Love Poetry For Couple

�for Phil Rice, 29 August 2012 It is certain earth is now sloping away from its magnetic angle� Oh, I know how this type of thought can restrain hope, hope that... off the asphalt a bird may fly away... fly again through air, and rejoice in such ability to move, nobly move again. A man of your age back from his trip� but I mean a man, not the boy, the one who grew up in you, a sudden gasp on top of his girl� the quick spill� what they thought to be love stamped on their foreheads, nothing is less sure you can�t again fly� fly again really high off this asphalt into those skies. This poem was the second time my friendship with Phil had 'handed' me a poem. The first time was when ' Janice's poem ' got written. Most of the time when I write a poem it's to confront a gnawing, a knowing of something I've always been aware of, but needed to experience again. And as Walcott said, "If you know what you are going to write when you're writing a poem, it's...

in union we created god. �rustum kozain we are people yes with ordinary lives whom life takes by the hand on ordinary days like mary and joseph before who were born to bear god and enjoyed sleeping in when it rained � and cooking and sampling food off each other�s fingers, mevushal red in their jew veins two people who lived and died ached when one they had borne was dead� they were people yes with ordinary lives whom life took by the hand home . Pindrop Press, 2012

The fist clenched round my heart loosens a little, and I gasp brightness; but it tightens again. When have I ever not loved the pain of love? But this has moved past love to mania. This has the strong clench of the madman, this is gripping the ledge of unreason, before plunging howling into the abyss. Hold hard then, heart. This way at least you live. Derek Walcott

Jurassic memories found in an archeological dig I dug you up I dug you up I found a fracture of a jaw bone, the very keystone to the past and the future, I dug you up The clouds that cleared to show the moon looked like Africa the stars behind it represented all the capitol cities I�m pretty sure Lesotho shined brightest. Why wouldn�t it? It�s wrapped up so securely. Surrounded by it�s mother�s love Lesotho, my love, come nestle for a while Mother Africa will love you and dig you up. � http://liarliarlies.livejournal.com/33255.html The above link is where I originally got this poem. I don't know who wrote it. I wish I did. Please let me know who did, if you happen to know, so that I may credit the poet and beg them to let me keep it up, posted, here on Po�frika. Lesothosaurus footprints

A cold pillow holds my head as I listen for your words; there is no crucifix here, only your voice between the sheets. Turning toward your side of the bed, I bat my eyes at the empty space; �You need to get up,� I hear you say, the sound hanging sweetly in the air. My legs, unsteadily familiar, can�t contemplate the walk today, so I wait until your voice is gone, and only your breath remains to guide my feet to the floor. Phil Rice is a native of Tennessee who currently lives and writes in the shadows of Chicago. He serves as editor-in-chief for Canopic Publishing, and is also co-editor of Canopic Jar, a literary arts journal he founded in 1986. Everything Canopic can be found at this link . The venture is also on Facebook . "The mornings" is reprinted here with the poet's permission. Phil Rice

Fresh from a forehead is flesh that feeds the assegai of nationhood; he will die by these arms we bear, that bit of foreignness next door; I will kill his tongue which has acquired the favour of our jobs. This lekoerekoere , this boy, this migrant who must die. Our impi at dawn puts a blaze on them to disable the movement of their thought. The ground under our feet holds us up and does nothing to stop us. The glass buildings of Johannesburg stare without a word. The boy looks at me, but I forgot all pity at home.The hole on his head is like it has been scooped out with a watermelon baller; blood dribbles down his face, leaves h�moglobin in his mouth with an aftertaste of iron. South Africans who fled apartheid into our countries and went home when it was finished are the bright green stuff found on copper that has started to corrode. The copper is their country. All afternoon we hacked, and put tyre necklaces on some and lit them with Lion safety matches. (18 April 2015)

After all, we wouldn�t be here waiting for night to arrive, had you not one day out of the blue swung a leg over and straddled me, holding my shoulders like the backrest of a chair on the stage of a play about this. I remember a frilled corolla, the fetish smell of your odour. As we watch the moon Vishnu, who's fond of everything and fondles all of it, brings the orb to the spot where I'm knowing you. Standing now in delight I recall how the day we met it rained, how it fell, poured like a pissing cow, choked earth and cooked the hills with steam, enough for us to be afraid nature would bypass the gods and allow rivers to burst in new monsoons.

January Gill O'Neil

I am going to the market Please wait till I come back You can wash your clothes if you get bored And if the door disturbs you Take it off And put anything in its place Please don�t leave your face inside the mirror And then quit by the window Don�t commit suicide as is your habit But Wait For me Till I come back [Translated from Arabic: 2004, Norddine Zouitni]

When face-to-face we met in the backyard where mother used to work, washing your panties, I placed my left hand on your waist, the right one on your breast, felt you fighting not to say from the bottom of your throat as we kissed, Ek is lief vir jou, kaffir! The zebra is a fine beast. And this is not for nor against the moon which is really a stone of significance to no one. I was talking about the folly that governs hearts of men. And this is not about sex. God knows I�ve desired you for more than tits, more than the way you just lose it in broad daylight when I touch them, and you call me names but still open like a sugar-bush in flames. Pindrop Press, 2012

Nikki Giovanni was born today in Knoxville, Tennessee, in 1943. I went to school in Maryville, a few kilometres from Knoxville. Wikipedia says that "on April 17, 2007, at the Virginia Tech Convocation commemorating the April 16 Virginia Tech massacre, Giovanni closed the ceremony with a chant poem, intoning: We are sad today, and we will be sad for quite a while. We are not moving on. We are embracing our mourning. We are Virginia Tech... We are better than we think and not quite what we want to be. We are alive to the imagination and the possibilities, we will continue to invent the future through our blood and tears, through all this sadness, we are the Hokies. We will prevail, we will prevail, we will prevail. We are Virginia Tech." " Giovanni's writing has been heavily inspired by African-American activists and artists. She has a tattoo with the words 'Thug life' to honor Tupac Shakur, whom she admired. Her book 'Love Poems' (1997) was written i...

Reading at Lamontville High School in Durban in 2016

Surely our walk will soon be a thing of past dreams, given that since you left there have been no options, brother, for body or for mind; and this park where you lie holds no promise of release. We sit listening to wind whip the leaves of this oak that grows on your grave. To weed the mound, dig out and chuck away dandelions, tufts of tussock still stuck to our memory, to hoe, rake the surface with our hands and water it with salt is to accept the solitude of your room. On a clear day in winter one can see the tree far off, gnarled in abscission, reaching to grab heaven by its lapels. Seasons come. Wrapped in bark against the chill, the tree homes birds in its branches. Meanwhile, throughout summer, its roots drink the life of your blood that clings to leaves that float earthward on scarlet wings, till once more winter brings its black, black night of ice. Photo by Sabine Dundure

Kwame Dawes

Jumoke Verissimo's I Am Memory , a collection of poems on the import of not forgetting the past and of moving ahead, is scheduled to come out in November this year.  Her work has appeared in several online journals , including our own, dear Canopic Jar . I've had the priviledge of having a quick look at the poems due to appear in the book, and she again surprised me with the style, which resembles her and few others, and lies between narration and song.  Thanks, Jumoke, and bravo. Jumoke Verissimo