This waiting room is painted of pain,
featuring faces with mouths down-turned,
impatience taking up these empty seats,
of family members already lost,
we feel like the least loved
in the mighty grasps of almighty fate's
crushing hands,
we feel like the last patients
to be visited during the night shifts,
by nurses and doctors,
the times of day when the most dust
is swept back to the humble soil
by an unseen, yet not-so-invisible bashing broom.
the old fan - barely hanging -
is closing in full circle,
a whole life lived.
dull curtains, some unhooked and five minutes to falling,
alongside the walls' stripes
designed with a print of doctors' usual words,
"I'm so sorry for your loss."  

If life truly begins at forty,
then hers ended at the starting line.
this would be a misplaced and mixed metaphor
if it weren't for olympics silently running in the background on the tv
reminds me of my mute cries, surprised eyes bulging, gaping mouths with no sound.

It ought to be a preventative measure; just a routine operation
a possibly cancerous lump.
I am flipping aimlessly through these magazine pages,
each catching a tear-drop for the dog-ears
(whoever reads them next will turn the pages over better).
Some puzzled maze pieces fall out of a box,
my baby cousin tries to gather the cardboard paper of a family tree picture,
but the least important twigs are lost, and the last friendly branch found missing.
The many portraits that make up the landscape go away from time to time.
It was just a little, smallish lump.
these news are hard to swallow.
my eyes are peeling onions.
my throat is winter-hands dry.
mum says she saw her the most alive
a few odd minutes before time clocked aunt out.
Grandma's sister blames herself for suggesting, advising, and in retrospect putting "pressure".
neutral colours ***** the Scrubs' floors,
hypothermia lurking in the corridors,
but the coke from the vending machine is medicine lukewarm.

It was a game of musical chairs,
But when the seven trumpets sounded,
the stools remained still, they stood facing eastward in hexagonal formation.
An angel ascended, the remnants were six shadows now.
With a plot twist, it's less players each round.
Who dies first wins, I've tossed too much soil on dust, my hands are *****.
We wash our hands clean with this paraffin.
Open-casket, the last sight took my breath away - the whitened clay still one,
but with the breath of life taken away, by the One, who giveth and taketh.

It's also winter our hearts,
dips of grief, dabs of black clothing, grim-reaper the thief, we still loath him.
another weekend
another sad-a-day
another funeral.
And his life was a summary,
too brief a breath, as the contraction is.
No sympathy to bother saying
"I am".
Public or private hospitals, dark clouds gather above all.

Twenty-twelve was a scar,
for four years now we are still scooping our scabs, from the bottomless pits,
that fell from ever-fresh wounds picked at a tad too prematurely,
so very early.
Some of the things we will take to our graves
will take us to our graves, as we exhume our pre-mourning selves.
And hurt still drops in drips,
red-bottomed-sticky feet from the blood-washed tiles,
the pain and the paint in permanent.
Some matters you can only think about
when you are half-awake and half-asleep, because these nightmares
are too real to be dreams.

uThixo Ovayo unoNobantu, nabantu bakhe bonke ngamaxesha onke.

~ by New-Black-SoUl #NBS

Reflection and poetry are synonymous
To be a poet
Is to be reflective in nature
To be a poet
Is to disperse sparks of wisdom
Within the space of letters and lines
Through moments of inner monologues

Watching the world
Pass me by,
Through the window of
A moving vehicle
I'm a passenger
But this imagery feels like the movies,
Where some serendipitous event happens
At this very moment,
When you are pondering over life
Through your little window
You wake up to realize that this is the real-life
A journey with random stops,
Varied stories,
Vivid dreams,
But unlike life, there's a fixed destination
To that journey
While life is more of an endless cesspool
Of unrelated chaos
The destination is not etched into your hands,
The destination is what you make of it
Well, maybe there is no point
In trying to get all the answers to my questions
It took me a while to figure out how
It ain't all that bad,
How I'm happy and glad
For the good times that I've had
Not all-in for always living in the moment,
Just trying to live more in the good ones
Destiny and life go hand-in-hand
Maybe I should not let my life go bland
I should take decisions and actions,
Rather than waiting for the signs that I can understand.

I feel like having a little part,
A little part of the sun
Like the hope that it brings
Seeking to catch the rays of positivity
To bring some of it into my life,
To still burn brighter,
Rather than burning out
By all things that lead you
To you dismay,
Winding you down at the end of the day.

Sometimes it's perplexing
When I try to rise and shine,
To be brighter than life
These rays of the sun
When it gives me hope,
Knowing full well it will all come undone
By my discretion
With which I can't even cope
Things have some way to spiral,
Spiral out of control
Tricking me into believing
If I even had that power for a fleeting second
Well, some things have a bitter end
There's an end to this pretend
I'm trying to give it more,
More than it needs
Despite knowing the truth
Which is not so great as it always fades,
By the layers of the facade that lie underneath
Can't be unearthed,
It all feels surreal
But the effort is, in fact, very real.

Going back to the childhood days,
When you were bright as the day
Somewhere hidden these memories still lay
Pictures of your innocence,
Dragging you around
The bluntness of reality leaves you to astound
All I'm looking for is a haven
A sanctuary for healing the wounds,
Maybe I'm chasing the wrong thing
Maybe all I need is somebody
Somebody to share the pain,
Someone to hold hands with
Under the beautiful rain
They always say that when you have love,
You don't need anything else
Maybe that is my answer,
Maybe I've been asking all the wrong questions.

Getting over myself, I come to my senses
Life can't be lived in future tenses,
It is what is, right here and now
Not thinking about how you go out
But what you make of it while you still can,
The journey of this ever running man
Running away for myself,
From myself
Maybe I've got everything I need
If I live in this space between
The beauty and pain.

In need of a light
That goes on till by seemingly endless days
Thinking of the impossible, I know
What's the harm in thinking
Of a better place in my heart?
Rather than these graves that I've dug for myself
Where the cold wind blows
All I hear is the silence now,
Never heard it like that before
Trying to make sense of it all,
Still leaves me baffled somehow.

All I need is a little part,
A little part of the sun
To feel the burn,
To feel the warmth inside
A perpetual storm resides within,
Cold winter snow in my soul
The fluctuations of my reality
Finally taking its toll
The moment is edging closer
So I decided to drop this act like a poser
Its time to be real, be a man
I would need a new plan
To deal with these mistakes
From which I can't outrun
Although it is easier said than done
But all I need,
Is a little part of the sun.