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 poem about nostalgia and love by David Tombale: Missing home

There are many reasons to love someone, each personal and unique but they are all the only reason some of us ever need. Missing home is just a reminder of that.

Missing home 

There were more Closed signs than

Open, more reminders than smiling

storekeepers to ease my heart.

My neighborhood fell brick by brick

but I never cried.

The names of my friends poured like

paint in rain, clogging gutters with

dreams of large households that would

never be-

it is these thoughts that kept me

prisoner, rubbed the granules of dirt

around my eyeballs but your cool

lips have met my skin, your long fingers

have gripped my weakness,

they have molded clay,

creating spires out of lumps,

building houses from the earth,

and I have not missed here

ever since.

A poem about priceless love by David Tombale: Your song

Your song is about a love devoid of money or status. I wanted to write something that would perfectly describe that and this is what I came up with.

Your song

 

Deliver me a promise deep from the

 depths of you and let me inhale the

 musk on your neck, the crush of soft

 satin that falls from your back

 

 Tonight we lay down in silence,

 cut adrift from our words and living

 in statues and portraits, verses that

 lead me often to you

 

 To others the grand ballrooms,

 the gleam of jewels and strings of

 pearls but for me your love,

 your song.