Religion
In a rush
For my life
To work
The way you want
Or have seen
One lifetime
In a movie
Or the neighbours
Are the fittest
In the selfies
Last week
Head anywhere
Come on
Follow faster.
Copyright © Nomzi Kumalo, 2015.
WHAT ARE YOU WAITING FOR
Religion
In a rush
For my life
To work
The way you want
Or have seen
One lifetime
In a movie
Or the neighbours
Are the fittest
In the selfies
Last week
Head anywhere
Come on
Follow faster.
Copyright © Nomzi Kumalo, 2015.
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.
The day you realise that you are
A drop in the ocean
Against the pressure the urgency of the importance of your veins.
Copyright © Nomzi Kumalo, 2015.
She had lost her mother tongue
How he laughed too at her standing hair
That place where he felt stronger than her
So she sang empty reassuring words
So that he could sleep.
Copyright © Nomzi Kumalo, 2015.
Waiting for the bus to come
To take away these long arctic minutes
Oh sun have mercy
Reveal my forgiving heart.
Copyright © Nomzi Kumalo, 2015.
A Light feathery dance
Snowflakes settle neatly
And cold one after the other
White wilderness arouses suspicion
Life muffled to somewhere else.
Copyright © Nomzi Kumalo, 2015.
A hot bowl of butter nut soup
Liquid sunshine in her belly
Keeping her own codes of love
Summer is a small fortune away.
Copyright © Nomzi Kumalo, 2015.
Atoms alarms and lizard links
Sacred spirits with breathing hearts
When even grief itself is losing its grip
And humiliation has lost my name
Only time has all the time in the world
While my memories carve my place
Warnings may not sound like love
Love may sound like warnings.
Copyright © Nomzi Kumalo, 2015.
Inside the belly of the dark city
She sprinted into the wet icy night
Until her throat and chest burned
To catch the warm fire of life.
Copyright © Nomzi Kumalo, 2015.
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.
Jealousy teach her something beyond entertainment
Tell her to close her legs for he boasts about his latest purchase
But mine is better have you not seen
She feels no pain
He says.
Copyright © Nomzi Kumalo, 2015.
The future is growing up landless lawless
Another man reads his good book in the dark
She clings to her cold creams for dear life
Neither will say I love you first.
Copyright © Nomzi Kumalo, 2015.
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.
The weight of your mistakes
Was so heavy inside my body
Almost too dense to contain
So love left to find love again
But love was waiting for time.
Copyright © Nomzi Kumalo, 2015.
I love your brown colour
That shade on your legs
She said casually one day
As though talking paint
To enhance her chances
Of better love getting.
Copyright © Nomzi Kumalo, 2014.
Hands deep in the communal water
Love, the kitchen cupboards, dishes
Piled up again to live out my religion
My feet and my heart, compassion
How comforting the steaming kettle
Whistling my life pressures away
Naked before all of my confessions
I now wipe the table clear of dirt
Breathe hymns into the soft season.
Copyright © Nomzi Kumalo, 2014.
A slice of cake so sweet it burns
That chocolate rush pop thrill
Smooshed into a vanilla ice cream cool.
Copyright © Nomzi Kumalo, 2014.
We cross giant earth bridges
For life was never this divine
Never this wary of sacrifice
These edgy and neurotic soils
Each suspicion hidden in things
Unforgiven.
Copyright © Nomzi Kumalo, 2014.
Bleaching life right out into oblivion
They touch as if they will never leave each other clean
He has a younger woman now and again, immigrant
Double lives
Utopia.
Copyright © Nomzi Kumalo, 2014.
Itchy ears as they speak of you back home
When you have wandered far enough to miss
Worms snuggling and turning the wet earth
Mysterious signals within the simple duties.
Copyright © Nomzi Kumalo, 2014.
I do not want to sleep
Miss anything tonight
And join Monday world.
Copyright © Nomzi Kumalo, 2014.
Forests of dark coily hair jerseyed
Into the fabric of my immigrant life
Understanding what is my ground
Something that’s not yours to name.
Copyright © Nomzi Kumalo, 2014.
Beautiful cool sticky city rain
One appreciates after sickness
Or a strange kind of love affair
Or waking in a different home
Pavements rinsed of yesterday
And the concrete eventually sighs, relief
For a weight has finally left my chest
Into the sweet grey merciful day
Tears that stream towards their place
Burning to return the love and move
Move to where the ocean curves.
Copyright © Nomzi Kumalo, 2014.
So then I repeat my disasters
Swap their miserable positions
And frame every single misery
As though each is honourable
Nail them fast to the afternoon
They protect the other reasons
Tiring each other out once more
But oh so familiar and oh so safe.
Copyright © Nomzi Kumalo, 2014.