A poem about family and loss by David Tombale: Invisible Love

The loss of a loved one is a hard thing for anyone to bear, whether it’s a child or an adult and that terrible struggle is what Invisible Love is about.

Invisible love

She lies there whispering like a madwoman

his name repeatedly like a chant or the beat

from a war drum but his love is invisible,

it carries across on the wind like autumn leaves,

shatters against the glass like ice,

it resides no place that the eye can see,

that her hands can touch,

that’s why her thoughts bleed enough to build

a river of blood that her children inherit

along with her hate, a frozen picture of parent,

an absent father as dear to their mother as the

portrait of Jesus that hangs on the mantel but

his love is invisible, it will never hold them,

never hold back her hair like the leather thong

that holds tight her black and white hair,

never raise their son into a man or walk their daughter

down the aisle, there is nothing left but his old boots,

their leather hard enough to creak when

their little boy wears them trying to summon his

ghost from out of his tombstone but nothing lives

but his tears.

A poem about family and poverty by David Tombale: Nickels

Nickels is about the despair that can grow out of poverty and the toll that can take on a family.

Nickels

There is no beauty in the way we poor have

lived our lives, selling memories in the form

of baby blankets and strollers, old keepsakes

from our great grandmother’s days when she

was just a girl and the horizon was lit with

fire bright as the future that beckoned but

we can’t live on memories, promises won’t

make us rich, love will warm our lips but the

cool waters of poverty have come to get us,

they have reduced this love to porridge and

old stale bread, they’ve reduced those bright

eyes to dull marbles that glimmer with hunger

and the last shreds of pride so here’s my father’s

watch, my lover’s dress, my brother’s name,

take them all and give me payment in dimes

and quarters, nickels and pounds.

A poem about home by David Tombale: A love for home

Some of us are lucky enough to get a chance to spread our wings but home can be where you will always feel the most loved and that is what this poem is meant to represent.

 

 

 

A love for home

 

A love for home is hidden in the

 raindrops, it’s hidden in the roughness

 of my father’s hard back books.

 

 A love for home is a promise of days

 to come and days gone by,

 it’s in the way I touch your arms when

 you fold them, it’s in the leaves that rest

 beside my father’s battered truck,

 all smeared over with the awful smell

 of goats and cows.

 

 My love for this place is

 hidden in the way I leave it,

 running fingers over weathered stone,

 picking paint chips off my shirt, they’ve

 been falling from the walls and

 I know I’ll miss them all.

 

 

A poem about emotion by David Tombale: Many nights

Many nights is about a situation when it only makes sense to cry but something holds you back whether it’s pride or something else; that gulf between how you feel and how you’re able to react can be huge.  

 

Many nights

 

I have not cried in many nights,

 pacing the curtained confines

 of my single room, trying to track

 the shapes spilling from the light

 of a crescent moon.

 

 The tears have not run their trails

 down my sun kissed skin, my feet

 occasionally kicking child hood dolls

 into the corners where they lie sprawled

 out and forlorn, abandoned these

 many years in boxes we never open.

 

 It feels like yesterday when these

 boxes were filled with armchairs

 and plastic pieces of swing sets,

 some screws perhaps still roll around

 beneath my bed.

 

 My nephews have grown too old for

 them and perhaps I have grown too old

 for tears, too old to cry over forgotten sins,

 memories that stretch out like shadows

 born of trees.

 

 I fall bonelessly upon my bed,

 thinking nothing, only to welcome

 the cool refreshment of a falling tear.

 

 

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.

A sad life poem about my city by David Tombale: A story of my city

A story of my city is not my first attempt to reflect upon my experiences in the city where I've lived almost all my life but it is the first that got away from me. In the end my anger, frustration and disappointment at what this growing metropolis embodies took over my pen.
A story of my city

This is the story of the city that raised me
oddly questing for meaning amongst its debris
so I’m just another reject, busy philosophizing
about the worth of stars while the rocks they
peddle underhanded laugh in silence that
sounds like money.

This is a story I have not forgotten of
broken bicycles and ugly mutts that stripped me clean,
my scars are funny, formed into a map of buildings
and city streets that rise and fall and circle round
to thumb their eye at us, is that why I see my
cousin’s blood after the highway'd sprayed it
from traffic light to traffic light?

This is a story I read aloud to my little niece,
her face in the midst of bawling, perhaps her
uncle’s voice took on a tone of violence?
Could you blame me? The sounds outside my
door are an ominous susurration that tells of
things to come while I’m only standing here
still waiting for the sun.  

