A poem about love and death by David Tombale: Separated

Death at times has been the only thing to separate some couples but the idea of love living on after death intrigues me and inspired me to write Separated in attempt to try to explore that concept.

Separated

Every evening passes in the careless whisper

of a departing train, my head laid against

the cold glazed glass and I find that my mornings

are dreaming of you, some faint remain of

love sleeps on inside me, slumbering like a

mindless kitten lost to the sounds of winter,

the crackling of falling ice and snow,

I have travelled too far without you,

even now I linger on the sights that flap like sails

behind me and I will not find you, yet dare I try?

Dare I seek you out amongst the crowds?

My wisdom has failed to let me know but some years from now

when I am one with wind and cloud perhaps we shall join

together, one with you and one with all and never

again be separated.

A poem about memories and heartache by David Tombale: Everglades

The environments we encounter in our lives can make up the background of our memories and our experiences and a poem like Everglades embodies that idea.

Everglades

The trees cast their shadows over me

and beneath their massive bulk scurry

mice and vole and in their passage I’m

reminded I’m alone, on a lonely pilgrimage

to the single elm hidden in the centre

scarred with a heart and our names and

a history not of its own, a past as full as the

waters of the Everglades, the current stirring

with the passage of a gator, in my mind that

scaly prince stalks the quiet world of my solitude,

creeps across the disarray of feelings that reflect my memories

and when he clamps down on my throat it will

be more than heartache that eats me whole.

A poem about youth and ambition by David Tombale: The mowana tree

The mowana tree is about the ambitions we have as children and how our initial drive can stall as we grow up.

The mowana tree

Down below the mowana tree lying

prone and silent among the grass

the shadows spread out from my past,

flickered thoughts and memories

spinning like a top, golden bright yet oddly

sad when measured against my dad,

I have grown to slay no giants nor

travel oceans wide and vast, no instead

I’ve filled my desk with piles of books

and promises, tired lines and maps,

I’ve grown old but sown no oats and

wrote no poems that have filled these

eyes with tears but have no fear

because these doors lay open and all

those poets who came before me

have enshrined a dream of fame and

fortune that has me hooked, and

moving forward no bruised eye or

quickly spoken lie will change my course

or lead me off into the darkness of the bush. 

A poem about contemplation and writing by David Tombale: The days

There are times when you intend on writing and yet nothing worthwhile comes out. Moments like that are what The days describe.

The days

There are days when the words will not

hear me out, when the dried out version

of my remembered youth will not fill

a page or ten, a book or a passage in my

Bible, the words fulfill me but the present

needs me so the clatter of my keyboard may

have to cease, may sit out silent beneath the

shade of a blacked out screen while the

white buzz of sound runs out.

I could not write a line that felt like my beating

heart beating out a memory of a summer’s day,

the heat and flight of birds in June,

there is no music, no hope or fury,

 I place my book bag by my dusty window where

the sun will see it, where the wind will blow

against its glass perhaps to wake the thoughts

that rest inside, the note pads full of scribbling,

the pens half filled with ink.  

A poem about love and heartache by David Tombale: Carry out

Carry out is really about the end of a relationship and how that can affect your thoughts.

Carry out

The streets wind and weave begging me to roam,

daylight calls to me but it’s evening that takes me home,

back to the fiery crackle of the logs upon our hearth,

back to the U-haul van sitting upon our curb

There are enough memories left to bury so I might

not make it out, tonight the rain clouds gather

and tonight these wounds begin to hurt

When you are thought to me, when you are some

distant figment that rests like violets around our deck,

it’s I these songs speak of, it’s I they’ll carry out,

past the foyer, past the window that opens on your

pile of clothes that sit beneath our transistor radio.

A poem about art and love by David Tombale: The kiss of my muse

Some poets are inspired by the people in their lives and the void that grows once those people leave creates the kind of feelings and responses that I put in this poem.

The kiss of my muse

I have no words left,

the lingering kiss of my muse has faded

like the light of morning fades from my watching eyes,

as dusk grays the evening shade

and my love for you takes on the hue of winter,

all white snow and gray ice that hangs like daggers from my

windows.

I have no words left,

spring has yet to shatter the freezing

shutters that keep me trapped in a world

of ash and snow, love and ice.

I have prayed for many months for

some warm breeze to blow,

to thaw these waking thoughts into a steady stream

that might one day ink a landscape of a better

rhyme, perhaps a battle scene,

a ballad of a fallen soul

but tonight I’ll drink alone and wallow

while a single raven perches outside this hollow,

to cry its sorrow across this field of letters and

aging books, their pages curling daily,

too brittle to understand.

