A poem about regret by David Tombale: The weight of my heart

The weight of my heart is about the regret that can sometimes result from a breakup in which one or both of the lovers still carry a torch for the other person. It's one of the worst things that can happen to someone who's trying to move on and I hope I managed to perfectly capture that situation.
The weight of my heart

Heavy as the morning that
Peeks beneath my shades,
Heavy as the evening that's
Come and gone filled with
Shades of moments past;

Heavy heart I pray you shall
Not break, little tear begging
Me to let thou fall but I shall
Not, I allot no time for misery,
I know he wants to rest here
Once again;

How heavy, like spilt paint
I tried to fashion into a scene,
She and I someplace warm,
Silhouetted against the horizon
Of a falling sun but the image
Shatters as I try to stop it;

Alas some things failed to
Happen, a forever now long
Betrayed, so heavy is this
Moment when I think of thee
And fail to brush away the tear
That tore itself from my
Stubborn grip.

A poem about love everlasting by David Tombale: Forever loving you

Forever loving you represents a lingering feeling clinging to my bones that I feel makes me better. Instead of anger and bitterness left in the wake of love I chose to write about an affection that will outlast an ending of things.
Forever loving you

The rainbows forgot to rest here
and the butterflies turn cartwheels in the air

Her slippered feet still dance happily in the
grips of a beautiful memory but
somewhere her love refused her,
it failed to care about  the withered
flowers sown into her yellow hair-

and I know I should have stayed here to
catch your falling tears but
the tides have spoken
and we two distant ships still sailing on to
seas of grief while I still missing you,
I who knows you best
and will remain here to help you
find your rest.

A poem about the struggle by David Tombale: Listen to how it carries on

This piece was something born out of the coverage of the electoral campaigns run by the ANC after Nelson Mandela's death. How they approached them disturbed me so I felt I had to write something about it.
Listen to how it carries on

Mandela’s freedom song lifts
Towards the sky but never dwells,
Never stays to lift the starving
Ones from shacks that lean towards
The ground. Pieces falling off the
Cool tin roofs as a little baby cries,
Little ribs pushing against his tiny
Chest while the lights flicker and
Slowly die

Too many bills piled up,
Too many promises but the water’s
Filthy, the backyard garbage filled,
Bloodshot eyes still beg for tears
But nothing fills

You got to love that freedom song
Listen to how it carries on,
It lifts its head towards the sky
While my dirty shirt has ripped,
My back is bowed under years
And a falling ceiling, the rocks putting
Weight on my old neck

I have to love that freedom song but
The song won’t feed me, the song can’t
See this hole that’s me, torn black
Fingers and no more red or green for
Me.

A poem about nature by David Tombale: Nature's children

Nature's children is a series of images both imagined and experienced that I wrote on a day of silence as I tried my best to smell the flowers and enjoy the warmth of a beautiful summer's day.
Nature's children

There is a change that flirts with the
sunshine upon the leaves,
that whispers little condolences to the air,
that comes upon the clearings with
all the maturity of a child

It is gay and sweet and loves
to hide in the cool shadows that
rest among the trees

It teases winter and
has love affairs with the springtime flowers
that blossom beneath the loving care of
kindly mothers of blue and red and black,
a kaleidoscope of color born out of their wings
as they sail out on the sky

I sit in awe beside the graves of
fallen fathers and smiling lovers
as we, one and all enjoy the splendor
that welcomes the living and
the dead.

A poem about love and longing by David Tombale: Our home

This poem pretty much tells its own story. It's really just a tribute to a warm glow that fills us all at the beginning of what could be an amazing love.
Our home

Forgive me if I say words
that I don't mean,
like I don't need you at all,
it's okay if you leave me,
hey it was fun while it lasted,
have fun in Nebraska
I'm sure that I'll be fine
when you're gone,

Forgive me if I can't see me
happy without you,
you're like sunshine in the wake of a storm,
my cold breeze in the desert,
the one that I turn to when everything
feels like it's gone,

Forgive me if I fall to my knees
when I see you,
I want to be here forever holding
on to the one that I love,
trace my fingers down the lines of your face,
it's like a season of blue skies,
a song that I cannot forget,

Forgive me if I breathe deeply
cos I want to remember the
smell of your hair,
I've lived here for so long,
been alone for awhile,
now I take up all this clutter
making room for your clothes,
stay here beside me in this home
that I've made here for us,
lady believe me today
I want to make you my wife.

A poem about loneliness by David Tombale: Sitting in the park

I wrote this piece based on a scene that transpired in my life when I was in-between relationships. I'd gotten out of one and was months from my next and experiencing a little envy and anger at the fact that the world continued on without me, completely indifferent to my suffering.
Sitting in the park

I had good days and bad days
While learning to be young,
Learning how to whistle like
The other boys (I never did)
Learning how to talk to girls
(I think I had more fun throwing
Rocks at them)

Don’t blame me.
I was young.

Too young to understand that
I’d regret those taunts someday,
Too young to see the pleasure
Spent in a young girl’s company
And now I’m older, sitting crosswise
On a bench watching all the little
Couples wishing a meteor would
Come to crush me and them.

I am lonely. I have these numbers
In my phone but no one to call so
I sit here pretending that I can hear
All their conversations,
The “I love you’s” and “I’ve missed
You’s” as if I’m taking part, as if
Somehow I am a part of them but
Slowly it gets darker and the couples
Begin to leave and then it’s just me
Sitting lonely, a quiet stranger
Sitting in the park.

