Poetry

Grandmother Hearth

i looked at her face

And i was confronted by engraved tributaries

Spidying in trickles trinkets in a thousand cracks impressions

 

Hair bleached

By the wink and dosing suns

That peer, skip and dunked away during her lifetime

Silvered not by artificial means, nay-nay

But a grey of knowledge

 

Her magnetic eyes

Washed out as if by thousands and thousandth of life’s film reels

Year in year out as her moon galloped onwards

Her faded fiery orbs giving in to complain as they hold the world with a soft gaze

Dazed and weaned of their potency at everything life has strewn before them in a swoosh

 

Ears sagged

Like heavy puffy bags that held over the years all and all of all noises, sayings, stories

Fabled sagged and suckled

And the potency of listening itself

An art that a few master in their circle of life

Movement obscured by retardation of all miles walked

All grounds conveyed beneath

Her scuffles

Sole screech

Pause

A look here, a look there. Aloft. Brittle.

But cherished as a prime leaf in free fall;

Standing on an extra leg

Squeaky woodenly leg

Indexing the unreliable heavens

 

And as you’re young ‘ones sway in the harsh wind slap blow

Reckon that time claims everything

Somber warm tears shimmer

Meshed with selfish gladness and burrowing sorrow

Oh dear, we’re sated in every seconds of your sageful breath taken with us

And in your spring we’re quelled quenched, nkokoa’rona.

 

© Mmutle Arthur Kgokong 2014

  • This Poem originally written in 2014 is dedicated to the matriarch my grandmother Mmule Evelyn Kgokong affectionately known as Mmane Baba (8 December 1922 – 8 January 2020). May your commune with the primordial be blissful eternally.

 

 

Seluj ‘oH

From first sip of your cup; to quench the far away ending of a quest to look yonder for another love; its befitting to gesture  that it was dreamy cool.

Oh Seluj; you whose eyes sang of hope and resilience for the dreams that swelled in your delicate bosom, yet in your fragility you gesticulated that even the fragile can dream.

For a while there I came three sixty five complete. In your breath. In your acknowledgement of my soul Seluj ‘oH.

(more…)

The Wake

I swung flung the doors of my front door open for you

Invited you through the corridors of my most precious memories

Led you to swirl on my glaringly white linen and wove stories for you

Forged through my powers of imagination with a dash of realism

But yet when fortune favored you in turn you briskly flung swung shut your doors on my face.

Funny wasn’t that a hint of friendship that I saw at the corner of your eye? Some acceptance?

For some of us it is excruciating to be cruel to others

We explode in love in the midst of what we think is friendship

We know not foe from friend

It’s a course

It’s a blessing

It’s a gravel road that lead to contentment to lent a friend a hand

And eye to pour out

And a thought to prop them up against the strong currents of life’s cruelties

We find pleasure in that

But when our being finally accept that the road has ended

We fondly look elsewhere for the journey of compassion

And the outlet of unpretentious caring

For to care for a barren land that resist all efforts for fertility beyond tilting

It is like waiting for one’s very own last breath.

31 October

© Mmutle Arthur Kgokong 2016

Grand ‘Ma’ hearth

‘looked at her face

And i was confronted by engraved tributaries

Spidying in trickles trinkets in a thousand cracks impressions

 

Hair bleached

By the wink and dosing suns

That peer, skip and dunked away during her lifetime

Silvered not by artificial means, nay-nay

But a grey of knowledge

 

Her magnetic eyes

Washed out as if by thousands and thousandth of life’s film reels

Year in year out as her moon galloped onwards

Her faded fiery orbs giving in to complain as they hold the world with a soft gaze

Dazed and weaned of their potency at everything life has strewn before them in a swoosh stew

 

Ears sagged

Like heavy puffy bags that held over the years all and all of all noises, sayings, stories

Fabled sagged and suckled

And the potency of listening itself

An art that a few master in their circle of life

Movement obscured by retardation of all miles walked

All grounds conveyed beneath

Her scuffles

Sole screech

Pause

A look here, a look there. Aloft. Brittle.

But cherished as a prime leaf in free fall;

Standing on an extra leg

Squeaky woodenly leg

Indexing the unreliable heavens

 

And as you’re young ‘ones sway in the harsh wind slap blow

Reckon that time claims everything

Somber warm tears shimmer

Meshed with selfish gladness and burrowing marrow sorrow

Oh dear, we’re sated in every seconds of your sagefull breath taken with us

And in your spring we’re quelled quenched, nkokoa’rona.

 

 

21 September

© Mmutle Arthur Kgokong 2014