A poem about death and love by David Tombale: Before the dawn

The question of death is this poem is written from the position of one who is in love enjoying the brief moments he can share with the one he loves.

Before the dawn

Tonight I’ll lay my promises down,

tonight I’ll lay my body beneath the ground,

I’ll dine with ground worms as time

lifts up the scalpel to cut my spirit free,

perhaps to soar or drown, to be set loose

that I may rest in words, in deeds,

in the tongues of old loves and new,

good friends and righteous enemies,

tonight I’ll lie beside you and be young again,

I’ll touch you slowly as you lay your lips against

my cheek and swear to keep me and my secrets

long into the night and before the dawn.

A poem about life and guilt by David Tombale: In the love of strangers

Sometimes an overwhelming urge to escape from our mistakes can come over us so this piece is all about running away.

 

 

 

In the love of strangers

A half-forgotten candy bar rests inside

my cupboard shelf next to books I swear

I never read, next to letters from absent

friends.

 

I’ve packed a bag full of winter clothes,

fur jackets and heavy boots,

I take no photos with me,

they’re too weighty, too much like carrying a shrine along,

too much like carrying my memories with me.

 

The scent of spring is in the air,

the odor of rain that might one day fall but

I won’t be waiting by my window to watch it

strike these trash strewn streets.

 

My guilt will not let me lie,

it raids my dreams and leaves its

footprints in my mouth,

it casts its shadow in my tears,

in my frown.

 

I can’t stay here,

can’t bear to rest my head when

the walls fall down,

I think I’ll take my book of letters,

my faithful compass, and climb inside this

truck on a voyage I must take,

far from seasons, far from roads,

far from the plastic sheen of my telephone.

I’m headed somewhere where the crowds

don’t know me, where the years will pick me

clean and leave me soaking in this sea of sanity,

in the hostile love of strangers.

 

 

A poem about friendship and disappointment by David Tombale: The promises we made

Life offers us lasting friendships and some that turn out to be quite brief but each in its own way shapes the way we view the world. 

The promises we made

Love is fleeting like summer rain,

like August, leaving nothing in its

wake but words that sit so wrong

with us, that humiliate the promises

we made as friends.

Love is fleeting like the flare of flame

that turns to grey, that crumbles softly

into ash.

Love is fleeting and the storms have

slain the forests, have torn out roots and

left us naked, standing amidst the corpses

of fallen oaks and this is so familiar,

so damn similar to the way we talked,

without fury or passion, without sorrow,

mere emptiness, mere formality,

the stiff way two old bucks must bow

only to pace out into the green outdoors,

neckties and suits, until all of it is just some

tale we’ll tell our kids when we can.

A poem about friendship by David Tombale: Brothers

Some friends become our family over time and when you lose that it can transform you forever.

 

 

 

Brothers

 

I was only ten when daylight struck

 the frost turning rays into falling

 showers, only twelve when the school

 bus stalled and the driver’s hand settled

 on my arm.

 

 I turned thirteen so I could leave,

 I packed my bags and put all those

 signs away.

 

 Fourteen sitting high above the city

 lights on a small brown hill looking down

 and somewhere down there he might lift

 his head and wonder where I am.

 

 There’s thing about two brothers

 that will always be more than friends,

 there’s this thing about these streets that

 turns even simple nights into tests of courage,

 and as the light recedes from my watching

 eyes I think I’ll miss you most.

 

 

A poem about growing up by David Tombale: Without you

Without you is about being young and what we first learn of girls as boys and where that can eventually take us.

Without you

There is this place in my hometown
called Thema, and there I met you-

you were just a little girl and
I was a boy too young to know what
Woman meant but I still needed you.

I needed the way you’d shove me,
the way we’d wrestle, the way we’d laugh;
now riding round on these mean streets
in Gaborone I imagine I see you happy-

a handsome boy has his arm draped
around you and you’re looking at him
the way I dreamt you’d once see me;
as if the brown of my eyes was as beautiful
as the night skies glowing with the pinpricks
of stars going on and on long into eternity.

I imagine you somewhere in Pretoria in
an outdoor café drinking an espresso like a
grown up while he talks loudly about his
job but then a feeling strikes you,
a sharp bite of longing sinks in so deep
that it makes you bleed but only in your soul.

You’ll turn your gaze towards the west
and your mouth will dry and somehow
you’ll know that I’m somewhere close
walking on without you.

 

A nostalgic poem about friendship by David Tombale: It's Always Nice to Dream

Some friendships are like a joining of spirits, a meld of personalities that seems preordained but when you're young that feeling can be nothing more than a sheer longing for brotherhood, for loyalty. Such friendships are burdened by need and are therefore merely temporary.


It’s Always Nice to Dream

 

There was a way with us, a

 careless motion that upended

 tables and brought us down but

 it wasn’t always like this, before

 torn jeans and paying rent,

 it wasn’t always like this, blue

 car or grey and stench of paint,

 brews on the dash board and stupid

 cops or perhaps it was simply in the

 memory, a twist that brings the

 lie out of something wise and old,

 a bond of us, when we six would

 sit around this table and the world

 would spin around us and we’d hurl

 our insults at the crowds, we were

 Gladiators and the Romans feared

 us but now I know it’s always nice

 to dream.

 

 

A poem about friendship by David Tombale: Promises

Promises is a piece I wrote that reviews my relationship with the friends I've made over the years. In the end it might across as regret for the way time has shaped how some of these relationships evolved.

Promises

I have loved these things in moderation

from early days to withered age as if the

seasons had told me all, of the passing glory

of those summer days, of baking heat and

violent joy, of yellows, greens and purples

that inset themselves behind these eyes

like the curves around a fallen oak

There are screaming trucks that scare the birds and

whooping cries from pre pubescent lungs coated

gray and black by the cherry red of these after

meal cigarettes

It all looks so new to me flipping through

pictures of us in these Instagrams,

too much pollen and beer cans crushed by us and

in the wake of it, in the midst, sitting somewhere

behind us she waves, a vivid figure there to remind us

that some promises do fade.