Poet: Fortune Munsaka
Poem: In Her Womb
Platform: GOC
City: Bulawayo
The mass screams
Like a baby in the tub.
Top dogs chuckle
Like boys on a seesaw.
Exemption is a thing with fangs,
Even if you try holding it tenderly,
It still stings your palms.
Here’s my letter folks:
Let not your voice go blunt,
Keep your teeth sharp,
Grinding and glistening,
Fetters will some day breach.
PreDawn Publishers is a company tht is professional through and through.It is a stable that takes writers to beyond the sky.They have a great editorial team that transforms an otherwise stale manuscript to something so exciting that the reader won’t put the book down.
_Rodgers Chaipa Upenyu
Song of Myself
I applaud myself and ululate myself,
And all I perceive, you’ll perceive,
For every air I breathe fresh is yours too.
I beg my soul, my heart,
I’m now twenty-seven years old,
still negotiating a perfect place in my life
A girl enquired “what is love?”
Tenderly presenting it to me with both palms,
Ugh! I never got an answer for her;
I do not have a mind on what this she calls love is anymore…
I guess it must be just a grass woven promise that will putrefy,
Or I guess It’s just another part of God.
What is your take on the haves and the have nots?
What do you think has become of life and death?
Ugh! My world shows there’s clearly no life:
All goes by and by,
East by east
And same by same
But still
My yesterday and today melt_
I’ve bottled them to pour them out in the hour of tomorrow.
Hey you reader down there!
What thought races your mind about me?
(Speak freely, no ear is open for what you’ll say, and I got no minute to wait any longer,
This world is after me.)
I listen to them that are caring,
I care less of those that never listen
Well, who wishes to say a word?
Will you utter a thing before I leave this cruel life?
I too am tired,
I too am unpredictable,
Let me be off like air
Be cooling down like a runaway sun,
You will miss me when I am gone,
But I shall be of good memory nonetheless,
And I will be waiting for you all in the heaven’s stairwares.
HATING ONE FROM THE FIRST SIGHT
Our former headmaster, Mr Dumisani Tsheza once told us that it’s natural to hate someone. He said sometimes you meet somebody first time and you never talked to him or her and you feel like saying foetsek to that person. Well we laughed and dismissed it as just one of the old man’s many jokes. Many people who knows Tsheza especially the former students at Sikhathini knows that he can’t finish a conversation without more than two jokes in it. But for me I always remember this one, wether it was a joke or a philosophical thought I don’t know.
I’m reminded of it everytime when people hate me without any cause. It comes to my mind whenever I try to please someone and in return I get negative reactions, gossips and etc.
Let me tell you, people can hate you first time seeing you. I remember one day I was lost in Bulawayo around 8PM going to meet my friend at a certain lodge. I then passed near a house which happened to be having a guard who saw me and beamed a torch directly to me. As someone who grew up in my rural home, I saw no offense in just going straight to that house and ask for directions. I saw saviour in that guard.
The man had a bouncing body fit for a good guard humble and innocent from the first sight. I greeted him and asked directions, he told me he never heard about that lodge before but I could wait he will ask his boss inside the house. I waited outside. He went in and came with the boss, the boss was hurrying, dialing the neighbors. He told me to stand up as I was now under arrest. Within some minutes I found myself in a circle of neighbors who were questioning me many stupid questions. Some were even threatening to beat me. From the boss I head that the guard told him he found me trying to sneak in using the small gate of their yard. Then if it was so, how can then he leaves a thief and went to summon people? He might be a stupid guard.
The boss started the engine, off they took me to Hillside Police Station. When we arrived there the boss told the police that he had encountered three break-ins in his house and he is sure that it might be me. And on top of it he said cables are being stolen at their place now they brought the suspect who happens to be me. But was I not asking for directions? Was my appearance not showing that I was an innocent person who was lost? Well the police saw that. That was hating at first sight….
Kwanele Khumalo is a poetry writer, novelist & a story teller.
Facebook: Kwanele Khumalo Mntungwa or Mntungwa kaMbulazi Poetry &novels..
kwanelekhumalo@gmail.com
Reviewed by Fortune Munsaka 🇿🇼
Thank you ka Mbulazi for this Interesting and satiable work. My appetite for this tale-tale got out of hand at some point as I constantly got entangled in a mixed bag of emotions through out the pages of this story. I fell in love mostly with the realistic nature of it, the applicability and relatability as one can easily relate to what we encounter in our immediate livelihoods.
