All day yesterday visitors were flying to the original 2017 posting of these poems here at The Poet by Day. It’s not hard to guess what is driving interest in them. Here the poems are again for all to read and ponder along with a word from Bernie: “Trump promised to end endless wars, but this action puts us on the path to another one,” Sanders declared Thursday . . . He . . . framed it as a moment of moral gravity akin to the run-up to the Iraq War, not least because so much of the present conflict with Iran stems from the fateful intervention that began in 2003.” MOREHuffington Post
Lebanese-American poet, Khalil Gibran (1883-1931) public domain illustration
Pity the nation that is full of beliefs and empty of religion.
Pity the nation that acclaims the bully as hero,
and that deems the glittering conqueror bountiful.
Pity a nation that despises a passion in its dream,
yet submits in its awakening.
Pity the nation that raises not its voice
save when it walks in a funeral,
boasts not except among its ruins,
and will rebel not save when its neck is laid
between the sword and the block.
Pity the nation whose statesman is a fox,
whose philosopher is a juggler,
and whose art is the art of patching and mimicking.
Pity the nation that welcomes its new ruler with trumpeting,
and farewells him with hooting,
only to welcome another with trumpeting again.
“PITY THE NATION” Lawrence Ferlinghetti (After Khalil Gibran) 2007
Pity the nation whose people are sheep
And whose shepherds mislead them
Pity the nation whose leaders are liars
Whose sages are silenced
And whose bigots haunt the airwaves
Pity the nation that raises not its voice
Except to praise conquerors
And acclaim the bully as hero
And aims to rule the world
By force and by torture
Pity the nation that knows
No other language but its own
And no other culture but its own
Pity the nation whose breath is money
And sleeps the sleep of the too well fed
Pity the nation oh pity the people
who allow their rights to erode
and their freedoms to be washed away My country, tears of thee
Sweet land of liberty!
Your donation HERE helps to fund the ongoing mission of The Poet by Day in support of poets and writers, freedom of artistic expression, and human rights.
Link HERE for Free Human Rights eCourse designed and delivered by United For Human Rights, Making Human Rights a Fact
FEEL THE BERN
For Peace, Sustainability, Social Justice
Senator Bernie Sanders
The Poet by Day officially endorses Bernie for President.
“Democracy is not a spectator sport.” Bernie Sanders
“Every pair of eyes facing you has probably experienced something you could not endure.” Lucille Clifton
Thank you for sharing your love of words. Comments will appear after moderation.
“No one leaves home unless home is the mouth of a shark.” Warsan Shire,Teaching My Mother How to Give Birth
The wandering waters, dripping
Into rising seas and land now lonely
For his human foot, which finding
No room at the inn, wanders
Like the waters, violated like a fish
On the deck of a boat, gasping
Soul bludgeoned, human skulls
And fish entrails, politicos and
Pundits examine like I Ching coins,
Accidents of birth, plight of place
A remote sliver of moon surveils
From the starless sky, unmoved
Dedicated to my friend, Mbizo Chirasha, Zimbabwean Poet in Exhile. Please connect with me if you are able or know someone / some family able to host him in Germany. Thank you! bardogroup@gmail.com
Your donation HERE helps to fund the ongoing mission of The Poet by Day in support of poets and writers, freedom of artistic expression, and human rights.
Link HERE for Free Human Rights eCourse designed and delivered by United For Human Rights, Making Human Rights a Fact
FEEL THE BERN
For Peace, Sustainability, Social Justice
The Poet by Day officially endorses Bernie for President.
“Democracy is not a spectator sport.” Bernie Sanders
“Every pair of eyes facing you has probably experienced something you could not endure.” Lucille Clifton
Thank you for sharing your love of words. Comments will appear after moderation.
An annual international literature carnival, where writers, academics and readers discuss, critique literature. / copyright Litfest Harare
LitFest Harare Voices stitched together the November sacredness with the December Christmas fever.
Africa is gifted with a blessing of spoken word artists, literalists, wordsmiths and poetry arts activists. Recently in Zimbabwe dub poet and UNESCO Affiliate Chirikure Chirikure and fellow poets hosted a lineup of accomplished writers and poets through the the highly recognized literary arts fete Litfest Harare in partnership with Glasgow University, Daves Guzha’s Theatre in Park, United States of America Cultural Affairs in Harare and others. LitFest Harare Voices stitched together November sacredness with December Christmas fever.
