"tribesmen" poems
The British anthropologist enjoyed rare tribesmen.
But after seeing his article published in the prestigious Journal of Anthropological Research,
he kept the poor man on the coals a little longer,
thinking, "Well done, old chap."
Apr 29, 2021
Apr 29, 2021 at 11:07 AM UTC
Went down, slippery cold stairs
Spiraling down, words on walls,
The paper sheets?
Heard the music down there...
Down... Down...
I've heard it before;
Down... Down... Rumble down...
An underground celebration,
So I went - down.
(the cave)
Infants were there, dark rooms,
Bathing in the boiling red wine,
Laughing madly in the fumes,
The ceiling and walls were moist and dripping.
These babies, visages of chimera,
Evil grins cutting their faces,
Evil smiles, gruesome masks
and cigars in their hands, claws...
-Stop!!!
This I will unleash,
One day, whiskey, liqours,
Yeah.
Beers, drinks... rumbling.
Calm dark surface of the lake
At night
And the carnival nearby,
Mile away or so...
you can hear their sounds,
muted slightly;
faint lights of torches,
at the other side of lake.
Weird tribesmen
Praising the summer solstice
With howls, maracas,
Tiny bells, dance,
Fire.
-But listen to me now!
Now, when you hear me,
Look here, look closely.
Put your hand in me,
Can't you feel I'm almost boiling?
I'm no mud, I'm a clear water,
Almost as a spring!
Swift and clear - and hot.
and dark.
Jan 4, 2018
Jan 4, 2018 at 6:43 PM UTC
These are the hard times,
the long stretch of coal-shed days,
the corrugated nights of the antinomian.
I retch at the old doubts and the panoply
of dustbins clattering bright,
their watchers simian in the morning ****
I dress as though dredging up greys,
monotone deep in the GB tradition:
now sandpit tea with oil stain floats
silt dreads the mass of a seven year clay.
Four weeks of shadows drown wind in a storm.
And dreams of my cottage
in days of such calm and late summer happiness
as brought cut corn and strawbs
and horse manure in hugs
until like Zulu tribesmen the birds appeared.
Hunched with expectation
Spears smiling like baddies they rushed me.
I woke pouring sweat like a workhorse
the weakest of defences laid up
my face pulling cellophane over French windows.
Feb 6, 2012
Feb 6, 2012 at 2:07 PM UTC
Tepid damp and lukewarm night,
Build your camp by rivers bright;
Sable black and and somber grey,
Silt the river's arms away.
Island tenements rent for cheap,
Bakèd bricks in plinths lie deep;
Stores of merchants and their wives,
Sheltered from the thund'rous tides.
Glance on that maternal shrine,
Softly angled toward the Rhine;
See the men with flowing beards,
Seldom entertaining fears.
Moon illumes a stony pose,
Sun sustains a garden rose;
Temple pillars bathed in or,
Leave mute shadows on the floor.
Olifant horns begin to sound,
Tribesmen fall upon the town;
Riding with the northern gust,
Trampling the homes to dust.
Yet, as gateside rocks abound,
From the ashes, rises now,
Where that city met disgrace,
A mighty fortress in its place.
Jan 21, 2018
Jan 21, 2018 at 2:40 PM UTC
I had not been born yet.
Still, I can see you at your labor -
alone, scouring the meadows
for the stones -
lifting their gray shoulders
from the moist earth -
pulling them from the
green grasp of briars,
goldenrod, and
Queen Anne’s Lace.
The smell of the earth
must have filled you with
your own childhood memories -
of plowing fields
and cold mornings
trudging across barn yards
mud thick on your boots -
promising yourself
that someday you would leave
and never return.
I can hear the pick axe -
the sharp strikes
against the stones,
and the dull thud
when the earth
swallowed the blade -
and the deep exhalations
when the stones tumbled into
the old wheelbarrow – new then -
that now leans rusting
against my garden shed.
Some of the stones were so large -
far too large for one man –
how did you move them?
I look at the old photographs
and you seem so young –
so much younger
than I am today - and so thin –
staring off-frame beyond the camera.
