A Charming Bug’s Plight (Haiku)

A ladybird flies

And blesses me with delight

On this vivid day.

She flies but not far,

A bump into a leaf stalls

This perfect moment.

Red and black wing hues

Blend as she flutters in haste.

I wish she departs.

For once she lets up

And walks on a leaf’s stalk,

Finally she stops.

I grab hold of her,

On my dry palm she marches,

Itchy stings she leaves.

Her little wings flap

All in vain as she falls down

What a sorry sight!

In a woody nick

She now hides like a shy child,

Inside she kips from me.

At last she comes out

And I smile as she budges out.

Yes, shes the day’s star.

Swiftly, the wind blows

And she dashes in circles

Before it all stops.

Again and again

She plummets like heavy hail,

Now she flies away.

Broken Emotions

These cracks on my skin are the sores
Of your broken kisses,
My numb emotions are the scars you left
Behind,

I walk following the blood trail of my mind,
My crimson tainted thoughts speak the pain
I now call home,

Look into my eyes?
Do you see what I’ve become?
I look in the mirror and hate what I’ve
Turned into.

Cry for me so that I quench
My thirst with your pure tears,
Let the rain come and wash away my pain,
Embrace this lachrymal to heal me again,
Without you this isn’t who I want to be.

The Truth

It is not what you think it is

It is that which you speak

And all that they seek,

A hiss with a kiss

Is all that the truth has.

Today flowers will die with his loss

Is this the truth?

It is the reason for your being here,

It is a slalom road to home,

Someday I’ll come

And take us away from this lame

Consign of oblivion.

Every word,

Every step,

Every breathe

You take are all in

The name of the truth.

Empathy thumps with a passion

But we choose not to see it.

In the quest of seeking truth

You lose me and I lose you.

We all are too close for

Time to separate us.

It is there for us to hold

It is that which the blind can see,

It is beneath every sorrowful face

It is in the terror of mankind

The reason for any war

Are the woes that man

Can live without…

These sins are the inner reflections

Of the demons in everyone.

I ask for the truth

And again you’ll tell me

What you want to hear.

Big Jelly Belly

Big bouncy tummy
Wiggles like jelly,
Yes, this here is my
Big jelly belly.
Inside it hoofs
And sighs with puffs.

Giggles captivate whenever
I rub my belly,
With a love so deep
That I kneel at its presence.
I love my belly and so does he.

My aching back is worth
This gift of immortality
That the lord has granted.
With my hands on my belly
I hear it’s little heart beat
Like drums, like my heart’s
Rhythmic beats, it beats
And plays tunes of an
Alien world.

Sometimes my tummy
Goes to sleep and I miss
Its cute side kicks,
At night I sleep but it doesn’t.
Sweat drips down from
My warm belly as it moves
Just like jelly.

A sense of completion grows
In me, In me an art of life
Will sprout with a cry for
Mother to warm its new
And eloquent life form.
My shaky tummy talks to me
When no one is here, I sing
Lullabies of the evergreen forest.

I wake up all sweaty inside,
I’m still sweet, like jelly the
Aches can’t break me,
A reason to be a wife,
Its treason to lose this life
Now I know what it feels
Like to be alive
Like a queen of he I feel.

Squeaks from my belly
Speak volumes I can’t
Ignore…garbles bequeaths
With pleasures only I can feel.
Immersed with life my belly is,
I hold no regrets for
My big jelly belly.

Umukashi Wandi Uwawama (Zambian Haiku)

Nalikutemwa,

Kwena waliwamisha--

Ulimusuma.

No More

A thousand times my pain has slayed me,
A million times I’ve lost me,
A hundred years I’ve lived trying to be you,
In you I saw a new me, a man of lost cause.
No more pain
No more hurting.
It all ends tonight,
On this cliff of where the gods rest,
I’ll end it all.

Last night I died in my dreams
It is a freedom granted by the angel
Of pain.
As I ask for God to send me an angel,
I also beg to breathe my last.
As I walk this walk of twinges,
I beseech to love on more soul.
No more me
No more tears
No more fear

As I look above for answers…
I lose this fight for to be free,
Free from all known iniquity
And other vices of Satan.
As I close my eyes,
I pray you too won’t sleep tonight.
Let not the gory glory take me away,
Let your will be done my lord.
No more…
No more…

It Must Be Love (Haiku)

Why do I miss you?
I did not ask to love you,

It just happened.

I'm Not My Skin Part 1 (Teine Inkanda Yandi)

 "I don't mean to offend anyone with this poem."

I’m not my skin

I’m not your expectations,

I’m the soul that lives within,

I’m that which the blind can see

And all that you can’t see.

I’m the little boy confused

By the world’s segregation,

I’m the laugh of their talk,

I’m not trying to be you,

Look at my stiff black hair?