Poet Sotambe Pusetso Lame at 2019 Sotambe Festival
Mbizo Chirasha
The Sotambe Live Literature Hub curated by fellow poet Mbizo Chirasha saw poetic words bathing copper belt of Kitwe to welcome the beautiful month of October. The Sotambe Live Literature Hub was a collaboration of Sotambe Film, Documentary Arts Festival with the International Human Rights Arts Festival founded by Writer and Artist Thomas Block. The Festival brought together poets from the SADC region that included Pusetso Lame of Botswana, trailblazing Vanessa Chisakula of Lusaka Zambia, and the dare – daring Philani Amadeus Nyoni of Zimbabwe. Africa’s poetry year was capped by the Maruping festival (GBV issues themed festival) in Botswana in partnership with European Union Delegation in Botswana bringing poets from around the world.
In that same literary arts activism wavelength, the Brave Voices Poetry Journal and the Zimbabwe We Want Poetry campaign founded and curated by Mbizo Chirasha an internationally acclaimed literary arts projects curator and poet introduces the Freedom Voices Poetry Writing Prize, an International poetry writing contest that saw more than fifty poets and activists participating from all over the globe. The contest was judged by globally revered poets and acclaimed writers that included Professor Michael Dickel, Poet and Editor James Coburn, and Reputable Journalist and writer Omwa Ombara and Professional Writing Mentor Tracy Yvonne Breazile.
The Winners of the 2019 Freedom Voices Prize are:
Adesina Ajala, a Nigeria poet with his poem FOR KEN SARO-WIWA ( First Prize),
Chrispah Munyoro, a Zimbabwean Poet with her poem ECHO CHAMBERS (Second Prize), and
Christopher Kudyahakudadirwe, a South African based Zimbabwean poet with his poem THE BUDDS ARE FRUITING ( third prize) .
Deceased Nigerian poet Ken Saro-Wiwa for whom Adesina Ajala’s poem is written
There are seven special mentions. The winners are to be published in five digital poetry spaces including the new look Brave Voices Poetry Journal and the seven special mentions will be featured in two platforms including the BRAVE VOICES POETRY JOURNAL.
The 2019 Freedom Voices Poetry Writing Prize was paying Tribute to Unique Heroes/ Heroines. It is an Ode for Cadres of Resistance (human rights, anti-imperialistic, antiapartheid, freedom of expression, fight for political justice, right to economic justice and right to social inclusion) including:
Ken Saro-Wiwa for movement for the survival of Ogoni people ( Nigeria,) Dedan Kimathi (Kenyan liberation struggle),
Steve Biko (fighting inequalities in South African apartheid,)
Lookout Masuku (fighting for political justice in Zimbabwe),
Charles Dambudzo Marechera (PenSlinger of Truth in Zimbabwe),
Ambuya Nehanda (medium spirit of Chimurenga (war of liberation) in Zimbabwe),
Ruth First (South African fighter for civil rights),
Winnie Madikizela Mandela (Fighter for political and economic rights in South Africa,
Itai Dzamara (fighter for human rights and freedom of expression in Zimbabwe), and
Freedom Nyamubaya (gunslinger during war of liberation, poet against dictatorship regime in Zimbabwe).
First Prize Winner, Nigerian Poet Adesina Ajala
ADESINA AJALA (Nigerian Poet) on winning the First Prize
SOZA’S BOY AND THE LEMONA’S TALE
For Ken Saro-Wiwa
October 10, 1941,
A sweet cry creaked into the crevices of Bori,
Cascaded with the swings of time
into songs in a time of war.
Like the anopheles mosquito, war was the drill poking Basi & company—
an ethnic minority, crisp lands & fecund rivers.
Shrapnel of crude oil scared faces of waters.
Oil marched the wicks of farmlands, wrecked every lushness in its paths.
A forest of flowers wilted, shed petals,
Became silhouette on a darkling plain.
The singing anthill homed bland silence.
This loud silence would be treason merely set in some four farcical plays.
Berserk bites of genocide in [Ogoniland] Nigeria.