What were you looking for
in those fields?
I can see you sorting the stones,
stacking them -
building and unbuilding
and rebuilding the walls
and terraces
until the walls were true
and the terraces level
and planted with dogwood,
birches, soft grass for bare feet,
and bordered with roses.
Did you know
that you were building my castle?
That the highest terrace
would be my tower and keep?
I remember calling out to my
knights, my legionnaires,
and tribesmen –
rallying them in defense
of the citadel – ready for
the coming siege.
I also remember looking out
across that verdant kingdom
for the last time -
no longer a king or a boy –
and miles away, across the river
to the west, I imagined
the new home that awaited us.
I couldn’t know
how far away it would be
or what it meant to leave.
This morning,
as I looked out across
the garden that I have built,
I felt the weightlessness of time
and its gravity
settling me into place.
For a brief moment I had
the sensation that I was standing
on the shoulders of
gathered stones.
(for my father, Guy Spencer.)
Tom Spencer © 2015
Jul 4, 2015
Jul 4, 2015 at 12:13 PM UTC
I see the rabbits feeding on the grass
My heart is filled with joy
Their life is precious
I see the vultures feeding on the rabbits
My heart is filled with joy
Their life is precious
That's what I never understood about coffins
Life is about expanding your prison cell as much as you can
There's no requirement to be contained once it's over
Our nutriance to the Earth
Is our nutrients into Earth
All creatures that die on this planet
Become a part of it
The Debt they paid to the future
The Debt that is always collected on
We travel nonchalantly on their corpses
Wishing they could appreciate
That each and every one of them
Was one step closer to sentience
This planet's passion project
Could the first single-celled organism
Comprehend my humiliation?
When the first creature walked on land
Was it anticipating my shame?
Did it sprout wings
To give me nightmares of dying in an airplane?
Did ancient Neanderthals dance around a fire
To reenact my adolescence?
Could mystic voodoo shaman
Cure my lack of agency?
Or did lost American tribesmen
Prophesize the complexities of my love?
I can feel all these ************* looking up at me from the ground
And it's just me
As I accidentally burn my notebook with a cigarette
May 29, 2017
May 29, 2017 at 12:01 AM UTC
His kalenjin tribesmen planned for tribal wars to cleanse kikuyus and luhyias
From the their lands, planned out of tribal sadism,
He was fully aware, as he understood the kalenjin coded language of war
And preparation for war, war of the years 2007 and 2008,
He did not give any holy bishopric **** to save his non indigenous folks
The people to be killed and tribally cleansed were the members
Of his catholic church in the dioceses of Eldoret,
The ones to **** were his kalenjin tribesmen,
But bishop korir could not counsel nor forewarn,
He did not give out any peace focused advice
That a catholic should not **** a catholic
Because of politics or worldliness,
Instead he gave respect to his tribal sentimentality
He behaved as a kalenjin first then a catholic later,
A spiritual paradox of the century,
Only equated in the Biafra tribal sentimentality between igbos and yorubas
Redolent of European ****** or the American ku Klux ****
But after all the non kalenjin Catholics from his dioceses
Had been killed, burned up in the church, ***** up
Homoerotically perhaps in the madness of tribal scorn,
That they now became refugees in their own country; Kenya
And then solemnly condemned to the refugee camps,
Is when Bishop korir Cornelius came out of his tribal kernel
With vices of a kipskiss sadist , holy rosary in his hand,
Singing an out dated poem of Hail Mary the ******
Mother of Jesus Christ to them, the IDPS,
He then promoted a priest from his tribe,
The one kimengich up the hegemonic altar to become
The bishop of Lodwar from where they loot
The illiterate turkana catholic peasants their relief foods,
And even jobs, and clothes, only to give to those who are not needy,
To the kalenjin who are not even catholic nor marginalized, some even Moslem,
All these happens in the sweetness of tribal syndrome,
A social disease which the holy sacrament of the catholic faith
Have not and never will heal Bishop Cornelius korir.