A poem about memory and love by David Tombale: Summer love

Summer love is about the love a boy once shared with a girl amidst the sweltering summer heat. It's a story that is at parts fact and fiction and hopefully captures both the passion between these two people and how even when it passes it still leaves something beautiful behind.
Summer love

Once our Summer loved us,
often beckoning from the shelter
of the trees

Always wise and welcoming her little kids
when we’d laugh and skip along two hands
together as if all of us would never leave
the shade of emerald canopies

White lightning sparking silence as you
ran your tongue along my slickness and
I lost myself in touch and kiss and
warmth of us,

Summer loved us and sometimes
she lifts her sun tanned hands to wave at
me and tells me how she missed us-

loved the way I loved you,
the way gravity bounced us around each other
like the universe expanded in our hearts until
looking at you became a past time that made you blush
as the sparrows watched through slits of shutters
we kept closed in the hurried patter of summer rain
while the thunder played a melody
from the heights of distant cliffs. 

A poem about memory by David Tombale: When I am lost

When I am lost describes a connection I felt and still feel for my old high school. There is something about that school that will follow me for the rest of my days and I think that's true for everyone in regards to at least one place they've been in their lives. That these places always serve as shrines to memories we cherish.
When I am lost

There were too many calls to make,
Too many places to be when I could
Have gone anywhere but there’s this
Place where I lay my head and it feels
Right.

This one place where I come often,
Not really to sleep but to be renewed
As if I want to be reborn again in a
Bid to become better in my second life.

This place I come has all the look of
A school but it’s really my home.

I left my heart amongst the chalkboards
And battered desks, loaned out my love
Hoping someday I might get it back but
It was not to be.

I came back here when I turned twenty-one
Only to realize that there was no place to return
To.

It should look the same but it isn’t.
Something is missing here so I’m parked
Outside trying to remember what I was
Trying to find but it’s getting harder to
Picture me inside its walls perhaps because
She’s missing and without her the echoes
Grow, the grounds look old and I’m just
A little boy stuck looking for himself.

A poem about working life by David Tombale: Early Monday Morning

This poem touches upon that feeling that a lot of us have after the weekend when we realize our working week is once again starting. For too many of us there is discontent and disappointment that we aside in order to do our jobs and that is what this piece is about.
Early Monday Morning

I work for pennies sometimes and
Sometimes I don’t work at all

The quiet drudgery of making small
Ends meet is chipping pieces off me
And sometimes I cannot wake at all

But my alarm clock seems to ring while
I’m huddled in my sheets,

That ring, ring,
That incessant noise that grips my
Heart so tightly that my blood congeals
And hardens until I am undone and
Stirring, crawling from my slumber with
All the grace of a broken marionette,

Now the tv’s static turns to pictures of
Stars and cars, hotel rooms and expensive
Dreams that I drink from the bottom of
My cup as I fit into my polished shoes and
Turn off all these happy lights. 

A poem about death by David Tombale: A song for lover's end

A song for lover's end addresses a topic I've struggled to write a few times. Death has always fascinated me and I've tried to look at it through as many eyes as possible. I think this is as close as I've come far thus far to capturing a little of that pain.
A song for lover's end

The daisies smell so beautiful
In the daytime

I pick a few and
Place them in your hair

You look so peaceful, almost
Sleeping

I dare not wake you
To watch the sun breaking across
The sky

Egg yolk yellow and vibrant
Red like the roses you once loved

I sit beside you and sing a lullaby
That clings to me among memories
Of a gentle youth

My mother’s hand still patient
Upon my back and my father’s eyes
Still staring out at things he must
Have wished he’d make for me

A world he fought and tamed
And fashioned into home
I think of all of it while holding tightly
To your freezing hand

I think of it while I close your lids and
Kiss these lips that I shall never kiss again

And say those last three words
You’ll never hear again

I said I love you my old friend.

A poem about loss by David Tombale: The road he travels

The road he travels was my attempt at staring out at the world through the eyes of an infant. It occurred to me that there would be this innocent ignorance that would veil how a child perceives the things around him but that there would still be a lot that he'd be exposed to that he might understand in future.
The road he travels

What good is a day
last seen travelling down the
River Thames carrying on
with all the reckless joy of
a new born babe?

New formed lungs struggling with
cries of hunger and helpless rage,

His mother has not crept up to
his crib today, has not kissed
his healthy brow or felt his
toasty skin steaming beneath
a pair of Spongebob sheets,

He has not seen her nor his
father, salt and pepper beard
that tickles his little nose until
he sneezes and bubbles pop as
he lifts his head to laugh at this
stranger holding him to the light.

But there are no visits,
he’s grown too big for baby’s crib,
too wise to comprehend why this
woman he does not know croons to him
or why his father only waves to him
from a little perch there by the
window sill, his eyes as grey as
morning rain while tears drip down
to fill the puddles by his cup.

A poem about family by David Tombale: Satchmo and the garden

Satchmo and the garden grew out of this image that was in my head, sort of a portrait of a grown man and his elderly father. No matter how grown we get there is vulnerability we still possess around our parents and that's what I tried to show with this piece.
Satchmo and the garden

Lilies by my window,
I’m looking into the garden,
The dog is rubbing his hairy
Rear upon my lawn, gambolling
Around

He seems happy.
I do not cry,
I can’t remember when I did

There is music somewhere far
Behind me, sounds like Satchmo

How funny, I thought my father
Hated jazz

It’s just he and I today, I sent the
Nurse out to get the paper

My father doesn’t read these days,
His eyes have gotten bad so when
He walked into the room I had to
Stand

I took his hand in mine and showed
Him Charlie playing in the garden
And finally he smiled.