& the Sozaboy chanted the Lemona’s tale—
the agony in the Ogoni girl became bared on the transistor radio.
& the warlords wrangled Wiwa’s weighted words,
Clasped him like prisoners of Jebs,
& clenched his body between the teeth of gallows.
Tell the hand that cuts the mahogany, his stump has sprout fresh leaves.
This poem, a leaf, sways.
Adesina Ajala is sprouting Nigerian medical doctor and writer, Adesina Ajala, desires to grow roots in the loam of the pen and the stethoscope. He does not know how he would fare, but he believes in journeying, in chances, possibilities and the divine. His works have found home in Writers Space Africa, EBOquills, Libretto, Featiler Rays, Brave Voices Poetry Journal and elsewhere. He was the co-winner of the first place of 2018 TSWF Writers Prize. He is on Instagram as and tweets @adesina_ajala.
CHRISPAH MUNYORO (Zimbabwean Poet) ON WINNING THE SECOND PRIZE
Second Prize Winner, Zimbabwe Poet Chrispah Munyoro
ECHO CHAMBER
When eobiont is my father
Living in darkness
Languishing sodom and gommorah
Christened by vampires
Baptised in Hades
My toys,wails and anguish
Bathing with my sweat
Lullaby of sjamboks,button sticks and tear gases
I am a graduate of doom
Hunger and thirst my delicacies
Daughters and sons of darkness
That chieftain ,who rule by subterfuge
Who had fried his heart eons ago
In glee at the cries of the babies
Salivating in total erasure of humans
Ejaculating venomous fire
How then can i think paradise is there
When i am a citizen of hell
Pot trained to be a hardcore bandit
Shrivelling,flowers squashed mercilessly
Future suspended and eroded
Pissing on the precious blemis
Expecting fruits from cactus
Chrispah Munyoro says, “I am a woman who never backs on what she wants to achieve. Ambiguous and hard work is the keys to success. Patience is a virtue I live by I don’t want cut out turn success. The saltiness of sweat unlocks hidden destinies. I am a down to earth woman who looks up to God with zeal.”
CHRISTOPHER KUDYAHAKUDADIRWE (Zimbabwe poet based in South Africa) on Winning the Third prize
THE BUDS ARE FRUITING
Who will tell Dambudzo Marechera
That the seeds that he sowed in us
Have sprouted and are doing well?
That’s right, we want him to know that
The flowers he left slowly budding
Have unfurled their bright petals
To grace the garden of literary bliss
Allowing bees to drink nectar sweet verse?
Who will tell our gallant literary hero:
One of the few who made living prophecies,
About the fermenting corruption
By trying nipping sprouting nepotism
And the cancerous looting in the bud
That would seize our house of stone?
Who will tell Dambudzo Marechera
What has become of the house of hunger
Which he was mind-blasting about
While non-believers stood on the fence
Pointing accusing fingers at him?
But, let me say: never mind your departure.
We, the little buds, will continue
That work that you left unfinished.
Christopher ‘Voice’ Kudyahakudadirwe is a Zimbabwean freelance writer, poet and teacher living and working in South Africa. His first poems appeared in a magazine called Tsotso which was published by the Budding Writers Association of Zimbabwe in the early 90s. Over the years his poems have been published in the following anthologies among others: Harvest: The University of the Western Cape Masters in Creative Writing Poetry Anthology 2016, Best “New” African Poets 2015 Anthology, Zimbolicious Poetry Anthology Volume 1. And his short stories in, Ghost-Eater and Other Stories, New Contrast, Moving On and Other Stories. He is currently running a poetry blog called http://www.kudyahakudadirwe.wordpress.com where he publishes his own poems.
The Magic was also in the Judging
OMWA OMBARA
Omwa Ombara
“The competition was pretty stiff. I hated to let some poems go. I hope the rest get literary mentions. Thank you for the opportunity to judge.”
Omwa Ombara ( First Phase Judge ).Omwa Ombara is The Editor in Chief at Tulipange Africa Media, a diaspora based Magazine in United States of America and Contributing Editor of Women Global Affairs at WOMAWORDS LITERARY PRESS.