May 24, 2014
May 24, 2014 at 9:28 AM UTC
i couldn't stand the heat,
spent most of the time in the shade,
everyone made fun
of the guy standing by the pool
reading a book, pretending to
be a sundial;
i was called the whiskey-man;
one night i slept outside
and by the time i woke up my glass
of brandy disappeared;
mingled with the "auctioneers"
of a good time; boy one of those
kenyan girls was hot... oomph,
she looked like oiled coal, slimy bits
and raw ***
i know i was a tourist...
played a stupid drinking game with
two english girls, snogged one
at the end of the game, wasn't invited
back to the room for a *********
spent hours at night looking at the tide
splashing the shore, cried at the painting
so alive all the museums and galleries
became graveyards of appreciation;
it was a holiday resort, i admit,
although one bartender asked me to do
a local tour of the place, go clubbing,
supposedly a colonial ******* i was
upon first reading;
but the heat though! god almighty, couldn't
stand the temperature,
i was literally an ice-cream cone most
of the time, took to the shades,
wrote a short story for my grandfather
about an elephant dunking his trunk into
a bottle of brandy...
one day got chatting to a scottish pair
and a russian couple,
told the scottish guy about travis' 12 memories
album,
i was originally asking for a cigarette,
so we drank and chatted about mickey mouse
politics of america...
the scottish guy eventually ran off and jumped
into the kids' shallow pool veering
on blind-drunk-happy...
another time i too jumped into a pool
with my clothes on...
******* this heat...
ha, hmm, those kenyan macaques were funny
esp. on prompt of being fed on the balcony...
but boy that baboon was a menace,
a real anarchist, charged in like a donkey
with meningitis and stole food...
although one baboon had massive haemorrhoids...
and given his fat pinky *** it was even funnier to watch.
oh yeah, and this guy muhammad wanted
to take me to a crocodile sanctuary of his...
i sort of refused the invitation,
and no, i didn't go on the zoological escapade
of a safari to see the Masai tribesmen...
just gave c. g. jung's modern man in search of soul
to one of the caretakers of the resort.
Mar 26, 2016
Mar 26, 2016 at 7:43 AM UTC
i
Off in the beaten path
An Echelon of secret tribal's;
I pirouetted with them in plumage
Mine queen showed up, just on arrival.
ii
Her timing was perfect
As tis she watched me caper;
Me and mine Reyna's amour'
Like tambourines, shook with ancient shaker's.
iii
Hot coal ember's
Igneous in ourn chest's;
Ourn pulmonary arterie's
Bracketed, by her tribesgirl dress.
iv
We were gladden
Betwixt the wilderness;
Under mango leaves
Jane seduced me, equatorial phene's.
v
Whilst the darkness wore down
And the tribesmen went to sleep;
Me and mine protector
In the dusk, disappeared, into eachother's soul's to keep.
©Brandon nagley
©Earl Jane dedication
©Lonesome poet's poetry
Aug 10, 2015
Aug 10, 2015 at 3:22 PM UTC
Alexander K Opicho
(Eldoret,Kenya;[email protected])
Sembene Ouasmane the son of a fisherman
the son of wolof tribesmen the owners of Atlantic
you are a bad liar, my kinsman and foreman
why didn't you wait for me to grow up
you only belied to me for your to die earlier
i begged for your pipe for i also to **** it with passion
you told me to hold on until i grow up
only for you to accede to July death in 2007
i am tortured in this life without without you
agonized by daily chores without a glance at the fume of smokes
being blown from the magnificent ceramic pipe on your mouth,
i wanted you teach me what Maxim Gorky and Emile Zola taught you
i wanted to learn from you what you learned at the Moscow cinema school
was it cinematographic Marxism or filmographic socialism that you learned?
i wanted to get you alive so that we can sing together the songs of Cedo and Xala,
why were your gods collecting the pieces of wood; was it humility and humanism?
I wanted to see the powerful words of human side of governance
coming from you sober gentle mouth onto African plateau
that is replete with commonaplace selfish power struggles,
i will build a monument in respect of your service to African literature
and your service to protection of humanity;both Arabic and African
your service to humanity as you forgave a French woman who stole your book
only to publish it under her name in a dint of ****** wham pam pams.
