currency in my heart.
Copyright © Nomzi Kumalo, 2014.
Menstruation
Nights when I watch the hours turn
As shadows struggle with the moon’s cause
And just after the two longest minutes have passed
While my temple of love clings still to my heavy heart
I birth the loss of you and the ill you tried to burden me with
Because it is very human to be human
And pride comes before a fall.
Copyright © Nomzi Kumalo, 2014.
Love until the end of time
When beauty no longer misleads us
When our bodies no longer separate us
When our achievements are forgotten
When all our mistakes have softened
When talking is no longer a commodity
When love abandons physical currency
When you have been there all along.
Copyright © Nomzi Kumalo, 2014.
A Poem’s worth
Each poem is a tiny surrender
A peace offering to you human
Something to slow me down
Long enough to remember you
Long enough to remember me
Home where we know that song.
Copyright © Nomzi Kumalo, 2014.
A Date
Fumbling through your unfamiliar rituals
For things you two would never honour
How could society leave you alone like this.
Copyright © Nomzi Kumalo, 2014.
The Sun still shines out there
Arm in arm in brown leather shoes
Strolling under misty autumn skies
Keeping to the mild golden pathways
Only the forgiving day demands of us.
Copyright © Nomzi Kumalo, 2014.
The Blue in Monday
The air has not moved since last night
There does not seem to be enough milk
In a fridge of drab leftovers and cold
To soothe a spoilt dull and overfed ego.
Surviving the borders
The salmon river moves this way
To finally meet the sea swirling
Without nothing enough to say
About what lies beyond the fjord
And lands rearranging regardless
Of how many die for paradise
To be in charge of something
Anything.
Copyright © Nomzi Kumalo, 2014.
Season of hardening
The loss of you sits perfectly
In the season of hardening
Learning what patience governs
The rhythm before I met you
For my life is finally mine.
Copyright © Nomzi Kumalo, 2014.
Age is love
Into the long invisible road ahead
Solitude and a long distance heart
I am here and you are by my side
Exactly where we are meant to be
Timing turned out perfect after all.
Copyright © Nomzi Kumalo, 2014.
NOMZI KUMALO 