It stands tall like trees in the forest:

It feels so pure and sets me free.

Look at my thoughts, they are diverse

And full of colors.

I’m not my skin

I’m not who you think I am,

I’m the river that flows and blesses

Every oasis with a touch of water.

I’m the man who sees no color.

Touch my tan skin

And you’ll see that I’m human too.

I’m not trying to gain approval from you,

I just want you to know that I’m not my skin.

My culture is scarred by the human traitors,

I owe no forgiveness to any man alive…

Does the way I walk, smile or wear my afro

Make me any less human?

Should I be ashamed of my own skin?

I’m not my hair,

I’m the soul that lives within,

Poverty, disease, loss of human dignity

Are my arch enemies besides man.

Your broken kisses heal my human body,

Your spite for a person of my kind

Cannot break or shake to take me away into any

Sort of mortal shame for the skin that covers my

Bones and muscles.

My heart beats rhythmically like a Zambian drum,

My broad nose inhales the air my ancestors left,

My eyes see the moon, sun and the stars

That my Bantu forefathers

Worshiped and sacrificed lives for…

And this is who I’ll always be.

I’m not my skin,

I’m the simple person you’ll never know,

I’m the culture will never touch,

I’m the proud onyx soul you’ll never kiss.

I’m that little girl on mother’s back

Who she carried whenever

She went begging on the street,

I’m that lost lone needle in the hay.

But you can only see my russet skin..

In me you can only see a slave,

A second class human!

I’ll continue to walk tall like the beautiful

African queen my mother told me I’m.

I’m not my skin,

Like you, I’m not perfect, I react when I don’t mean to.

To kill me, take away my skin

And throw it beyond my children’s reach.

My black skin rages your emotions…

Your lust for another killing of my kind

Fuels every breath you take.

Here’s a knife tear my skin apart?

You’ll see that the blood I hold is scarlet…

Like a human’s or any other animal’s.

When my heart is broken I cry just like you do,

To you good skin means bright and not black.

The sun can’t hurt me I tamed her,

The night’s creatures can’t see me

Because my skin camouflages my soul.

Your bitter words can’t hurt me, I hate them not you.

An Ingress To Death Lurks

Twinkling eyes of a lost boy

Stare fiercely in the dark,

Like a shadow of the night

He silently craws

To the depth of fear, the only mother

He has ever known.

The tears in his eyes are the consequence

Of his ghastly fate…

Each day his virtuousness is slain before

The ogling souls.

Like a trapped soul he remains tormented

By the thoughts of the sun he never saw,

His sorrow takes a human voice

His soul wastes away as

They watch his void grow.

Sun dries his tears as he looks to

The same sky we all lay under,

The lantern lite streets

He calls home bare a cheerless

Fate that sees him day by day.

Arising from his sinister destiny

A rose he holds cuts his skin,

The truth cleaves to burn his face again,

“Cry no more my child,

Bleed not in vain.”

His slit wrists lead him

To a domicile where

He hurts no more.

She Walks And I Look

When she walks by,
She makes my day.
A mayday alert rings
Whenever she walks by.
She walks and I look.

She swirls like a an ocean's wave,
And I admire every little bit of her.
My eyes met hers, I melt with shyness.
Her sublime beauty echoes for my touch,
The hue of her lips beg for my kiss…
She walks And I look.

Beauty meets eyes as she walks,
Light she brings as she walks,
A new life in me she gives as she walks,
Trees whisper her name as she walks,
She’s the talk of the men when she walks,
Their eyes are magnetized at her sight…
Flamboyantly she walks and I look too.

Glowing eyes of the night watchers
Light her pathway as she walks,
She is their princess.
A priceless sight of splendor she is,
She wears as bright as day
Her eyes as dark as night verbalize
My inner reflections…
She sleeps and I look.

Golden footprints she leaves,
Lead down my soul,
Through my mind
And straight to my heart.
I must follow them!
She strolls down the valley of
My lust, I look and she does too.
We both smile and walk away…
Tomorrow she’ll walk my way
And I’ll look at her again.

This piece was inspired by Maya's 'Phenomenal Woman'.

I’m Not My Skin Part 2 (Nshili Inkanda Yandi)

Black or white it doesn’t matter anymore,

Because it never did.

Pitch black afros rise to kiss this unworthy

Feeling of not being part of this race,

What they say won’t scar us!

But who are they?

They are us and we are them

And together we are one but only

Separated by our selfish desires.

A day will come when we will toil

To save this home that we’ve destroyed…

We will embrace the humanity in us.

You can hate me but not because of the

Tone of my skin or the way I speak

My western tongue.

Hate me for a reason, because I will not

Hurt and hate you in return; its not in my nature.

One day I hope we will hold hands

And make a truce to live and love each

Other just the way God wants.