Jan 27, 2014
Jan 27, 2014 at 10:09 AM UTC
Alas! The fleeting years glide on.
Eheu fugaces labuntar anni
So it goes, an old poet
rose, to tell the story of
the beast and the decaying glass rose,
petals falling softly cracking into broken
glass.
When you look at someone through rose tinted glasses, all the the red flags just look like flags.
raise a generation on Eminem and Cobain
then
scratch your head wondering where all us grown boys
went a little insane
from Timberlake to Bieber
Brittany to Miley
what's really changed?
anything
but our age?
a president named Bush went to war on terror
in the the middle-east,
ten years later his son does the same thing.
again I ask,
what's even changed
but
our age?
The ****** scandals begun by our ******* president
continue today under an eponymous tabloid cover
called Kardashian.
exploitation the name of the game,
everything is done for us,
especially our thinking.
less scarily,
our cooking.
there has never not been an "us vs. them"
mentality in human history.
we are cultured cannibals, tribesmen who have outgrown
our britches.
****** and racial liberation continues against
****** and racial tension
*** is cheap
drugs are cheaper
morals are depleted
agnosticism the happy sedated norm
nobody expects a revival but the saved themselves, the born
again.
well do I even wish to be born again into a life as this?
If I have learned anything thus far from life's teachings:
One is nothing and everything
Nowhere and everywhere
spirits abound where you least expect them
There is no zero and no infinity
Watch a fire burn and you will know this truth
Alas! The fleeting years glide on.
Eheu fugaces labuntar anni
Jan 1, 2016
Jan 1, 2016 at 2:37 PM UTC
There's a great big area deep in the Amazon,
It's called the basin,
It's made of plastic, made by tefal,
The tribesmen go a hunting,
They're going mining, deep into the basin of the tAmazon,
They're going chocolate mining,
Down, down, down they creep, sliding down them plastic edges, slippery but very steep,
Go into the darkened halls,
Where chocolate stalagmites, they grow,
As it's getting hotter and hotter and the air is getting sickly sweet,
The drips and drops are falling fast as stalactites fall down,
The mine's all filled with chocolate, what a crazy dream,
There are funny little fellows, hiding in the chocolate ghetto,
Hyperglycaemic, they're flying on the sugar rush.
(C) Livvi
May 16, 2014
May 16, 2014 at 6:12 PM UTC
She’s Luz-Vi-Minda
Priestess of Asia
When incubus harms
She takes out her charms…
Behold! Jose Rizal
Our hero national
Poet, doctor, researcher
Farmer, herder, school-builder
Fought Spaniards with paper and pen
Luzon’s charm – noblest of our men!
Behold! Lapu-Lapu!
Defender of Cebu
First terror of invaders
Famed Magellan’s death renders
Rammed Spaniards with native bolo
Visayas’ charm – quaintest hero!
Behold! Purmassuri!
Awesome Muslim lady
Wise heroine of Sulu
Foreigners cannot subdue
Disturbed Spaniards so tribesmen won
Mindanao’s charm – enemies thrown!
-11/27/2011
(Dumarao)
*First Incubus Collection
Aug 24, 2019
Aug 24, 2019 at 9:40 PM UTC
Fortify this Amozanian square,
Wherith Baldheads are anguished,
No other place shall compare!!!!
Altered skin wearers,
Sleeve wearing tribesmen!!!
Amourostity don't leave me to far gone,
Showeth me love,
Showeth me loving kindness,
Shower me thy grain!!!
And thine finess....
Fruition comes suddenly,
Studdingly the airs wind stays chill,
Dead/lock exhibitions of fan fare latitude!!!!
A blonde chapter of northern affairs,
How changeable is ones man I can smile!!!
Defilement she hath seen,
Derider,
Non abider,
Doesn't fit on thine circuited scene...
What a guise to all wherin whom sleep!!!
Guardeth thy soul,
Their mind is of allotrope,
You'll whimper as they weepeth!!!!
Flourisher,
Nourisher of nutrientral push!!!
Snappish,
Irenic, lover of pre school books!!!!
