Poems: Exile and Beyond

By Tswagare Namane

Tswagare Namane spent his youth in the exiled South African liberation movement based in East Africa and broadcasting liberation programmes on Radio Tanzania. At the same time, he was writing for local newspapers and experimenting with poetry, essays and playwriting. Since his return to South Africa, with the fall of Apa

• Language: English
• Publisher: Book Vine Press
• Release date: Mar 25, 2022
• ISBN: 9781957781327

Book preview

Contents

Dedication

Acknowledgments

Preface

Dar-es-Salaam, Dar-es-Salaam!

Night Dancers

Mashetani

African Woman

5. Mama Abu

The Mid-Night Mayhem (AFTERMATH OF A CYCLONE – 31\12\1989)

Beautiful Innocence

African Demagoguery

Marginalismo

On Christmas Eve

Nineteen Ninety One

Up the Mountains

Morning Rush

A Chancemeet

Songs of Autumn

Wintry Days

A Retrogressive

Quench of Fire

A Morning Departure

Waiting

Crossroads

Night

Conversations with the Dark

The Logic of the Cosmos

Spirit

Life

Frank Talk

Meditation

Two Sides of Luck

Perfection

Lost Neighbours

The Little Cat is Dead

The Peace Keepers

Morning Jog (in Dar-es-Salaam)

Cape Town

Sunday

A Picture Flits Past

Visit to a Mountain Kingdom (In QwaQwa)

The Wife’s Lament

Sweet Sixteen

The Dancer

Without You

Forbidden Love

Together in Dreams

Love Symphony

Across a Rainstorm (LOVE SONG)

Oratile (The Oracle)

Birth of a Diamond (TO DR NIENABER)

Intriguing Signs

Unknown Known

A Perspective

Revision

Elegy

An Aspect of Mount Kilimanjaro

Freedom

Blues for Muntu

Zainab

Freedom Convention

A Jazz Fireplace

War Blues (Gulf War 1)

Diamond (a fantasy)

Homing in

The Silent Revolution

Dala-Dala (The Bus Ride)

Id el Fitr

Wishing (A Metamorphosis)

Cornered inside a Hospital

Actualisation

Green Sunday

Kinondoni by Night

Rosalind (Pearl of the East)

A Dream, a Wish and Paranoia (A Moment in Schizophrenia)

The Musician

A Duel for Crumbs

Daybreak at Kunduchi Beach

Night Child

A Sudden Storm

Showdown

Perestroika

Deathful Thoughts

Dar es Salaam (Cradle of Civilisation)

Bye-bye Exile

Illicit Portraits (The Girl Next Door)

Song of Exile (A Child’s Plea)

Revolution

The Grapevine

Cause and Effect

For the Land is Ours (A letter to Zeph Mothopeng)

Bright Star of the Morn (Mangaliso Sobukwe)

At Death Great Men Discard Their Smallness (for P O & Dugmore)

Power of the Past

The Goats

Eveningtide (at Old Posta)

A Sunday Dawn

God’s Punishment

Morogoro

A Rumbarous Welcome

Vanishing Hopes

Where is the Love Gone

Womanising (Born Again)

End of Millennium

Eternity

The Beauty Inside

Triple Babe

Beauty

Transcendence of Guilt

The Ebb of Hope

Passage of the Seasons

The Air of Irony

Batswana

Children of a Lesser God

A Premature Deflowering

Freedom

To Grow is Pain

Kefilwe – Angel of the Night

Early Arrival

Song to an African Child

Clearing

The Words, at Last

I like it when it Rains

Sasolburg

An Accident in the Night

Dedication & Devotion (Tribute to a teacher unknown)

Twinkling Star

Night Journey

The Full Cycle

A Struck Chord Rings Eternal

A Humble Official (An Oxymoron)

To the Crown Prince

Mascuninity

Ken Saro-Wiwa

Babalelang (Sleeping at a Concert) Seeing you sleeping public the other day

Lost Glory

Lurking Ogres

My Inner Source of Strength

Episode in the Rain

Mafikeng (The Queen of Talk)

Zaire (End of Mobutu)

