we hurt most
those we love best
paradox

hopes in threadbare tatters
and exotic dreams shattered
i hobbled home
like a beaten soldier
dying to see one last time
that face that launched my ego trip
i knew now beyond any doubt
that truth was resident in the home
that i forsook all those years ago
and that glamour lived next door
in the warm eyes of that girl
who could blast me into oblivion with a word

you took me on a wondrous  space trip
to the vastness of a foreboding outer universe,
to places i had never thought i could traverse.

i learned that the imagination is as vast as cyberspace
and that all things are possible to a fertile imagination
especially to one looking for  magic and wonderment

so in the depths of our speculating minds
the word was made flesh in a spectacular flash
as your imagination wove a tapestry of things uknown

it mattered not that spoil-sport reality soon set in
or that once more i landed on terra firma with a bump
we had the power to wish into being all our fancies
and the duration was of little importance in our utopia

it is all rather insincere and futile
when you’re old and almost senile
to try doing a few  new things this late
on the premise better late than never
you will learn much to your chagrin
how your remorse and deep regret
fail you and there’s no peace ever
lesson for us all dear fellow wayfarers:
‘isikhumba sigoqwa sisemanzi’
‘tis best you tan a hide in its freshness

By forty you’d be rich and famous
              So you said
By fifty you’d be a revered opinion maker
With princes and the rich queuing for your ideas
              So you said
By sixty you’d be a modern but erudite oracle
Dispensing flakes of stunning wisdom to all
              So you said
By eighty you’d be a rare phenomenon
Physically strong and mentally sharp beyond belief
              So you said
But who’s this tattered old person in rimless glasses
Begging the indulgence of amused passers-by
And selling rusty memories at two for a dollar?

we never really forget the pain
since our hearts carry the stain
etched there by wanton partners
driven by unbridled debauchery
and a wild sense of adventure
so we never really forget the ills
and we never forgive the sins
of our lovers in a thousand years
so let your unseeing eyes weep
and your foolish heart bleed
till the bare truth is wrung out
of the chronicles of your malice
and i have the lovely satisfaction
of seeing you squirm unforgiven
as it dawns on your indolent mind
that you can never make amends