NDABA SIBANDA - POEMS

Ndaba has contributed to the following anthologies: Its Time, Poems For Haiti- a South African anthology, Snippets ,Voices For Peace and Black Communion. Heedited  Free Fall (2017). The recipient of a Starry Night ART School scholarship in 2015, Sibanda is the author of Love O’clock, The Dead Must Be Sobbing,Of the Saliva  and the Tongue, Cutting-edge Cache: Unsympathetic Untruth and Football of Fools. His work is featured in The New Shoots Anthology,The Van Gogh Anthology edited by Catfish McDaris and Dr. Marc Pietrzykowski, Eternal Snow, A Worldwide Anthology of One Hundred Poetic Intersections with Himalayan Poet Yuyutsu RD Sharma scheduled for publication in Spring/Summer 2017 by Nirala Press and Seeing Beyond the Surface Volume II. Sibanda has contributed to more than thirty published books.
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An Ability That Shines Like Gold

Thanks to a creative German doctor
who initiated a sports contest in 1948
for Second World War combatants
who had injuries to their backbones,

one of the largest global sports events
roared into life, and since then it takes place
every two years alongside the Olympic Games.

The Paralympic Games is an event at which great athletes
fly their national flags high as they exhibit their sublime skills
at their best sport in spite of a common thread marked by a disability.    

When Paralympians compete in swimming and rowing events in the water
or on the track in wheelchair- racing and on blades, or in wheelchair basketball,
and rugby on a court or in skiing on mountain slopes and cycling in the velodrome-
what the spectators marvel at is pure world-class sportsmanship and individual ability!
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​Of Pure Pressure And Pure Pleasure

The heart and blood
of untainted beauty
 
Nature`s adrenalin   
for low blood pressure
 
The sight is the rate that
sings songs of wonder
 
Exciting fear`s prompted
into the heart and spine
 
Welcome welcome
to the zone of adventure
 
Venture into a bungee jump
and experience a real life
 
Make a majestic fall into the Falls,
grace the adventure capital of Africa
 
For there`s victory for the adrenalin
in the exquisiteness of the Victoria Falls!
 ​

​Wringing And Scheming Hearts

it was a rather frosty  Wednesday morning
ten-ish ,her moves had a sluggish touch to them
 
vacuuming, humming, tidying up the living room
the least thing  she expected  was  a serpent
 
 there it was
long, lazy, gliding on the floor, at the wall`s edge
 
“sekaNe, a snake, under the sofa!” she yelled
 he lept up
 
and made several nervous attempts at slicing up
the risky reptile but it kept on slithering  away
 
when the intruder was finally chopped apart
with a block from a disused wooden room divider
 
and ferried lifeless  in a yellow plastic bag and dumped
in a grassy and bushy area of the suburb, echoes started
 
they bare happiness and smiles when you buy those things
but I know deep inside them their hearts are bleeding spite
 
how does a snake enter a closed room and hide under a sofa
on a tiled and cold floor, and when did it enter?—“aunt” doubted
 
one theorist guessed  the intruder could  have entered the room
earlier during the day or during the evening when the door was open  
 
that neighbor who called herself a real realist and the wife`s real aunt 
(by the way, everyone is everybody `relative in  the high-density suburbs!) 
 
was not convinced by the theorist `s assumptions surrounding the snake saga
how does a snake enter a room without anybody seeing it, is this a snake really?
 
the theorist said he was not an expert in the affairs and behaviors of  snakes
but he knew that a snake could sense and follow  the presence of rodents
 
the man of the house expressed his doubts saying he was shocked
the next day to discover that the bag was no longer at the dumpsite!
 
that was not a mere snake, forget about  open or closed doors,
the owner of that snaky  trinket must have fetched it, “aunt” said
 

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​Stha`s Chosen Dilemma

Stha says you expect me to be your lover
And keep you company, keep you happy.
 
But you treat me like a collapsible chair!
A chair you slump onto when there`s no softer one.
 
 I want you to hold me in public every time –
not just when you’re tired of her
 
or when she’s not around
and you tiptoe to me. 
  
Like a camp chair, you collapse me into everything:
cousin, neighbor, school mate, study mate, even spiritual sister –
 
depending on who we bump and where.
But when I tell other people we are chameleons,
  
they have no sympathy for me;
they don`t see why I cannot keep you out my life.