TRACY YVONNE BREAZILE
Tracy Yvonne Brazile
“Reading the poems, I was delighted to find polished and confident voices. The poets offered a promise of creative potential surpassing my expectations. The quantity and quality of the writing served to motivate and challenge the mind with a common respect for the voices that linger in our shadows, reminding us of the importance that poetry can bring to problems that demand solutions. The only problem that I found was removing some from the list. This task was far more difficult that I had imagined. In the end, the poems that most closely matched the guidelines were the only match for decision making.
They were all beautifully crafted in both form and function. Although ultimately, there will be a list of winners, I found all of the poems that I read to be prized pieces of poetry that deserve a standing ovation. I found letters meant for reading and listening. Literature and Orature. I do declare, this was a tough task. Thank you, Brave Voices Poetry Journal 67, for paying tribute to unique heroes and heroines and celebrating their uniqueness.
Although ultimately, there will be a list of winners, I found all of the poems that I read to be prized pieces of poetry that deserve a standing ovation. I found letters meant for reading and listening. Literature and Orature.”
Tracy Yvonne Breazile (Second Judging Phase). is a writer living in the United States of America. She was granted the opportunity to serve as Writer/Mentor in Residence with the 2018 Zimbabwe We Want Poetry Mentorship Program, originated by Mbizo Chrirasha. Breazile studied Language and Literature with a concentration in Professional Writing at Columbus State University, Columbus, Georgia, USA
JAMES COBURN
James Coburn
“I was happy to read each poem. Each writer should be encouraged, as well as the ones not chosen. It was a pleasure reading the force and magnetic insight of each word. These are living words with a life of their own. Powerful and penetrating, forged in the flame of heart and traversing fear. Their ancestors would be proud.”
James Coburn is an Oklahoma poet in the United States of America. Coburn has always valued the subtext of life and seeks to reveal its undercurrents. He believes indifference is the enemy of man as it is the benefactor of ignorance, racism and xenophobia” James Coburn (Third Stage Freedom Voices Poetry Writing Contest). is an Oklahoma poet in the United States of America. Coburn has always valued the subtext of life and seeks to reveal its undercurrents. He believes indifference is the enemy of man as it is the benefactor of ignorance, racism and xenophobia.
MICHAEL DICKEL
Michael Dickel
“Poetry contest judges almost always must comment on the subjectivity of what we do. While the Freedom Prize has criteria to decide the quality of the poems, which I used, how well we / I as a single reader see the fit of any given poem to those criteria has to do with myself as reader as much as to the poem itself.
In this case, there were four criteria:
The poem fit the stated theme of the contest,
the poem was indeed poetry and not slogans and clichés,
the quality of the words and language used, and
the originality and creativity of the poem.
The first round of judging selected a “short-list” of ten poems, from which I was asked to select and rank the three best poems. All of this done anonymously, of course.
Another reader reading the ten poems on the short-list of poems might have found other poems of more merit for one reason or another. Reasonable readers may disagree with each other. I had the honor of being asked to select, and I have chosen three that I think stood out. However, this was not an easy task.
The passion of the voices in these ten poems would come across to any reader. The music of the poems, with rhythm and rhyme flowing, consonance and assonance, sounds crafted into what we call poetry. The poet of each of these poems deserves praise both for political activism expressed as poetry and for caring for others, their people, and the world.
The Third Place poem I chose is The Buds Are Fruiting. In this highly original poem, we learn “That the seeds…” Dambudzo Marechera“…sowed in us/ have sprouted and are doing well…” and “The flowers he left slowly budding/ Have unfurled their bright petals…” Unfortunately, “fermenting corruption,” “nepotism,” and “cancerous looting” have also budded, and need to be nipped. Merechera is blamed and indicted by finger pointers. Yet, the poem ends with hope: “We, the little buds, will continue/ That work that you left unfinished.”
The Second Place poem, Echo Chamber introduced me to a new word, eobiont (a hypothetical primordial pre-life chemical) in its opening line. The poem moves from the “father” (of life?) to “Living in darkness” and moves through Sodom and Gomorrah, vampires that Christen the speaker of the poem in Hades…the speaker’s “toys, wails and anguish/ Bathing with my sweat…” This dark poem paints a vivid picture in images painted with a few words, and in these images we see and feel the suffering of Africa and its children from “That chieftain, who rules by subterfuge/ Who had fried his heart eons ago/ In glee at the cries of the babies…” This poem strongly condemns and indicts the cruelty of those in power who savor the suffering of others. Rather than taking responsibility and stopping the suffering, they savor it, and this has cost them their hearts (and souls).