A poem about child soldiers by David Tombale: The slippery wheel

The slippery wheel addresses my need to work out my thoughts about child soldiers and what motivates a child to become one. It's always been one of the most enduring image in my mind, that of a little boy cradling a rifle in his hands. It's a sad enough sight to require at least one piece.
The slippery wheel

Slippery like the conscience of a soldier
Garbed in wreaths and flags, slippery like
The wheel that turns the trades of industry,
Slippery but never hard like the soil we
Dug to bury his broken body;

Twelve years old and I want to ask what
Are you doing here? Twelve years old
And shooting guns, little boy what are
You doing here? But his broken body only
Stares back at me, no words to speak just
Blood and bone and things he will never
Be;

He lies there so silently, so still, so much
So that I know he’s dead but there are
No echoes, no six gun salute for child
Soldiers buried in jungles in remote
Corners that no one sees;

There are no sound bites or flashbulbs just
This flesh slowly dying, food for maggots
And time and the language of violence, little
Boys what are you doing here? Playing hide
And seek with bullets and landmines while
Your fathers fertilize the soil with their tears
And blood and your mothers, only mothers
Of children they have no love for, forced by
The seed of vile men spurred by speeches
Of hate and I find myself asking once more
What are we doing here?

A poem about life and memory by David Tombale: Fallen down

Fallen down is a chronicle of memories and a sense of loss I sometimes associate with growing up. I think we all have those lingering thoughts of relatives who passed away and a sense of home and belonging we took for granted as children.
Fallen down

I can't find that place I knew
Where the faces all look the
Same

I can't find it cos there's
No one waiting there

My grandfather's old rocking chair
Still grinds back and forth without
Him-

Only the wind resting against
It's back and my uncles they've
Been gone for many years now

 But their voices still echo down
The corridors resurrecting the
Ghosts of charcoaled meat and
Laughter

My cousin's laughter before
He wrapped his car around a
Traffic light

Damn why do those thoughts
Choose to call upon this boy
Tonight?

They tug upon my heart strings
Reminding me that I haven't been
At home in eight long years

I can't find my way back there

Where we were family,
When things were great

I can't find it cos there's no one
There who's waiting-

So I wander on alone
In search of a place that
Is not there

Full of specters I will
Always love in a home
That's long since fallen down.

A humorous life poem by David Tombale: Homilies mean for my son

This poem is meant to be both humorous and yet serious in that it's meant as an instruction to both fathers and sons. I've always thought that children could learn more from their parents if the subject matter was delivered light heartedly and that in essence is what this poem is about. The most important lesson of course that any parent could pass down to their child is to live regrets be damned.
Homilies meant for my son

Trickle down, better yet rain on me.
I have entreated the years to try their
tricks on me for I like Homer sing only
of dreams, of Apollo, Achilles and the
magic that goes down that old crooked
road but my back remains ready, my fists
lifted to challenge the moon and the
laughter, the laughter lifts me spread
wings resting softly on my aging skin,
to the sun, to the sun I fly to touch its
oh tortured skin. These tales I once
shouted in a room full of friends, the beer
bursting from the pit to my eyes, I can
dance, I can sing, oh Sam won’t you play
it again as I reach out towards her and ask
let us make our way once round the room
to a song that will rest here until all these
trappings are gone.

A poem written in honor of all soldiers by David Tombale: Who watches over

I know there are female soldiers out there serving their countries honourably but originally this poem was written for a contest dedicated to a specific male soldier's family. I think it still stands as a testament to the pride we take in all soldiers regardless of gender who fight for their countries. Regardless of if you are in favour or against any war what remains undeniable is that there are brave men and women who give their lives daily for something bigger than themselves.
Who watches over

I have no words left, my frame shakes
as I find myself imagining the faces
that remain, that stay waiting for
my feet to fall upon the porch because
somewhere out there far from here
lies my home;

Oh fellow traveller let us while waging
wars for home and hearth never forget
the ones we are fighting for. Oh mother
I will be back someday, whether flesh
Or spirit for you I will always be your
Son;

Oh broken road do not stray from me
because someday I will walk your narrow
strip, light of heart and happy to finally
be going home;

Those thoughts they keep me, they are
my prayer spoken over the sound of guns.
A litany that keeps me strong as I mention
each word out loud, father, mother, brother,
Sister do not cry for me because from where
I sit I will always remain your soldier, your
beloved boy watching over each and every
one of you.