LAMENT TIDBITS BY HAMA TUMA

On the window sill
The butterfly, colours-ablaze
The dirty glass has no sparkle
Jealous
of the dazzling wings
It cracks and breaks up
As the butterfly flies away
Undisturbed.


A soul among thousands,nay,
amidst millions
hovering over crumpled bodies,
High above the vultures
sharp beaks ready to pierce
no evil in their hearts, just
the natural law,
the desire to feed on a victim
ordianed by God.
The decomposing flesh is soft, rotten,
and a treat for the hungry,
as always. The rotten is a feast.
The lonely soul, sad, glides away
from the heat and crimes of today,
of Adwa and her sons.

HT


The song in the air
by autumn leaves tuned
falling softly, sad.
The song on the ground
lying quiet, mute
The sun shines above
the prairie is afire
Times have changed.

HT




The empty vase holds my hopes
Brimming, full, overflowing even
The weight breaks the vase
and my hopes mix with the dirt
perhaps, that was when I died
and left the human world.

HT


The eyes of my daughter, innocent,
scan my withered face
Maybe the crevices hide the love
and the wrinkles cover it too, for
she looks away abrupt
with confusion in her heart
facing my cold bottomless eyes.

HT

Over the hills the barren slopes
Up ran the monkey
As the Serpent slithered down
They pass without a greeting
not even a glance
And only the monkey laughs.

HT


Eating an apple is easy
we have strong teeth, African,
No fluoride bath, no,
Nature has favoured us
We can bite.
Cut by gossip and hate
into entrails and names
history and dreams,
Into apples and flesh, cutting sharp.
The panga can rest, the machette too,
we are blessed.
Nature has endowed us
with a strong teeth
and we do the rest.

HT

Every year singes us with pain
the sorrow soaks our soul
drowning our hopes.
The bile of bitterness
forever on our tongues
Our tomorrows stolen
we are robbed of the past
the change is a mirage
and the future a corpse
we celebrate
Every new year that comes.

HT




Demons dance in the red night
amid the fire lit
By sinners roasting on the grill
of their crimes
(of their daring to ask?)
frying like pork on Life's barbecue.
The smile on their faces
belying the pain
the opaque faces covering up
the truth
now buried underground.

HT




Words fly out, soaring
to touch the clouds, far,
The heavens are unreachable
When legs are chained, by hopes
and visions withered, narrow,
In each kilil/bantustan
prisons line the streets, full,
the sewers are clogged in the Palace
and the whole country stinks.

HT

The scorching sun has no pity
it has burnt its heart eons ago.
The soft moon has no warmth
fed up of selfish lovers
using it to suck and lick
their pleasure-ways to hell.
Dawn holds no surprises
it had run out of promises ages ago.
Day and night are all the same
the rainbow has aborted in our brain.

HT

The naked child
on the hot tarmac
asleep, dazed by the sniffed glue
Forgetting hunger, and
oblivious to pain
The policeman's boot strikes
The blow makes a noise
the naked child whimpers
refusing to wake
and acknowledge the pain,
the Nation's shame.
HT



Th sufi man twirled
a thousand times, nay
a million rounds
the dust covered all
The Sufi man was in a trance,
luckily
he did not see his sins exposed.

HT









Decompose,oh yes
Perish.
What thought sublime,
magnanimous,
ever saved a lost black soul.
Wither away, disappear
like prisoners in Africa's dungeons.
Who needs to know,
to remember
the victims silenced by arrogant power?


Out out brief candle,
how do you put off the sun
end the Drought,
the Famine,
The Hopelessness in our souls?



The dark lonely night
wanted an eternal embrace
I was the only one ready,
And I obliged.




Simmer, simmer, simmer low
the bile is gushing forth
Bitter. Life is an elephant
sitting on your face
Crushing, final.


The Man, stamped by fate
wears his destiny in his tears
as an albatross.
Forever weighed by sorrow
and travails
By the sins of the dead
Eternally condemned.