NDABA SIBANDA - POEMS

Ndaba`s poems have been widely anthologised . Sibanda is the author of Love O’clock, The Dead Must Be Sobbing, Football of Fools, Cutting-edge Cache: Unsympathetic Untruth, Of the Saliva and the Tongue,The Gushungo Way and When Inspiration Sings In Silence.  His work is featured in The Anthology House, in The New Shoots Anthology, and in The Van Gogh Anthology, and A Worldwide Anthology of One Hundred Poetic Intersections. Some of Ndaba`s works are found or forthcoming in  Page & Spine,  Peeking Cat, Piker Press , The Ofi Press Magazine ,SCARLET LEAF REVIEW  Universidad Complutense de Madrid, Amazon.ca and the Pangolin.  

Lindiwe`s Snail  

Abroad. Aboard a train of loneliness. Sadness keeping her
company in spite of receiving a salary considered
somehow lucrative by the standard of her country.
Missing her son to pieces. Lindiwe Mpofu.
 
 
Going out. Going shopping and fishing. Catching no freshness
but losses of interest, losses of appetite and losses of self.
The disconnect in her room, in her longings is loud---
as it screams like her upset tummy. Lindiwe is shifty on her bed. 
 ​

Of Pacing and Policing

The cries rang louder and louder
seeping into his room , his mind;
giving him a dream, that  of liberty.
 
The songs of discontent, of hunger,
were emanating from the streets,
from an angered psyche  of the young.
 
The chanting, the policing and all-- jolted
him of out the dream, the 1970 dream,
into reality , not liberty, but insincerity.      
      
 ​

Burnable Walls

the wave of heat was blowing her away
its rage was sweeping the tender walls
of her heart off into a topsy-turvyness
with a merciless and profound sweetness
 
it became profoundly important for her
to seek refuge but the inferno that grew out
of her pretty pulsating and pulverizing ordeals
became the necessities and imperatives of her life   
 
when ideas of him being a kaleidoscope of transient fun
started bubbling up on her mind she began to scrap them
with every ounce of her body and blood till a combustible rivalry
between her and her sibling erupted-- her sis wanted him tossed away  
 ​

​Come On And Cruise On

​A piece proved that poetry
Can be gorgeously poised
And gorged like a delicacy 

A viable mode of transportation 
It’s hale and hearty for the mind
The soul and spirit`s medication     

And that it can take readers out
Of all—out of politics into poetics--- 
Out of themselves and their spaces

And cruise with them far-off and nigh
Into warmth and words and wisdom   
On & on till it reaches a cool crescendo 

Towering Tower Block Takes Him Down Memory Lane

​From where he sat, from where he took a pensive walk--
From where he parked himself and took a studious look
At his daily schedules, tackled an assignment, read a book  
He could view the orbiting of the sun, it rolled with a hook 
 
He could observe, sense, feel the beauty and dynamic enterprise
Of Bulawayo, its texture, its ticking, tickling, its tackling prowess,
 Its heartbeat, happiness, heaviness, its colours, its rare calmness -
As each day progressed as a passage with its craziness or coolness  
 
It was there that he had become rooted in, there duty called
From mornings of any kind to afternoons when home invited
That was his base, a window to a world that gyrated & educated   
Life being dynamic things were about to take a twist, he accepted
 
When one spends the better part of the day in one busy space
One gets accustomed to the rhythms and heart of that place
One grows roots of familiarity into its milieu, smile or frown
4th floor towered over his head with a fond familiarity grown
 
He never missed “love” as like in a couple each and every single day! 
Lovebirds perambulated there like it was their love paradise so high  
From where he sat, he could view them pour out their hearts raw!
He adored that “love street”, but one day he had to kiss it goodbye