Poems

My Poems, My Thoughts

I just write what comes to my mind. You cannot pattern your thoughts. They come as water in a river and flow where they want.

Let Me Ride on the Escarpment of Muchinga

Let me ride on the escarpment of Muchinga  

To the east and dance with you ndendeule 

Free me on the wings of the Mutondo tree 

And lead me to rest on the wings of Ng’ombe ilede 

Give me a free fall like Mosi-oa-Tunia 

And Mulungu who is also Nyambe will be there with me 

Where I shall sojourn for a moment  

To see Kabwe-katenda  

Luceleng’anga my guide will lead me 

As I promenade in the jungle of Luapula-Ntondo 

To view the vast and wide plain of Bangweulu swamp 

And there my soul shall find nature so tantalizing 

And we shall reminisce on the past at Chikumanino  

Then we shall think of recriminations no more when we reach Shimwalule  

When we stand in the panorama of Umweru,  

Our eyes will feast on the beauty of Kirwa Island. 

So long A Note Part One

Dear brother,

I miss you so much lately and life sometimes is not kind

I want to talk to you but you are gone

I wanted you to see me now that I have grown

I can’t see you so I have written this long note

So long a note just for you.

Dear brother

I want to tell you something that beset my life

I don’t even know if you know anything

Anything about what I’m writing about to you

I have a lot to tell you about my life.

Then, I just heard that you are gone

And mother did not have power to bring you back

There she wept refusing to be comforted

Because you had gone.

I remember how she loved you and us all

I remember how you helped mother and us

I remember how you sold your merchandise

And you used the money to pay for my school fees

I remember how you rode that bicycle in the night

And you bought us food to eat and we were happy.

And we were happy to be around you

I remember you paid for my camp fees at church

I remember we sat together around a brazier

And you told us about God and His love

And then you did everything to help mother bring us up

I remember you preaching in church and people loved you

I remember you serving God at our church

I remember you joked with us

And you taught us to be strong and believe in God

I remember you followed father

And you came back with some fish

And some money we used at our home

I know that life was not easy for you

But you sacrificed for mother and us

And we happily lived together in Mansa with you

Somehow you didn’t show that life was hard

Lately I remember you sitting with us

Sometimes you scared us in the night

And said you wanted to drive fear out of us

We were happy with that too

And mother told you to stop scaring us

Because we were going to have bad dreams

If we slept in fear.

But one day you took a journey

When you went you came back after some months

Then you took another journey like the previous one

When you left, I also left to be brought up elsewhere

From that time I have not heard from you

I don’t even know if you knew that I left mother

Mother remained alone with father and siblings

You don’t know that I also left mother

I went to become a man just like you were a man

When I almost became a man I heard something saddening

I heard you had gone to worlds unknown

I cried because you had gone

Then I knew mother would remain alone

I knew that mother would remain with other sons

And your absence would be a wide gap in her life

Mother mourned for your departure

She did not want to be comforted

Because you had gone

I will write to you again Good bye my dear brother

So Long A Note Part Two

Dear brother

At the time when I was able to help mother

A calamity happened to her

A strange disease beset her life

Brother you don’t know that mother is also gone

Now we remain with father

It’s a heavy laden for father to carry

Mother has left grand children

My dear brother

I felt bad when I remembered mother

I remember how she sold her plates

I remember how she used the money to pay for my school schools

I remember mother telling me that she had never stepped a foot in school

I remember her telling me that I should be the one to be educated on her behalf

Mother told me that I should help my siblings

Mother left me with a responsibility

Mother was sweet to me so I accepted

Mother was caring so I struggled to be like her

Mother loved us all but she went before I could show her my love

Brother, you and mother left before you were ripe in age

Mother wanted to see my wife and children

But she saw none of those.

My dear Brother

When I think about you and mother

I shed tears of sorrow

It has been hard for me to have lost you

You were my inspiration both of you

I did what you and mother wanted me to do

I acquired a degree and now pursuing masters

Even this does not cover UP the gap you left

My dear brother I remember you very much

And I miss you.

I will write to you later

Because now, I am crying because of your absence

I need to collect myself again

I will write to you again

Good bye my dear brother

I lose My Peace

I always lose my peace when I think about humanity,

Our life, our existence, and the futility of our labour.

How every desire takes us closer to our own destruction,

How ignorant we are about tomorrow

How every effort to bring peace and comfort

Reveals how incapable we are.

How our intellect and wisdom is destructive to ourselves.

How our discoveries stand at par with blind guesses,

How the best of us destroy themselves trying to uncover the hidden mysteries of life.

When we make right guesses,

We do not have the power to prevent the inevitable,

When we get the answer, the question is irrelevant.

It’s chance, chance has us all in its hands

And we like powerless ants cannot escape what’s coming.

They that are privileged among us become soil with us

And in the grave we lay together lifeless.

The hope we live for will sustain our bones

But the life we cling to will escape.

Breath shall be retained and the keeper will come someday.

Until then, we wait for your salvation.

The Tale

Mother fortune tell me the tale,

That tale of gallantry and pomp.

Recount to me all the events,

For one to chew as a fairy

The events that summed his life

Make me know if a clone he had

That demigod of a goblin.

The Luapula River he crossed from Kola

He filed through on the shoulders of Matanda

Who praised himself as Cabusha-bantu

In the land of bliss where they subsist on tuute

Where rivers glide and slide to rest

Where fish is in the shelter of abashila

Where Umweru lay with its mouth wide open.

He was a hunter in the forest

He penetrated the forest of Michelo

He hunted in the hills of Mang’wing’wi

In the mount of ca Nkalamu

He met Mumbi the woman mother

The woman who fail from the sky

The woman with no origin

And she bore him Mulenga Wa Mpanga.

Mother fortune let me fly

Let the wings of fate take me to him

The one man of great heroic deeds

The paver of the tunnel of Chonanzinge

The tunnel watched by lions and hyenas

The tunnel waited upon by bees and snakes

Chonanzinge who fried sons for strength.

For power of the night and dark sorcery

Mother fortune, lead me to the tunnel

Where there is no entrance and exit

The tunnel reached only by the blind

For it is buried in Lualaba the magic river

Tell me of the pot in which his pieces were boiled

The pot is curved on the rock.

And the sculptor’s hands are invisible.