"wildebeests" poems
Somehow the gate's been opened
To the urban zoo;
And the rural petting farm
Is something gone askew.
The wildebeests and monkeys
Are leading lambs and lemmings,
They're trumpetting their call,
I hear them through the concrete wall.
Mar 3, 2016
Mar 3, 2016 at 5:18 PM UTC
Is tamed wildness
And manufactured wilderness-
A plastic world
All my young son will know?
I have known gritty gravel roads
And sunburnt savanah veldt.
Swam and splashed
in muddy dams and reservoirs.
I have sat high above,
in mountain peaks studying clustered clouds
close enough to reach out and run my fingers through by day,
and I have counted the dancing stars above
in vast dark nights.
I have discovered treasures in the misty valleys on early mornings
And seen sun streak through
heavy storm clouds
to colour a grey sky with radiant rainbows.
I have seen surreal snow fall
And slowly erase the world around us.
I have seen majestic beasts truly free-
Wildebeests, various buck and cautious rhinos,
Zebras that danced and played
Around an elephant that loomed high above them,
And elegant wings that whispered
upon westerly winds.
And it has all left me marked,
these magical moments tattooed in
my south african soul-
And I am more for it - filled.
what will feed their sould now?
Sep 9, 2015
Sep 9, 2015 at 3:34 PM UTC
in
Tanzania
where
migrating herds of
wildebeests, gazelles, zebras and buffalos
stampeding across
the
vast Serengeti Plains
ignite the world
then
write
their names
in gold
ignite
the
skyline of earth
create
a painted
watercolor sunset
Aug 1, 2015
Aug 1, 2015 at 8:30 PM UTC
I think-
-my lungs
are suffocating me from inside,
swelling when I look at you,
beating their fists when you speak.
I think-
-I am
crashing into this feeling
like an airplane in love with gravity.
My heart and liver take up square-dancing,
an internal tribe of wildebeests rampages through
my intestines.
I think-
-I should
breathe more.
~Quick, say something clever~
My lungs dip in and out of the air in shallow strokes.
Jan 6, 2012
Jan 6, 2012 at 1:10 PM UTC
I wear a suit and tie all day
slave to a clock
come home tired and irritable
while the lion just does whatever it wants
and has the entire Serengeti to roam
picking off Wildebeests until it is satisfied
but it can't use a computer
or a microwave
and it doesn't have an air conditioner
but then all these things
are in my little cage
I'm not sure who has the better life
But I bet the lion would think
cheeseburgers and french fries
on value menus wherever we roam
are pretty awesome
I'm sure we would be good friends
Apr 16, 2014
Apr 16, 2014 at 6:43 PM UTC
My nose runs through plastic flowers,
dad close behind, brother
somewhere— camouflaged— in front of me.
Our prey is close.
The savanna grasses
dried and woven into baskets
but we stalk through them all the same.
As we close in, crouched among hippos
crocodiles and wildebeests
pushing orange shopping carts, we crack up,
roar, our prey hears us and we duck
into the nearest aisle of knickknacks
before she turns around,
all the other animals glaring
but Dad doesn’t care
because his cubs aren’t fighting
or fussing
they’re hunting with their father.
As our prey nears the checkout
we pounce
and she gives Dad that look:
I thought it was Mom’s “I can’t believe
you made the kids **** me” look
but it was the
“Everyone’s staring at us” look
As Dad just smiles
mane waving in the air conditioning
and pretended to eat Mom’s neck.
Mar 10, 2011
Mar 10, 2011 at 10:21 AM UTC
You're burning a seething red beneath
your skin; how long before this garden
burns to ash and the ferns grow?
When you no longer know how your
story goes, how many demons can you
create out of those who you've surrounded
yourself with? These tresses will strangle
the last of you in some ceremonial ground
where all you'll ever hear is the sound
of their voices laughing like a pack of
wildebeests, waiting for when your flesh
is no longer owned by your bones.
They'll pick you apart like a child
in a corridor full of strangers much
stronger than you; go to bed
sleep on it, and just let the light of your
ember veins light awake the madness you
cannot cast away. These miseries
will find their way into their beds
and make your dissolutions their nightmares
and then sleep, sleep you will.
Aug 10, 2015
Aug 10, 2015 at 3:36 PM UTC
I like to run and
let my feet stomp over my thoughts.
If I could,
I would unleash a stampede of cows or wildebeests.
My memories would be rendered to a pulp.
And my dreams might be sufficiently squashed,
that they would think twice
about rising up into the thought bubble
of reality
that floats innocently, glowing above my head
in my dark room.