(For Ken Saro-Wiwa), my selection as the First Place poem in the Freedom Prize contest, combines the strengths of these other two poems. It speaks to an historical figure, using strong images and poetic skill to create a poem that reaches the heart, lays bare injustices, but also ends with a type of hope. After a significant date in the first line, “October 10, 1941,” we read “A sweet cry creaked into the crevices of Bori…” The repeated hard “c”— cry, creaked, crevices— pulls us along with some dread, given their contretemps to the “sweet.” The next line begins with “cascaded,” repeating that same hard “c” into “the swings of time/ into songs in a time of war.” In the next stanza we read that “Shrapnel of crude oil scarred faces of waters.” The oil goes on to “march” through farmland, destroying the environment as it goes, until “ This loud silence would be treason merely set in four farcical plays.” We are given “genocide,” “warlords,” and “gallows,” along the way “the agony in the Ogoni girl became bared on the transistor radio.” And after Saro has been hung, where is the hope? “Tell the hand that cuts the mahogany, his stump has sprout fresh leaves./ This poem, a leaf, sways.” The hope comes from the poem, from poets. At least, we hope that this will be true.)
—Michael Dickel, Jerusalem, November 2019
Michael Dickel (Finalists Judge). Michael (Dickel) Dekel has authored six published books and chapbooks (pamphlets) of poetry and short fiction, and published over 200 individually published poems, short stories, and non-fiction pieces, in addition to book-reviews and academic articles—under his birth name, Michael Dickel.
RESILIENCE IS THE KEY
“We advocate for freedom of expression and upholding of human rights through our voices of resistance –POETRY and Literary Arts Activism Interventions like the Freedom Voices Poetry Writing Prize.” MBIZO CHIRASHA is the Originator of the Zimbabwe We Want Poetry Campaign , Curator of the Brave Voices Poetry Journal and the Founder of the Freedom Voices Poetry Writing Prize .
Editor’s Note: This post is complied courtesy of Mbizo Chirasha, the three prize-winning poets, the four competition judges along with LitFest Harare, Brave Voices Poetry Journal, Freedom Voices Poetry Prize, and the Sotambe Festival. The poems, photographs and header illustration are under copyright to the poets, those photographed, and LitFest as noted. The judges own their narratives and photographs.
The blogosphere being what it is – a soundbite world – I know readers will be tempted to skim. I would submit the material here is worthy of close attention, the poems and the judges commentary offer much for us to ponder as caring and conscious human beings and as poets.
Jamie Dedes. I’m a freelance writer, poet, content editor, and blogger. I also manage The BeZineand its associated activities and The Poet by Dayjamiededes.com, an info hub for writers meant to encourage good but lesser-known poets, women and minority poets, outsider artists, and artists just finding their voices in maturity. The Poet by Day is dedicated to supporting freedom of artistic expression and human rights and encourages activist poetry. Email thepoetbyday@gmail.com for permissions, commissions, or assignments.
“My advice is simple. Poetry has feeling. It must address its subject with depth and conviction. It must be unbiased and true to its feeling in order to touch another.” Nancy Ndeke
My introduction to Nancy Ndeke comes by way of a deepening connection with exiled Zimbabwean poet, Mbizo Chirasha, WOMAWORDS LITERARY PRESS *Literary Dope* Extra-Revolutionary*Creative Crazy* (Liberated Voices). I thank him for giving me another platform for having my say and for introducing me to Nancy and other African poets. I’ve read quite a number of Nancy’s poems and writings. I’m impressed with her ethic and insights. I’m also pleased with this evolving African connection. We have been short on African representation and representation from those of the African Diaspora. Foundational to the work of The Poet by Day and The BeZine is to take advantage of what I think of as Global Living. This is a gift of the Internet. If we share art and stories across borders, it helps defy the often dehumanizing rhetoric of mainstream media and the always dehumanizing rhetoric of those who benefit from fomenting national, racial, and religious fear and bigotry, not for sake of the people but for sake of their own power and wealth.