Hating One from the First Sight is one and the living prevalent phenomena which I attach a rendition of naturalism and innaticism
From this story however, sentiments I gathered, the events here in are not constrained on hate only, but inside there is extension of an element of a Topdog underating an Underdog. To this, there’s quick judgement of the innocent person just by reading from their outward appearance.
In as much as this narration is in sour and blameful tone, it never forgets to bring its comic effect on how the Guard and the boss react towards the speaker.
Thank God the officers managed to seal the situation in a more professional stance. But the way the speaker herein tries so hard to be so defensive, I wonder if he’s really was asking for directions!!!! One may have wanted to make further investigations since we’re only told the story from a point of view of the victim😊🤠
Are we really satisfied that the speaker was really lost?🤷🏻♂️🤠
What if he was into some mischief, worse looking closely at the Setting of the story.
Well, these are some of the questions I wish detectives could have ask the lost man. Maybe they did, just that I was not there, I only read it from the plot🤏🤠
COMMENTARY
The unfolding of the Story is beyond any real style can ever be. I loved the Setting of the story, the night itself tells amore to bring effect to the events that come after in the whole story.
The way the Plot develops, assists any reader to follow well with the events. Mr. Khumalo is so patient to walk with the reader through out the story, he dares not leave the reader to get lost along the way.
Characterisation is the only thing that kept Munsaka jailed in smiles, because Khumalo makes sure that he unveils the actions of each character so clear that one can easily be brought home through it’s Social life effect: use of local names to which one may be convinced that the characters are not fictional at all, whereas they might be.
Well, personally I don’t get surprised because I know Kwanele as a man who sees and enjoys his life in the countryside.
I don’t want to talk about Climax, Conflict and all, but what interests Fortune is how the conflict finally gets resolved at the end.
At the end of it all, the victim goes home happy and the reader atleast sleeps happy all because of how the story ends!!!!!🤝😂
Fortune Munsaka
Literary Coach & Publishing Consultant @ PREDAWN Books & Films Byo-Zimbabwe🇿🇼
Call/App +263786455113/+263732455113, if you are an aspiring Artist in Music, Drama, Poetry, Writing, Story telling.
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God bless.
EPISODE INTRODUCTION
Ilihlo kwezihlasela intsha yalamuhla.
Siyalamukela, Zimbabwe, Africa lo Mhlaba wonke jikelele.
Aluba imvelo iyakhuluma, lezinyoni bezizakutsho lokho ezikubona kusenzakala ngaphansi kwelanga. Imiduli yona yancitshwa imilomo, aluba ibilazo indebe ibizakutsho lokho okwenzakala phakathi kwezindlu zethu ezinhle kangaka. Kunengi okwenzakalayo, imiduli iyakubona, iyakuzwa kodwa, ngubani ozayinika imilomo yokukuveza. Ubaba ukhahlela umama abubule okwenkomo ihlatshwe ngo mkhonto. Ingane zona azibuquthi obukabhuka ngoba ubaba lomama bathathana ngamazwi kube luthuli endlini. “Lingayithi ‘Vuu’ komakhelwane yini lifile” ngubaba etsho eqonqosela ebantwaneni asebengumhlanga ngemva kokubona umama esopha igazi ngenxa yokutshaywa ngubaba. Pho ngubani ozoyibika enkundleni, lokho lophahla lweKamelo lukhangele kodwa alulamlomo!
Asiphume siye esikolo, uThoko kasakhuzwa. Kanti uzakhuza umntanami yindaba ungazizaleli owakho? Umbalisi uthi “Thoko mntanam ubude abuphangwa” unina uthi “Thoko mntanami impilo isekwendeni”
Pho siyaphi? Nxa umbhalo uthi uswazi luyamqondisa umntwana, ubaba webandla abesethi “owami kathintwa.”
Isihloko:
IMVELO IKHANGELE KODWA KAYILAMLOMO
•Ucuku ezindlini, emsebenzini. •ukudlwengulana, •ukuhlukumezana, •Igcikwane le HIV •ukungahlalisani kuhle komphakathi Kuyindaba esegudwini.
Kungathula mina ngubani ozokhuluma?
ASAKHE!
Nomatter Ndlovu
Functional Literacy 20-24 AGYWs