Mar 13, 2013
Mar 13, 2013 at 2:36 AM UTC
In the lands yonder
Beyond the thrones of Europe
and the bustle of the West
There is a land
It is quiet and peaceful
The sun shines everyday
The people are black
In the lands yonder
Beyond the industrial buzz and dense smoke
There are a peaceful people in a land
Its rivers traverse the lands
From one end to the other
Its waterfalls are wondrous
Its caves adventurous
There is the land
Whose people dont worry
Their simplicity is baffling
They never hurry
There is the land
Whose people sit on gold mines and diamonds unexploited
There is more to life for these people
From days of old
They understood the balance of nature
Before Carl's nomenclature
In the lands yonder
Snow caps mountain tops
Elephants and Buffalloes run the Savannahs
Wildebeests migrate in wonder
In the lands yonder
The birds sing in hapiness
The lions roar in jungles
The lands are rich
The peoples cultures are rich too
They were once thought dunders
Plans were made to invade and plunder
Those were the worst blunders
They fought for equality
They fought for their rights
Adowa 1896
Apartheid 1994
MauMau 1954, and more
They died for their land
This is the land of peace
This is the land of wealth
And nature's bounty
This is Africa
Jan 2, 2016
Jan 2, 2016 at 4:12 AM UTC
Everyone loves the comedian.
He can bring a smile to someone’s face that had been covered with a cloud of darkness for decades.
He feels the sadness emitting from another person, even from their heart, and can chase it away with a joke about an interrupting cow or a dog and sandpaper or with the punchline being the lyrics to a song that when said is played in the head of the listener and its beat revives their heart with an electric shock.
He can put in order the right words and can say them with such perfect deliverance that it can make a crowd keel over, laughing so hard they can barely breathe and applaud with the forcefulness equivalent to a stampede of wildebeests.
People like to laugh.
He can make them laugh.
But what if the comedian no longer walks with a spring in his step? What if that cloud of sadness that he chased away found its way and circled back towards him?
What if it just so happen to be that, when he walked off the stage, he pulled off a mask that no one knew was there in the first place because he hid it so well by distracting the attention from his face and onto to what happiness he could provide them with. That by mending other broken spirits, none of them would notice his, even more broken than theirs. And in the silence of my- his- own misery, he is left to rage war with himself that he can only feel on the inside of me- him- and gives no hint to it on the outside so as to remain the jester. My- his- heart and mind is a warzone fought between him and his fears. The insecurities that reach out their withered hands to paralyze me- him- from the heart down are fought only with the will to press on as normal. And while I tell that joke about the rabbi, the priest, and the atheist that walk into the bar I’m on the other side of it drinking myself into a protective pit trying to forget the other joke I told about the chicken who crossed the road as if trying to paint me- it- with some amount of courage to cross the road when deep down inside I know the truth that I am much less than a coward unable to cross a dead road for fear of getting run over by myself. My insecurities and fears that I warded off for so long have finally grabbed hold of my ankles, ripping the supports from underneath me so that I fall and crash to the ground, blood spilling everywhere, all the while keeping a calm composure and a smile taped to my face so no one will know it kills.
Yet still I press on.
Why?
Because everyone loves the comedian.
I can bring a smile to someone’s face that had been covered with a cloud of sadness, emitting from their heart, coming in to save the day and chase away that darkness and revive their heart with an electric shock that has the forcefulness equivalent to a stampede of wildebeests that will leave them breathless and with a smile on their face.
And so they press on.
And so I press on.
Jan 28, 2016
Jan 28, 2016 at 8:40 AM UTC
Rainbow umbrellas
Serendipitous magic
Wildebeests buffet
Mar 27, 2022
Mar 27, 2022 at 1:25 PM UTC
Spectral dreams.
Tiny seams in time.
Moonlight, rainbows, starry skies.
Wildebeests and cats and frogs.
Rivers flowing, flowers growing.
Raindrops fall through weathered sky.
Daylight breaks, I wonder why.
All I touch and all I see,
The trees believe so why not me?
All I ask to ever be
Is freely growing with the leaves.
Believing in the things I need.
Leaving air for you to breath.
Nov 12, 2017
Nov 12, 2017 at 4:53 PM UTC
What lies before us doesn't matter,
What matters is,
What lies between us,
And
What lies within us,
Cuz
There is no life without us.
Life is a Marathon
We shouldn't give up on human Race,
We are wildebeests in crocodile jaws,
Don't tell us that we are not going back to Egypt,
That's where River Nile flows.
If this planet was a police and it says FREEEEEEEZE!!!!!!!
The whole world would be at MELTING POINT.
Jan 24, 2017
Jan 24, 2017 at 9:05 AM UTC