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African Writing Archives


    
     
    Mncendisimashigoane
Mncedisi Mashigoane
  
  Obe Mata
Obe Mata


So home is this city steadying itself
against the river, against
canals crisscrossing
my eyes like the lines
on the palm.
So home is this city hugging
the limelight, hugging
buntings hung on
narrow, gabled
houses.
  Phelelani Makhanya
Phelelani Makhanya


Freedom was on special
I bought it
I didn't get a receipt
Now it doesn't fit.
   
   
African Writing is not all about writing. Sometimes, beyond the picture and the words, the poem is best conveyed in voice. We are also happy to receive your audio submissions alongside your text for our online editions. Please send (wav/ogg/aiff/wma/mp3) files to the  editor.
Sudanese Desert
      Elizabeth Joss
Elizabeth Joss
  
 

To father for leaving
me at the bosom
for raging wars inside
my shriveled heart
for not knowing me
like I know me

To father for staying
Put. Amongst the plastics
Of your factory
Your
me-chan-i-cal
family life
 
Lakunle Jaiyesimi
 
Who cares what the houses
Do to them? To their heads…
To the heads of their children…
And together…to their buttocks…
Who cares?

Are we not all peasants
Driven away from the face
Of naked heavens?
Where all bugs bite deep
Into our famished skins
And storms and floods arrive from
Ocean floors, seething
…and flushing away all belongings.
  Patrick Iberi
Patrick Iberi
   
 


Life strikes a rhythm
And leave choices before us
To midwife celestial vigils
Or sleep on the other side
To awake no more

Life strikes a rhythm
Where tributes run dry,
The sea assail our hopes,
Now like rebels in a slave ship
They must fight or drown

    Chuma Nwokolo
Chuma Nwokolo
  and I saw ahead of me
the days when even ‘I’
would be a lie.		  

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So, dear reader, cross the border and get Behind Every Successful Man at a good bookstore near you after June 1.
(Come on. You knew that was coming!) Zukiswa
  
 
     
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