A contemplative poem about the human body by David Tombale: The Body

I experimented with the similarity of the human body to a pile of clothes and The Body is what I ended up with.

The body

We wear our bodies out like clothes,

washed and rewashed, hung out and

blowing in the gusts of days and years

gone by, and some days our bodies

lean against each other like trees that

grow together, limbs tangled up in

rain until only the sky awaits our lover’s

ache, until we wrap ourselves in scents

and leave our bodies in filth and foreign

sheets, hotel rooms and alleyways,

we wipe our tears with satin, clothe

ourselves in dreams and leave our souls

to molder in the bosom of our flesh.

A contemplative poem about love by David Tombale: Carousel

Carousel is essentially about treasuring the things that matter to you.

Carousel

I like to dream at night of the

fine black color of your hair,

the way you’d write me from

the farthest corners of our balcony,

of the sighing sound you’d make

when my fingers would tease the

ample contours of your hips and

I have sat you down and haven’t

found flaw enough to leave us

broken, to leave us strung out and

forgotten like polaroids and the

silence around that old carousel still

turning in the park, the swings fall

creaking to the ground, another signal

that will not let me down.

A contemplative poem about Africa by David Tombale: Pursuit

This is a contemplative poem about what Africa means to me and what I might possibly mean to it.

Pursuit

The whispered words of a mother

to her crying child have somehow

caught my ear,

have brought me sounds of love and

joy amidst the worried clamor of my peers,

oh say I speak of voter booths,

of blood soaked tears, of Africa?

Say I speak of sun dried fields,

of absent rains, of the shadow of the day,

I who’ve spent my days in misery,

in pursuit of Africa?

A contemplative poem about wind by David Tombale: The wind

There is a beauty and freedom to wind that I’ve tried to capture in this piece.

The wind

The wind will breathe through me,

it will spin around the photos on my fridge,

leaf through the pages of these books before

I read them

conversing with the wind I have learned

the roundness of my limbs, the hefty weight

of my sagging waist.

I am fat and weary and the wind

will tell me of the hills gone brown with time,

the leaves fallen from the trees,

the waters drying on my lips.

The dust lies around my window

like a faithful hound watching over

the mortared yard,

the grass has grown to weeds,

the days to years and the wind

has stuttered and ceased to blow.

A poem about nature and spirituality by David Tombale: Drive

Drive explores the connection between nature and spirituality.

 

 

 

Drive

 

I drove down this highway on a fast trek

 into the wilderness, I am searching for

 God amongst the beasts, the lions, the

 guinea fowls.

 

 I drove down this highway to watch

 the stars go down, white showers of

 starlight fall to lay a crown around a

 mountain’s head, gone yellow as autumn

 comes, as the winter threatens.

 

 I drove down this highway and ignored

 the road signs and speed limits,

 it’s my heart that tracks the needle,

 going sixty, going eighty, one twenty now

 and still headed west.

 

 I want to watch the sun set,

 I want to see these seas of fire

 burn the bushveldt,

 I want to be there when civilization ends,

 I want to drive this old jalopy into the falling

 halo of the sun.

 

 

A poem about imprisonment by David Tombale: The Horizon

The act of imprisoning others beyond any questions of guilt or innocence leaves a scar on a person’s life that isn’t easily forgotten. The Horizon is about putting such an experience down on paper.

The Horizon

I have sat beside these bars to
watch the hours pass,

holding vigil as the sun must
rise to fall again and I outstretch my
hand to catch the rays,

keeping envy breeding inside
myself at the flock of pigeons that
go flying by,

oh must I stay?
Must I remain, locked down like
an animal in a cage?

Pacing this tiny room,
memorizing patterns in the stones,
I am screaming but I will not breathe,

the walls close in and my knuckles
bleed as I pound the hard concrete,

the blue of their uniforms no longer
calls my gaze, it melts within the
small horizon that I’ve made.

 

A contemplative poem about love by David Tombale: All Good Things

It is the nature of most romantics to have tried their hand at writing a love letter at least once in their loves. This is my attempt at a love letter.



All Good Things

 

I have tired of writing love poem after love poem

 to these winter leaves as the cold winds blow

 around me numbing hands as I sweep yours

 beneath my own to warm them, as I’ve desired

 to lift that chill that hardens your lovely eyes,

 they darken and now I know I’d made you mad-

 

that memory spilling from my pen as I sit before

 this dark oak desk and drink all in, the odd

 surprises of images and scents I’d thought forgotten,

 this letter somehow started sad but now it opens to

 reveal its whiteness, its summoned glow of silence

 and compassion and I think I loved you best in

 the cracks and pieces that remained, I loved you

 best when I have known that our love is dewdrops

 upon the leaves, now the sun has come and all good

 things must have their way and go.

 

 

 

A contemplative poem about life by David Tombale: Transcendence

Transcendence is a contemplative poem about the changing natures of social relationships following the invention of social media and what it means to be human in this century. It was originally titled Transcendent Human but Transcendence seemed a better fit.

Transcendence

Cables spooling round my knobby
Knees, head bent low to breathe
The scent of ozone and twisted chips

Transcendent part of me, talking emails
And the internet, in space and out of it,
My eyes revolving in chat rooms and
Movie blogs, game forums and the
Intranet

My body slipping off me like flesh and bone
As my mind is left in the places in-between

The Facebooks flick their tongues at me,
The Twitters coiling around my feet and
I’m rejecting halves and quarters of me,
The loneliness, the longing, the kisses transmitted
In molecules from A to B, B to C until they call it loving
And I’m losing some sense of self and us which
Is why I’m giving up.

A contemplative life poem by David Tombale: About a girl

This contemplative life poem was inspired by a song by Fort Minor, I can't remember which one but the contrast between the warmth and the cold experienced by these two characters as expressed by their settings just moved me.
About a girl

There is tonight a cascade of raindrops
that fall unloved upon this sun cooked
pavement. They fall and flow into gutters
filled with the refuse of the day and walking
silently beside them is a girl with skin
the colour of falling snow, questing and
oddly silent nobody knows where she
must go.

There is perhaps someone waiting
but the tears that run a trail up from her
dress speak of nothing, no one’s holding
out their hand.

I watch her from the warmth of a hotel
room. I put my fingers out as if I can touch
her and see her turning as if we shared a
moment but now she’s leaving, the shadows
stretching to receive her, I grab my hat
up off the dresser racing down the stairs
as I go to meet her.

I tumble out into the street but there is
nothing left out but an imprint of her feet.
I race down the alleys searching for a
girl as families make merry before their
feasts, I need to find her there’s a question
she keeps hidden in her hands, an answer
I want to understand.