She realised inspiration was all around her,
She could change her hand writing like a chameleon would his colour,
Her thoughful mind had so much to say,
Not through her mouth but her fingers per se,
When faced with challenges,
She'd create pages,
Pages of words of encouragement,
She chose poetry because it was one of the things she did with so much ease and without worry of being wrong,
So she chose poetry.

Make my life a hollow reed
That will bend now in stormy breeze
For in numbers I find my strength
Beneath the willow tree

Make my life like the rock
Piled high upon , top to top
A stonewall that runs for miles
Around my lands it stands

Make my life short and sweet
Give me peace not dire defeat
Give me love and woman's sigh
Amidst the clovered fields

Make my life a Godly song
One that knows right from wrong
With wisdon as old as stars
I'll dance inside the fire

Make my life to unfold
I am tired , my shoes have holes
My dreams are seeds cast to the wind
And just the husk remains

Make my life now come to end
It's my time to propend
I'll walk among the ghost's remains
And willingly I quote

Hollow reeds will bend not break
Holow reeds will not forsake
Of hollow reeds my death bed make
And lie amongst the stars

Today was my birthday

And I barely remember what I did
But I was surrounded by those I love

Today was my birthday

And I didn't get very many gifts
But what I got was just enough

Today was my birthday

And I didn't go anywhere special
But I was surrounded by those I love

**And it was just perfect enough

it may well be that I no longer am good company
     or that I never have been anyway

it’s not that people make me feel like that

it is myself that questions me
and I am spending more time with myself
     than anybody else

I have noticed lately
a touch of crankiness
looking at me out of the bathroom mirror

I wonder why

is it just age encroaching on my life
with its assorted ailments
or disillusionment of archived teenage dreams

I look again at the reflection of myself
and see what I did miss before

there is a spark of youthful mischief in these eyes
even the serious bearded lips seem ready for ironic smiles

maybe no everything is lost

maybe I can myself keep company
for some more years with little strife

even, perhaps, until the end of my sweet life

Oh Cyrano, dear Cyrano
Monsieur, de Bergerac
Your nose was big, yes really big
Immense, “la tabernac”

You stuck it in, a love affair
And wrote, Roxanne some prose
She fell for it, to the extent
That then, she Christian chose

All those years, you pined for her
And wrote Christian, some more
But in the end, it wasn’t him
But the letters, she’d adore

So you were left, without her love
As if, it was to be
And it’s your prose, which did you in
How stupid, could you be

Before Roxanne, realized you lied
A log, did hit your head
You sadly came, to your demise
And your love, remained unsaid

And so, the moral of your story
Now, comes sadly to its close
Remember to be careful
Where you stick, your big fat nose
BOEMS BY JA 74

He scoops sands in baskets

then balancing neatly on the shoulder
carries to where needed
through bone breaking hours.

Upon his footprints is there a name
or a home
where he goes back for the night
lands featherlight kiss on a woman
awakes her sleepy bones with her hands
forgetting his days sinking in the sands.

A poem written by my heart so every single word you hear is a pulse.
I’m a literary writer trapped inside the mind of a spoken-word poet.
I stood in the rain patiently awaiting the arrival of freedom but then I eventually realised that it was the rain.
People keep talking about a rainbow nation but I only saw a glimpse of that when I looked out my windowpane.
I wrote plenty peaceful poems picturing politicians perpetuating poverty.
Frankly speaking, I could write more but that’s an anthology for another day.
Even if things don’t always go our way, I just hope that everything will be okay.
Freedom is just an illusion but my conclusion is subjective due to my frame of reference.
Not even Mandela money could buy me freedom in a dollar-based economy.
In a country saturated with poverty, politicians are still protecting their pockets.
I wish I knew how to liberate an imprisoned man who cannot mentally be free.
The prison of his mind is depriving him of all the greatness that he could be.

There are millions of questions I can’t find the courage to ask.
But even if I did, I probably wouldn’t get all the answers.
I probably wouldn’t be able to fully accept the truth.
There are millions of questions I can’t seem to find the answers to.
I wrote plenty peaceful poems picturing politicians perpetuating poverty.
I stood in the rain patiently awaiting the arrival of freedom but then I eventually realised that it was the rain.
View the kaleidoscope of life through the perspective of a spoken-word poet.
Freedom is like finding forever and I hope that everyone in here knows it.
Let’s all meet in the pages of a story where the ink holds us together.
A poem written by my heart so every single word you hear is a pulse.