TREACHEROUS UNIONS

Disappointing Finishes

Big Smallness

Return to the Source

Mother

A Hello to Twins

El Nino

Bar-room Wisdom

WAITING

RESOLUTION

VULNERABILITY

WITH CHILDREN

PHONYCATING FORMS

ON A TUESDAY AFTER EASTER

AFRIKA RESURRECTED

END OF BLUES

BLOEMFONTEIN

A ROSE OF THORNS

RETRENCHMENT

NIGHT AGONY

RUSTENBURG – A MORNING WALK

PORT ELIZABETH

CHRISTMAS EVE

A DEAD BIRD ON THE GROUND

GENUINELY BEAUTIFUL

A RUN TO NOWHERE

NTEMI PILISO IS DEAD

New Year’s Day 2001

My Sun is Arisen

Reconciliation

Mayhem at Ellis Park

AIDS is just a Disease

LOVE MOMENTS

Prostitute upon a Weary Walk

Newspaper Boy in Rainy Chill

To Colleagues upon Separation

Mid-Life Crisis?

Rain at Start of Winter

An Affront to Yankee Arrogance

An Unjust War (20 March 2003)

Global Voyeurism

The Madman

June Sixteen

Drifting on Cloud Nine

Death of Patrice Lumumba (On watching a doccie)

Pitfalls of African Diplomacy

Old Man Makgothi

Upon Mma-Makgothi’s Passing

Death of a Maestro (Kgomotso Molobye)

The Thrill of Going against the Elements

At the Bottom of Every Civilization, Love

Freedom

Fleeting Moments

Rewardless Search

Inopportune Misfortune

A whiff of Nostalgia

Twiddling Antennae

Dancing with the Gods

The Squatters (a Middle-class Disease)

The Squatter’s Response

Dreams

In the Eyes of the Beheld

Mighty Rain

Eternal Cycles

Constructive Engagement

A COUNTRY WALK (Thaba Nchu)

Metaphor

Night Life

Golfview Defiled

No Past no Present

A Litterbug’s Paradise

Coexistence

Garsfontein, Pretoria

Forgiveness Therapy

For Whom the Rain Falls

Vision

Déjà vu

The First Star

Nesting

Phototropism

An Insuranceless Exertion

Fullness of Time

Equine Ritual

At a Soup Kitchen (a picture)

GIANT URINAL

The Jobless

The Purple Haze

PERPETUAL HUNGER

Master Art

Dreams do Come True

True Forgiveness (Lessons from Nature)

Doubts

The Miracle of Change

A Train Ride after 26 Years

Fear

Moon Times (a Longing)

The Easing of a Block

Lurking Danger (A METAPHOR)

Psychic Activity

Rippling into Guilt

Tragic Aesthetics

Importunate Miaows

Eclipse of the Soul

A Renaissance Paradoz

The Art of the Soul

The Enemy is Within

A Miracle at Noon

A Twist of Conscience (Upon a Quiet Storm)

Picture of Health (Dr Burden)

Who’s Taught the Cat Hunting?

Beyond Fear

Glimpses of Greatness

Vuyo (Lovers in moments of exile)

To BB upon Wedding

Creativity

Angst Free

Altered Consciousness

Pure Gold

A Happy Solitude

Pinky & Mangi

A Breezy Arrival

Back in Gauteng

Reggie Kumalo

The Full Arrows of Tragedy

Nylstroom (Modimolle) Cosy looking little dorpie

A Fading Moon is Trapped

Such an Anti-Love World

Of Troy at 50

Crack of Thunder in the Night

If I must Voice it

Full Moon

The Last of the Maternal Aunts

Still Run the Deepest

Glossary

Dedication

To Tlamelang Namane and all others of the Namane clan who went before and a1fter him.

Acknowledgments

Thanks to all those who have made this book possible. Bonolo Namane, Zach Namane, and J M. Without the persuasive powers of Keisha Rain, I would not have considered for a moment doing this project.

Preface

Poems Exile and Beyond gives pre-existing content a facelift so that it now reaches hitherto untapped nooks and crannies. Changes made are largely at the behest and dictate of the markets. May this book offer readers across the face of the world a unique and different color and taste of poetry.

Dar-es-Salaam, Dar-es-Salaam!

I salute you Dar-es-Salaam

Wasalaam malaikum city of serenity

Centre where the four winds meet

I celebrate the royal twiga

O delirium wafting the humid airs

You intoxicate me with your scents

The pungent burn of coconut oil

Stench of fish-rot in cloud of flies

On your shores shine the best suns

Oriental welcome in blue shimmers

Trees evergreen with gratification

fling arms wide open in immolation

You are the one in all and all in one

Ring of orchestral koras all from West

The chants and