I have been trampled upon
Yet here I stand.
Shoved and kicked down
Yet I've risen by God's hand.
I have been ridiculed, mocked and teased
For a second did you think it would phase me?
Oh please.

I am the epitome of feminine power
A lady of increasing inner strength by the hour.
I am an impenetrable spirit,
Soaring higher beyond dimension, space and time limit.
I am an infectious disease called happiness
A lady who knows her worth
And won't take anything less.

I am worthy
I am deserving
I am excellence
I am God-serving.

I am an African Woman:
A hand-crafted masterpiece
A conqueror of challenges and hardships
A lady of spiritual wealth and infinite being.

I am beauty personified.
An image of immortal greatness.

Harsh words of cruelty merely graze my surface
Label me a worthless piece of unwanted coal
And watch as I am put under pressure
And manifest into a bright diamond of immeasurable worth.
Unbreakable.

I am power
I am strength
I am an African Woman.

The Unpleasant breeze welcomes Lakunle
Invites the harsh winds to him Unluckily
He shrugs repeatedly accepting fate
Mosquito bites and the next day's date
Wakes him up to ruble again in pain
confused about the little he has to gain
Aiyetoro

He his challenges by is toothless smile
to turn the hands of time and set a mile
a mile of records that will break the chains
The poverty chains of which he grew with on these plains
trying to understand the Life he has
going to sleep every night with an empty stomach with gas
empty gas.........
Aiyetoro

The journey began
He ran
Away from home
To find a new zone of his own
picked by a wanderer
they wandered together
He still wonders what happened to Wanda
He flew to Rwanda
He went back to Aiyetoro

The empty results
The wasted years
The Unanswered Questions
The Grey Hairs
The Recklessness
The Life of Aiyetoro

My country, the African soil.
Where all the animals,
Gets to toss and toil.

The warmth, the ground.
The different animals
To be found.

The plants and trees
Giving life to all.
From the smallest of zebra's
To the giraffe standing tall.

The African joy
At the setting of the sun.
All the baby animals
Playing, having fun.

I hope you'll one day
Get to see.
All the beauty
South Africa seems to be.

-ZvZ-

They knew nothing of the politics of flight, merely watched the birds that soared in the sky.
They knew nothing of the world around them and how it would ignite, when sitting watching sparks rise up like fire flies in the halve each night.
They knew nothing of what spooked their parent’s sight, not understanding the fear that glowed bright in their eyes.
They knew nothing of why their calm mother from polite and encouraging, became anxious holding them tight.
They knew nothing of why father stood watching from the window each night, simply thinking he was watching dreams drift by in the moon light.
They know nothing of why they are walking for days, pushed shoved and spat upon by a world given to not caring.
They know nothing of the politicians that sit on their hands, whilst they grow blown bellies and sleep in no go zones.
Perhaps they will know in time, should the death bell not ring for them this day!
(c) Robert Kingston 20.9.15

Uncle Sam sometimes whispers a little bit too close.
I’ve felt so many scraps scraping against my cheek-
those numerous numberless things he carries in his
beard by ‘accident’. So many things get stuck there
and I feel them all, whenever he dares, and he dares
often, to whisper alittlebittooclose. One time the grey
beard leaned in and touched me in my sleep and
planted in me strange dreams of faraway gothic towers
passing off as libraries: Harvard dreams, Princeton
dreams, Yale dreams: I haven’t quite slept since. The
shaggy scraps stuck to the forest of strands on his face
would never let me. They scratch away at me often
even in the brightness of day, and claw jaggedly in the
darkness of night. Little heart of mine has lost its own
beat. It beats to the beat of a beat on a beat from a beat
with a beat by a beat which beats those beats and beats
beats that beat not of my beat. Little heart of mine, when
did you lose your own pulse? Why won’t you tell your family
that Uncle Sam’s whispers are more than whispers? Why
won’t you tell your family what Uncle Sam does to you
in the brightness of day when everyone is smiling as Uncle
Sam pats your shoulder? Little heart of mine, why doesn’t
your family know what Uncle Sam does in the darkness
of night as he whispers whispers under your whispers and
what he does beneath your skin? Didn’t you know, little heart?
They have laws that say that greybeards shouldn’t be digging
into little boys’ insides, don’t they.

(Uncle Sam has travelled
far and wide, far and wide to tell me lies.
Recall that this is not the first time…)

But little heart you know why. This is not the first time.
It is the natural progression for a Coconut like you:
darkness of night on outside and brightness of day on inside.
Your skin doesn’t matter; you all taste the same.
Cut you off the homeland-tree and cart you all away.
Then, in this way we can say and say the homeland is “Rising”-

Uncle Sam tells the world of his diversity in selection
of little boys to touch with strange dreams.
And I like the feel of the scraps in his beard. Maybe
I can become one of them. One with them.

Somewhere near to three years old in the hot dust of another country, a strange woman comes to me.
She is not like my mother but she calls herself Mama.
My family tell me that she is my grandmother.
This does not sit well with my infant self,
I inform them quite certainly that my only granny is across the seas in her big house of roast dinners and gardening and apple picking.
That was the time when I adored her.
And I vaguely remember haribos on a bed that wasn't my own
And streets that didn't know quiet.
Loud ladies who turned their attention to me
And sellers in the roads dancing between cars and waving their goods at my mother's inherently wealthy white skin.
And there were rural parts,
Sometimes the women didn't wear tops but that didn't matter as much as people think it does
And I separated the rocks from rice with this black imposter who insisted she was my grandmother.
My parents say she would place them before me to find and present them proudly-
She wasn't so much an imposter as a stranger.
And there was a shower
Not in the village but an urban area,
Where someone left a bar of soap
That my feet were too eager to meet,
Things spiralled out of control and I was heels over head, forehead becoming closely acquainted with tiles
Dented.
And marked.
To this day that skin stain remains on my forehead but I forget where.
Time gives way to more accidents and mistakes
I wouldn't say that my visit was a mistake or a waste,
Though I only remember dubious seconds of blurry scenes and the split between reality and imagination isn't always too clean,
But it wasn't a waste.
It was the first, but more importantly, the last time I ever met
That black stranger who called herself my grandmother.

They sing for him,
Swinging from heel to frail heel,

Growing earth between the ground and,
his casket,

Bleeding love into the air
Like orchids,

Humming,

They rise again
And again their gently swaying busts,

Move the air to and fro,
To and fro,

Intending that mother be comforted,

Intending that her wet eyes,
Smile at new wives, that

though her son was gunned down, the
Rhythm of the occasion,

Brings life.

A glance at the rear-view mirror,
And you’re in the hands of a driver,

Who’s chewing grass,
And kneading her weave.

You hope you’ve selected the right seat because,
You’re left of a drunk,

Who’s just exclaimed,
In between snorts,

That women are ******,
And we’re moving too fast.

Survival in slow motion can be glamorous.

You imagine, you see,
That you can dodge bullets and retain bouncy hair,

That keratin replenishers really do work;

But the drunk man was right;
Not about women,

Too fast is too fast.

You survived,
The others did not.