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	Shona
	PROFILE About me Friends (3) Poetry (4)

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Shona, 31 december 2011

Immigrant

Immigrant

Transplanted immigrants

We grow roots in foreign soil.

Struggling like weeds amongst home grown desired

Shrubs, bushes, flowering plants,

We scatter seeds that blend with these

As we appease the greater garden,

We, tenuously, escape pesticides

And weed wackers: we blend,

Cope and adapt;

Growing luscious, emerald, flourishing, flowering;

We become grafted into alien foliage,

We give back or we take back

Moisture from damp soils;

Become prominent in ways sometimes seen

As invasive and intrusive; bearing strange fruit.

We become overgrown at times;

Tangled masses; branches, roots intertwined; seeds
scattering

On winds, on time, on nature.

We struggle for deeper roots.

number of comments: 0 | rating: 10 | detail

Shona, 29 december 2011

BURDEN

1. Burden

I hold the world on my head,

The whole world, as I know it.

Tilted precariously, perched atop

My head; I have to keep it steady, keep up

This balancing act, because if it falls off my head…

Well, if it falls off my head, it will crash down
like the

Wrath of a thousand, seriously, pissed-off gods.

Oh, so I move this way and that;

A flemenco dancer, a contortionist,

The world makes an unwieldly hat;

Perched, precariously, petulantly on the

Top of my head.

I have the world on my head, the whole damn world

As I know it.

And I am never too sure what to do with it.

My world tilted
timidly on the top of my head.

And I really wish I knew what to do with it.

number of comments: 1 | rating: 9 | detail

Shona, 29 december 2011

PAPA

1. PAPA

My
father was a spiritual man;

well
worn spiritual shoes soled with Psalms and Revelations,

He
spoke with the voice of Leviticus.

The
Bible, his umbrella,

Protection
from Satan’s reign.

He
went, door to door,

Late
nights on London’s granite streets.

He
came home,

head
bashed and bleeding,

Jesus
in an ill-fitting suit;

Set
upon by wolves and romans who saw

Only
that his skin, khaki brown,

Was
different, desired to devour him.

“Go
back to Asia” words soldered to bats and fists.

All
he could reply, before one tooth let fly,

“Lord,
Lord, me Jamaican, man”

The blows became a flood.

number of comments: 1 | rating: 11 | detail

Shona, 29 december 2011

gratitude

1. GRATITUDE

She looked up to the sky

To blessing, gift of water that

Washes away layers of dust from fields

From crops, from the ever present

Ever looming haunt of Hunger.

Water feeds hunger; water keeps them here

On this land, in this place; kept them from becoming
dust.

No water, no life.

But now the rains fell;

Deluge, it was truly a deluge!

The fields heave with new breath, quietly at first

As if awakening from a deeply, comatose state;

The land pulses; water flooding its veins.

And the rain it fell

Swirling muddy rivulets forming, and the rain it
fell.

Quenching,
quenching, water hitting dirt and

The smell of it, the rising, aromatic, earth scent

of rainwater
blending with dirt. It made her giddy.

As she felt the earth drink deeply drunkenly, as if
to forget

Being made brittle and unyielding.

Symbolism of loss and of hope, it fell and water
careened into dry riverbeds.

Children ran screaming and laughing; clutching
buckets, pans, tin cans,

So that they too could drink become drunk, with water

The rain clouds had brewed stored, distilled, now
released.

She looked up
to the sky and felt those giant teardrops

Of gratitude roll
down her cheeks.

number of comments: 1 | rating: 12 | detail

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Other poems: Immigrant, BURDEN, PAPA, gratitude,

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Immigrant

BURDEN

PAPA

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