Sorceries own solvent,
Dissolvent of surmise talk,
Your a new age Delilah thou fresh smelling mucosa you!!!!!
May 17, 2015
May 17, 2015 at 4:37 PM UTC
The call rises from the West Door
A steady pounding rhythm across the water
Three medicine men stand atop the Adena burial mound
hands beating against drums, rattles shake, creating spirit
a musical birth
wolf, fox, bear, ox
Nemahi Tribesmen, facing the East Gate
Climbing upwards ancient earth,
native toes sinking into soft wet ground
exchanging no words,
only melody feathers dancing on the rhythmic wind
The broken healer offers wooden peace pipe, painted polar bear
Stepping into the medicine wheel, honoring the four fathers
Inhaling sacred herbs to cleanse lungs & spirit
Nothing lost, Nothing gained
Four buzzards glide along the slip stream
Two Crows calls me Brother
Four tribesmen stand atop the burial mound
Stray dogs united
Apr 22, 2014
Apr 22, 2014 at 12:12 PM UTC
Imaculee Ilibegiza
Dear I couldn't tell ye because Oh!
We wanted ye take flight sudden
The river of family to flow
Through ye our Compassion-ed maiden!
As you darted into darkness of night
We plunged into prayers on our knees
Holding the cross to our ***** tight
Way of the cross brought in us peace.
We know the enemy will come
Will ****** us all sparing none.
We were preparing our souls to numb
All the while praying for you brave nun.
Imaculee should flow eternally
A river of love and forgiveness.
Our hearth didn't fire since you left in fear
We burn in prayers as we hear
The enemy drum beats as it nears
Our dear home to put us to fires
But be calm dear, we are not in fears.
We are in the power of our lord
We believe death cannot defeat
Let it trample under its dark feet.
Safe hands of god is with you we know
My friend is of enemy tribe though
But only to Lord does he subscribe
He will guide you safely somehow.
The enemy's blood stain smells the air
Hark, dear, every corner death lurks
Searching blood of innocent tribesmen
Women and children they don't spare
Infants too they **** as kids of snakes.
If the most learned of them boasts the crime
Sure the devil had owned man this time
My child, Lee, I want you to flow
As the river of our family,
Flowing with forgiveness and love.
My love and deep kisses to my dear
Any time they'll tear us into pieces
But we are with our all time Jesus
We know your love will join the lord
And flow as the river of the word
Flowing eternally with love and forgiveness.
Hark! The enemy knocks at the door
Imaculee Ilibegiza
Dear I cant tell ye becoz.. Oh!
May 25, 2019
May 25, 2019 at 9:41 AM UTC
An ancient tribesman
In the amazonian jungle
**** and raw, as a ghost.
©Brandon nagley
©Lonesome poets poetry
Jul 29, 2015
Jul 29, 2015 at 9:08 AM UTC
Let us travel to Namibia
Let me take you to the Himba tribe
Maybe you call you them Ovahimba
They offer hospitality at its best
Whatever you do my friend
Wherever you find yourself
Always remember your cultural identity?
They are a people united by blood
Have you heard of "Okujepisa omukazendu?"
An age long cultural practice
If you can offer me your wife
As a form of hospitality
I can give you my life
That is the height of their bond
Who needs water to bath
When they are blessed with red ochre
With a daily smoke bath
The output, a glowing skin
I am dreaming it already
My Himba tribesmen are friendly
But if you cross the line
Things can change very fast
Call it by whatever name
I don't care about your education
What value is it to any
If you already lost you
In your quest to re-discover you
Please, take me to Namibia
That fine country somewhere in Africa
Apr 4, 2020
Apr 4, 2020 at 3:03 AM UTC
Descendant of proud tribesmen and daughter of mighty rulers,
I am the honored heir of warriors and wisemen.
Born and blessed with the bent of words,
I was bestowed the gift of Babel.
Survived the sight of my sanctuary
Being turned to a battlefield.
****** into war without a warning,
I danced with Death from dusk to dawn
Until I became the light and lured it away.
In the fight against life’s fatalities,
I vowed to be victorious. I swore to survive.