*
“If you’re not careful, the newspapers will have you hating the people who are being oppressed, and loving the people who are doing the oppressing.” Malcom X
– Jamie Dedes
*
INTERVIEW
*
JAMIE: Please tell us of the life experience that brought you to your activism?
*
NANCY: What brought me to activism is both personal and public. At the age of ten, I was involved in accident. I suffered seizures as a result, a most misunderstood illness especially in rural Africa in the seventies. I was traumatised and stigmatized by the mis/treatment that birthed in me a spirit of defending vulnerable persons in whatever situation.
*
Then, in the late nineties, I worked with an NGO in a civil war torn country in Africa. The inhumanity of humans was the most shocking. This again led to my writings exposing the vagaries of war and especially toward the weak.
*
JAMIE: What made you decide on poetry as a vehicle for activism?
*
NANCY: Poetry has always been the love of my life since it was introduced to me in junior high school. Its ability to borrow strongly from emotions and sentiments ensure feelings are conveyed as near accurately as possible in order to identify with the subject matter. Poetry, I also find, has its own freedom in expression, especially free verse, which is my preference.
*
JAMIE: We have some readers here who are just beginning to use poetry as their nonviolent weapon of choice in combatting injustice. What words of advice and encouragement can you give them?
*
NANCY: My advice is simple. Poetry has feeling. It must address its subject with depth and conviction. It must be unbiased and true to its feeling in order to touch another.
*
POEMS*
LAST TESTAMENT,
Is the un-gluing of ancient loves,
Is the dying songs of fairy tales,
Is the admonishment of lullabies ,
Is the scattering of kin bonds,
Last testament,
Is a leftist swing from right,
Is Maths without formulae, and
If there is,
The sum total of outcome is dearth
Knocking family hearth with rebellion
Un-commanding the commandments with mad commendations,
Topsy Turvy is the imbalance of status quo long overthrown
Alas!! In celebrating birth we forgot death
In chanting arrival,we forgot the end is the beginning,
Children of clay baying for the moon shine in shadow of truant machismo
Is there light except light?
How about love? Does it come with color?
Who knows the day before birth and the one after death?
We are quite a mouthful us who think we know for we know bias
Ask the wind, ask the tides, ask the fog and mist about the mysteries of life,
Humility is prayer,
Gratitude is song
We are poverty itself without the two.
WHEN THE BEDROOM,
Erupted on fire and milk coagulated,
The honey dried into an angry plastic.
Impenetrable and
Blatantly nasty
War is synonymous with death
Except from profiteers
Who grin with pomp and flair
At boosted arms deals
Heaven disagrees on principle
Earth receives the rogue principal
His mastery of greed as an incentive
The undoing of civilizations
Chanting empire slogans
Lads and lands are tagged
Boundaries defined and minions positioned
Henceforth learning starts
Of half truths and pure lies.
Gods multiply
God is ridiculed and sold as a fairy tale
Men lord it over the earth
Dimming thoughts of seekers
Till, darkness dot the irises of populations
Praying to rights of theorem
While wrong sips grape juice
At the heaps of gold and diamonds
Stacked close to crude barrels
Deliverables from the smoky ruins
Of recent massacres,
Of children of the Same God.
What became of men?
NARRATIVE.
Am a narrative of the road riding the wind
The shooting star in the sleepy eyes of earth
I speak the light on tree tops whispering ancient oaths of love
Am new on an old journey cheering pain on to an unknown end
Am the biased child of the moon holding secrets of lovers in tender arms
Am the invisible flow of emotions walking the isle of oaths
My foot leaves no footprints except the faith of chartered beginnings and ends
My song is the silent rays of the sun warming the bones of men at the edge
My dance is the sway of the palm tree laughing at the insulting tides
I am a narrative that is a chorus in the rapids of wild waters,
My father is the King of the words and my mother is the mysterious keeper of secrets
My siblings may be rogue but no less divine
Nuisance has embedded its parts on my narrative and now the road suffers hiccups
Potholes rival the narration soiling it with twisted beliefs of another
Now, my narrative stings with the fumes of borrowed ideology, am reduced to an uprooted stump
The agony so prevalent i have learnt to live the lie of the liar
My narrative has been hijacked by a puppeteer I tell ends before beginnings
Am embroiled with inner turmoil reducing my speech to a slur,
My narrative has been invaded by a strange tongue and I admit to being afraid
But woe unto you if you hazard my defeat
Am the child of the mugumo tree that fetches its water from the Indian ocean
And all your mutated lessons shall like a leaf in the fall, fall
And i shall rise with the wind of first light and tell it to the birds
Am not ashamed to have slipped over your slippery tongue
But damn me if I ever fall again
And this narrative of the skin on my bones shall forever thrive
A reminder that am here as no accident, so dear, deal with your lying tongue
Am a narrative of the road riding the wind,
My echo of joyful living is the screech of gravel on your ears,
You, denier of colors.
