Life is a series of mishaps: misfortune events that, when churned well like milk, they give butter. Allow me to apologize, for the miscommunication on my end, and for being a sun that only gives a ray for just a second, not a full day.
I have been rethinking your proposal. Asking what is on the table, and what really matters. A year down the road will anything ever matter?
Life is too short to just do things fwaa, and not leave a mark that gives you a smile lasting longer to light up your night. I wonder, your offer, would it light up both our worlds, or its a bread crumble that leads to a hole devoid of light?
Reading your note, I can’t help but think about the insecurity laced within the words in a mountain of assurance directed to me. I wonder if you talking of me, or of yourself. I have more words to say, but I would want to look into your eyes as I say them.
Maybe there, I will drawn in the dark pools in your iris. And maybe I will forget the hustle of the world, maybe for a time being. And thanks for the chocolate.
I got you cuffs, you seem to be a woman whose hands are to be restricted to know pleasure.
You need to read Kadali’s blog before you read this response.
Dear S,
To see the sun hues, it’s through the wetness of the world. When the rays hit perfectly the drops of water. And when you wet your lips, it’s not the maroon that I see, but the desire that is spread on those lips. Forgive me if my eyes mix maroon shades and red hues, it’s the desire, the pulsating want that you carry around on your lips for me.
I want to kiss those lips, chew on them as if it’s a baby’s gums on her mother’s nipple. I want to them to forget all the men who ever kissed them, and also forget their need for moisture.
My wall is not for pinning. Walls hold paint and other things that stick to them. It will be the Nile through you that will gush the paint of my walls with screams of your pleasure.To be on top is never the position of power, rather the hands guiding, pinching and squeezing as if it’s a cloud dripping dew as you ride and bounce and moan.
To the movie, your eyes will be glued under the skin of your eyelifs, rolling and breath will be trapped in your throat for fear of being heard, and my fingers, in the darkness partial chased by screen light, will drawl my name out of every syllable will you moan out.
Let poetry be the umbrella in the market place. Photo by Bwojji Elijah
It’s Sunday, not the other regular Sunday, this is Meet Sunday. My poem for this particular Meet is unfinished, and I can’t present it. I am conflicted about the theme of the month- FAMILY, which seems easy, until you get to write a poem about it.
The Sunday Meet started a bit late, and eight people got to start it off. The first question was, how do you define Family? There was a binding thread in everyone’s answer; bond of blood, and bond of choice. These two bonds appeared more in the conversations but less in the poetry submitted.
After the working definitions of every individual present were laid down, poetry was started. With Jonathan reading the first poem, which was title-less. A poem about time spent in the kitchen with mom, how one learns the working of society from our parents or as Lumala put it as he discussed the poem, how power is transferred.
”Let It Be,” you said laughing, the mulawo directed upward- poking the air in front of me. “Let. It. Be.”
The second part, we see the same scenario playing out, with a child in their own kitchen now adults, and trying to give authority to God so that God doesn’t dip His hand to take the mother out of the soup called Life. The poem’s structure is interesting on paper, that there are some parts written to give guidance to the reader, and yet even if you don’t read them, the poem works. It’s a poem with shifting parts.
Achelam, being the writer of the poem, thanked the reader who did the poem justice in reading it. The question asked of the poet: is beating Children justice? Does it show love? Such a question has varying answers and the Meet went into that discussion, until later on, we got dragged back to listen to another poem.
Stephanie’s poem, also title-less, reminded me of what family is most times. It’s not just blood, but a bond of legacy passed down. For what ties us together if not words, images we fashion ourselves into. And so, there will be a fight on anyone who disrupts that bond of legacy.
She writes the last line of the first stanza into the second,
‘In my family, nobody talks about what is done
We omit transcendence We silent the legacy We lost grace We turned away from reality.’
Tikia with Grace read this poem eloquently, sucking us into its potency. I thought of my fights with my own family. The fight to belong as an individual in a space of collectives. And at the end of this poem, there was a sigh, a long silence. You could hear in the silence thoughts of members, we all internalized the dynamics of our families. The conversations spanned like threads being fed into stitches, to weave a dress. The common thread being; we wear masks depending on the group of people we are in, and with our families there is always a part of ourselves we hold back. Many, would not tell their parents about their sex life, for that is forbidden.
The line that still lingers in my mind from that poem;
‘I dared the adventure University, trips to the village and other dances I was, I’m curious about the world outside. Not a word from them, In my family, we know how to die with words burning in our throats’
Achelam read the next poem, also title-less.
‘I want to tell her everything and nothing That my journey has been fulfilling About my loneliness and emptiness My need to sit with her in stillness But that’s not how things are done’
This poem reminded us of the words burning in our throats, when it comes to our family. The words of love left unsaid, of the pain never shared to be healed, of scars never celebrated. And as we got to discuss the poem Tikia with Grace hit the nail on the head, when she told us, growing up she always wanted her mother to be her best friend, and share all these secrets, and now she is also a mother, and she knows there will always be things she will never tell her daughter, and that is also love.
This poem written by Sungi was about a longing for a girl to talk to her mother about things that are happening to her, and the wonder she has seen. Something we all desire and a few have done.
Lumala read the last poem, in a very dramatic sense, in a very performative way. And after, the rag which had been holding up was pulled. And we plunged into a near blackhole, with nothing but our feelings about the bond of marriage and the sacrifice a woman makes for it.
This is one stanza poem, with over 29 lines.
‘Blasphemers among believers Believers among blasphemers Victims. Victims. Victims. We are all victims We are all graveyards City graveyards Village graveyards Mass graves Unmarked graves Inscribed with bonds that are but chains.’
Lumala went on to remind us of the catholic prayer of repentance and how that chant rhymes so well with the rhyming scheme of the poem.
This poem was written by Jonathan and it had no title. The poem is beautifully written, detailing the woman’s sacrifice in the institution of marriage as in our society, and also we all victims to it, doesn’t matter which urban or village setting you are in.
Talking about family most times carries grief, making the saying; the price of love is grief, come true. At least the first Poetry Meet Sunday of September as we write about Family made me assume so.
The next Poetry Meet Sunday will be held on 18th September 2022. To be part of it, call or text +256781911520.
It’s the sound of your name ringing out within these bones on a cold night such as this. It coates my lips as if it’s lipsticks you have applied. That red lipsticks you tend to lick off whenever I catch you looking at me. I wonder, how i would whisper your name? How would I say it when the wetness of a lake engulfes me, and the softness of clouds carrying the burn of the sun meet my desire?
It’s said, when a man stands up on a mountain, he sees the world than one who stands in the valley. I would rather be in your valley than to own the world with my eyes.
I read your note. I was rioted with every words my eyes followed, hoping at the end of your trail, there I will find you, warm and waiting.
I remember your eyes on me, those piercing eyes undressing me with a haste of a lioness chasing its prey. You bare it all in your eyes yet hide it deep with those thick tops and long skirts. Is it a coldness you find when you look at me? Don’t I make Nile run through you like the lash lands of Busoga? Oh I will farm your gardens, and I will own them.
At break tea, you hid among your friends and you made chit-chat with me, with eyes looking down at shoes, as if they held mirrors to see yourself in.
deathofwords 