SAMSON RAITI MTAMBA - POEMS

SAMSON RAITI  MTAMBA Is a Zimbabwean poet of Malawian extraction (b. Harare, Zimbabwe, 1959).He has published both poetry and prose in Australia, in the United States of America, Germany, Ireland, and South Africa among other places. He has been practising the art of poetry since primary school. He studied at the University of Malawi, Chancellor College and was active in its Writers’ Workshop ending up editing the English Department Critical Broadsheet THE MUSE from undergraduate years to postgraduate. Briefly at Dalhousie in Nova Scotia. New Left. Interested in Poststructuralist Theories and Children’s Literature. Taught in Zimbabwean high schools and the Zimbabwe Open University (ZOU). Now independent researcher into the writings of J.M.Coetzee and Ayi Kwei Armah.
CURRENT: “DISABILITY, DEFORMITY AND DISFIGUREMENT IN CHILDREN’S LITERATURE: THE CASE OF BEN HANSON’S Takadini AND CLAUDE MAREDZA’S Harurwa”, JOURNAL OF AFRICAN CHILDTEN’S LITERATURE VOL 1 No.2, February 2013                

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                 WE LEARNT OF NOTHING BUT DEATH
                         AND THE THINGS OF DEATH


We learnt of nothing but death and the things of death:
             We laughed with pure joy
             Walking with pure laughter glinting from our teeth
             Kissing with all the affection we could muster
             Imagining that we flew bouncing like sprightly birds
             Borne on the hardy wings of youth
             Springing from each other’s breaths and heartbeats
             While the others, bemused, stared
             As the trees sang for us
             The wind wiping our sweat-drenched faces
             In the afternoon sun.
We learnt of nothing but death and the things of death:
             We loved ardently.
             We walked arm in arm in the streets of Harare
             Doing what we thought most natural
              Preferring the sweet orange to the bitter lemon
              Avoiding pain and things of pain
              Avoiding hate and hugging only what was beautiful
              Selling nothing
               (No more and no less)
               Buying only what was for sale
               And repenting our losses
               With the dew of somnolent amnesia.
 
But of life, alas, we learnt nothing surely
                And for this, we are condemned to die young
                Demented, destitute and sick-
                Morons and ragtag yokels
                Consigned to a cruel master,
                For living and loving most naturally, most genuinely.
 
 
 
 
                             IF YOU CAME BACK TODAY

​
If you came back today
I would not greet you the way silver swallows
Weave their way in the sea of the sky
To celebrate the first rains
 
If you came back today
I would say that I was in the throes of sleep
And that you were the creature of a nightmare
Welcome only because inevitable
Though inauspicious and menacing to my world
 
I would not know
The meaning of your smiles
Nor recognize the inflexions of your speech
As in the past warming up
To every syllable of your words
The way heat is registered by metal
Or the lusty touch of the rain by the thirsty lips of the parched earth.
 
I would not know
Whether to be happy or surprised
In this speechless limbo
Pregnant with weighty questions
About departures without farewells
Returns without eagerly-hoped for arrivals
Or warm welcoming rituals...
 
If you came today
I would say that you were a dream
A gift from the gods
Which no one expects
Or can refuse
For whether a joke or serious sign
Just or unjust
Who but the gods themselves
Would know or say?
 
If you came back today
I would not speak
Or dare blink an eyelid
Fearing to see the lie of your truth
Or the truth of the lie
Before my bemused presence.