Sacred with a soldier’s soul
And the spirituality of saints,
I am destined to move mountains.
Unfazed and unapologetic, I am no longer afraid
Of the flames, for I have become the fire.
All the damaged petals, all the painful days,
All the broken pieces are the proclamation
That I prevailed. Pride pumps in my veins
As harmony and peace hum in my heart.
Jan 23, 2019
Jan 23, 2019 at 8:27 PM UTC
Bare and organic brown skinned man
Dancing the tribal shores;
As the European's pulleth land ahoy
The tribesmen's chief kneweth, this was the end of the world.
©Brandon nagley
©Lonesome poets poetry
Aug 2, 2015
Aug 2, 2015 at 9:59 PM UTC
Ouataga raised his arms to the sky
in offering for his people -
prepared to be ripped from life
by the claws and teeth of the Piasa
*The monstrous bird with blood red eyes
and bearded chin soared above the bluffs
in search of a solitary brave
to devour for his evening meal.*
Throughout the cycling of the whole moon
Ouataga had fasted and prayed
for a Piasa slaying plan.
The Great Spirit had come at last in a dream
and now the trap was set.
*The great monster gliding on thermals,
drifted over the rise,
clouding the bluff bluff with his shadow
fixed his crimson eyes on Ouataga
standing alone in the clearing.
His monster wings pummeled the air
and he began his ******* swoop of death.*
Obeisant to their young chief's dream,
twenty braves concealed
in a circle of bush and trees,
sent their poison shafts flying
straight to the center of the glade.
*The ravenous Piasa
baring teeth and talons,
never saw the rain of arrows
rupture his skin - pouring venom
into his murderous veins.*
Ouataga, untouched by talon or arrow,
smiled as the Piasa writhed
and fell dead as a stone at his feet.
Grateful tribesmen embraced their chief
who painted the monster's effigy
on a bluff by the Father of Waters
where every passing brave from that time forth
shot contemptuous arrows at its loathsome face.
March, 2008
Apr 6, 2016
Apr 6, 2016 at 6:17 PM UTC
You can see the lines mapped on the old tribesmen's face,
You can see his whole life by a tropical indigenous smile,
You can see all the love he's given through medicine, ritual, and spiritual implantations!!!
See the lines on his face go north and south,
Yet either way you map it,
You can see the lost city of gold lying beneathe his ancient pupils!
May 12, 2015
May 12, 2015 at 6:39 PM UTC
The wicked surround the righteous
Like tribesmen around a flame
To a song of joy they dance
All while in a trance
Sometimes they get too close
And learn a lesson dire
That evil's only for a moment
But the righteous live forever
The good walk in a line
Straight and narrow as she goes
Everyone wants to turn them aside
And ask them what they hold
Yet when they tell the truth
They refuse to hear what's told
For wisdom is too high for fools
Yet better than fine gold
The wicked surround the righteous
Like moths drawn to a lamp
They do not fear the Son
And aren't a target of the evil one
They like darkness more than light
They're like bugs under a rug
They mock and scorn the purer souls
Until God pulls the plug
Apr 12, 2025
Apr 12, 2025 at 1:53 AM UTC
Whoever would fire a bullet?
I ask as I’m surely confused
Who on Earth would want to shatter
All that beauty that Nature has fused!
Who sits in a hide away from the light
Waiting for the deer to call
They don’t need the meat, that’s not the treat
It’s the head and the points on the wall!
Tribesmen in ‘less civilised’ countries
Might hunt down just such a deer
Then they pray for the soul of the slaughtered
For life-saving food from a beast they revere!
Not for them the revulsion of trophies
They only **** what they need
But in our ‘so civilised’ society
We can **** just for pleasure or greed.
There is something not right in society
Where solutions come from a gun
Weapons should be just for protection
They should never be used for such ‘fun’.
“Please do not be offended by my reference to a ‘less civilised’ society. I refer only to a lack of modernity and in actuality we are the far more crudely behaved frequently” Joe Wilson 2014
©Joe Wilson – The slaughtered… 2014
Nov 26, 2014
Nov 26, 2014 at 7:56 AM UTC