A poem about love and desire by David Tombale: Into the night

Into the night is about the idea of taking the one you love by the hand and leading them to a place where you can both be free.

Into the night

Graceful arch of neck bid me enter,

bid me shelter beneath your warmth,

your loving touch, your dark embrace,

your kisses ripen like a peach and I ache,

I burn to suckle upon your sweetness,

beneath the shade of your father’s porch

the distant tail lights of a passing truck

carry our love beyond the city limits

where these prying eyes won’t witness,

where I can look upon you in the glow

of the overhead lights as the needle peaks

and we flee out into the night.

A poem about life and suffering by David Tombale: In spite of us

In spite of us is about looking at the struggles of daily life around the world through the lens of poetry.

In spite of us

In spite of us the days drag on

and the misery slowly grows,

the footsteps on the carpet,

the artillery in the air.

In spite of us a child goes on

in his struggles all alone,

the concrete walls, the stink

of slime, the howls of feral cats.

In spite of us the jungles burn,

the streets turn black and our

people lose their souls.

In spite of us the broken doors,

the screams, in spite of all of us

inside of all us is this yearning

to be free.

A death poem by David Tombale: An ode to an elder statesman

This poem was dedicated to Nelson Mandela on news of his death. A tribute to a great man whose strength we will all miss.
An ode to an elder statesman
The radio is buzzing, sawing away
proclaiming the news of the day
and I am wasted, thinking sombre
thoughts while picturing a flock
of birds dancing in the sky, their
cawing a silent message to the
heavens to open up and set another
seat at God’s right hand.

Here where we are watching all
is misery and quiet contemplation
laying carnations outside his gate
but he doesn’t live here anymore
somewhere an empty cell carries
traces of him, pacing its narrow
walls crying out with quiet eyes
and heavy heart for a peace that
seemed far out of sight.

We lit the home fires and sat
together to talk of better things
than the bitter hand of death
of a life much like the sea sometimes
loving, sometimes fierce but ever
moving, tearing down the stones
that tried to hold it captive with
talk of years upon their lips now
cages open and freedom becomes
a solemn promise that is left to
one’s own children.