AM MANY THINGS,
As variant as the oceans’ emotions,
Spectacular like the sky and its unknown splendour,
Am the lone flower in the forest,
Differently the same with dead trees and bees hunting nectar
Am the fool chasing a speck of light in clouded breathes of conflict,
Am the song in the windpipe of a newborn
Am the voice of silence singing twilight dirges of animals on the path of extinction
Am the word in the phrase that refuses praise to common camouflage of peeling skins of graduates of ideology.
Am a son of the sun
Blemished with innuendos of a vagabond restrained from apostasy,
My home threw me out and replaced me with the after birth
Am the old gnarled tree with crooked roots and bent branches,
I sing of stars and realms of yesterdays that tomorrow shall witness,
Am the stone death to denial of the rights of the weak
Though my walk is feeble and my eyes rheumy,
I see life as more than breath and showmanship
And I roam the hostile home of my ancestry with the hymn of creation
As I wait for dust to welcome my tent,
And I shall flee to the beginning.
NANCY NDEKE is the Associate Editor of Liberated Voices, a Poet of international acclaim, and a reputable literary arts consultant. Her writings and her poetry are featured in several collections, anthologies and publications around the globe including the American magazine Wild Fire, Save Africa Anthology. World Federation of Poets in Mexico. Ndeke is a Resident Contributor of the Brave Voices Poetry Journal since mid-2018. African Contributor to the DIFFERENT TRUTHS, a publication that sensitizes the world on the plight of Autism edited by Aridham Roy. SAVE AFRCA ANTHOLOGY, edited by Prof. Dave Gretch of Canada and reviewed by Joseph Spence Jr., has featured her poetry and a paper on issues afflicting Africa and Africans.
Ndeke’s poetry and other literatures in WILD FIRE PUBLICATION in America published by Susan Joyner Stumpf and Susan Brooke Langdon. ARCS MAGAZINE in New York Edited by DR. Anwer Ghani. Her women Arts Presentation was recently published by WOMEN OF ART (WOA) in Cape Coast in Ghana. Soy Poesia, in Peru, Claudette V pg 11 featured her writings with great reception. AZAHAR from Mexico, with the initiative from Josep Juarez has also featured her poetry as has in WORLD FESTIVAL OF POTRY (WFP) from Mexico under the able editorial team comprising Luz Maria Lopez. She has been featured by INTERNATIONAL AFRICAN WRITERS from Nigeria, under the able hands of Munyal Markus Manunyi; Patricia Amundsen from Australia featured her poetry on this year’s international women’s day at Messenger of Love, Radio Station; and, esteemed poet Jolly Bhattacharjee featured Ndeke’s works on her greatly acclaimed awareness anthology for 2019, India.
Jamie Dedes. I’m a freelance writer, poet, content editor, and blogger. I also manage The BeZineand its associated activities and The Poet by Dayjamiededes.com, an info hub for writers meant to encourage good but lesser-known poets, women and minority poets, outsider artists, and artists just finding their voices in maturity. The Poet by Day is dedicated to supporting freedom of artistic expression and human rights and encourages activist poetry. Email thepoetbyday@gmail.com for permissions, commissions, or assignments.
NANCY NDEKE is the Associate Editor of Liberated Voices, a Poet of international acclaim, and a reputable literary arts consultant. Her writings and her 
Jamie Dedes' THE POET BY DAY Webzine 