A poem about love and regret by David Tombale: Where the palm trees stir

Where the palm trees stir is largely about trying to run away from your problems and learning that you carry them with you.

Where the palm trees stir

Some days the words will not be spoken,

some nights the thoughts will not be shared

but I was there and you were there when

the crumbling walls we built went down,

in the earthquake of too many fights and

the stubborn will of a silence kept and kept

still, for I won’t begin to talk, I turn the key

and the lion’s roar of this diesel engine will

only ask for more.

I will hide my tears amongst the gravel stones

of the great outdoors, hide my love and the crimes

I did in a stolen kiss some place far from here where

the palm trees stir, but when the miles have blurred

and I have loved and left every place I’ve found

I fear I will only mourn us more. 

A poem about writing and contemplation by David Tombale: Falling Away

Contemplating life from through the lens of your pen can give you a fresh perspective and that’s what Falling Away is all about.

Falling Away 

The window yellows with the light

of morning burning through the

heavy shade of streaming clouds

and it cannot kill the clinging ache

of last night’s drink, it cannot

kill the thoughts of winter that keep

me huddled in my heavy coat and

slippers, the sound of my pen moving

over printed lines that blur against

the background of city lights, the

distant roar of passing planes that

have me shaking, falling away from

sleep.

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 poem about love and hope by David Tombale: Resurrecting

Resurrecting is about finding someone to save you.

Resurrecting

I have lost all reason and traded the inky

black of my rain swept skies for the sunny

gold of autumn, hibernating quietly while

she sits silently resting her hands on either

side of him.

The coldness of winter has often lived here,

winked its eye here and felt that the

sinking weight of my falling heart would

look far better frozen but sometimes I

disagree, many times a woman will sidle

up and rub her hands across that ice and

resurrect my beating heart,

fill these eyes with gifts of long black locks

and soft brown arms and someday she’ll kiss

these lips and impart the wisdom of being lost

only to be found.

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 poem about love and comfort by David Tombale: At the beside

One of the great things about love is that you can allow yourself to be vulnerable around the person you care for and that’s what this poem is really about.

At the bedside

Stifle my grief, when the noonday

tides of passing cars bring with them

an outpouring of memories and tears,

when the heavy weight of sheets

and linen crowd me in, burying me

beneath the clogging scent of roses

smelling sickly sweet upon my bedside

table, she sits with me,

she waits with me while the tired cries

of the neighbor’s cat keep me up at night,

she soothes my fears.

A poem about love and longing by David Tombale: Across our window

Sometimes there is a certain tone to the way we remember people from our pasts, with a type of longing and that’s what this poem is about.

Across our window

There is a hollow ring to the way she speaks

my name, not like you, not like you did in

the last moments before the light bulb dimmed

and we were only silhouettes entwining,

one form into another against the white glow of

moonlight across our window. 

A poem about love and death by David Tombale: Enough

Death leaves behind all kinds of questions including whether a heart can ever heal after losing someone and that’s what Enough is about.

Enough

Years from now when we come to place

flowers by your window I’ll beg you to

replace it, this stain on your mother’s

heart, she hasn’t slept in months and

your school clothes hang unwanted in her

closet, gray skirts and white shirts and

this odd image of you laughing with your

friends.

The summer winds have blown here,

have barely ruffled this frightful heat but

the winter blues have settled, have set

themselves like a feline by our door,

smoothing it’s night black hair and fixing

it’s gaze upon our tears like sorrow.

There is a coolness outside like a storm is coming,

like the rains might tarry above the city,

might bring a refreshing wind to blow aside these dire days.

Some years from now when we think of you

I wonder if some new love will come along to

replace the one I’ve loved and will that new love

ever be enough?

A poem about solitude and the night by David Tombale: Awake

Awake is about being alone at such a time when every sound and every sight seems to be meant only for you.

Awake

Some nights the shadows drift like

ships around the harbor of my room

and I alone am there to watch them sail,

when the stars flare like fireflies

bobbing in a glass jar of blue-black

skies I alone am there to watch them

flash.

This house is restless with the

sound of mouse paws and the little

clicks of cockroach feet and I alone

am there to hear them.

All night I sit beside her in a wicker chair

and listen to her breathe,

softly like summer winds that brush

across the grass.

I alone am there to watch her sleep as the

daylight begins to steal across the floor,

peeking past the blinds to shine a light upon

her smiling in her dreams and

I alone am awake to welcome Him

into this house.

A poem about nature and love by David Tombale: Sunrise

With Sunrise I was trying to capture the mood of young love, you know free from responsibility and just caught up in the moment.

Sunrise

The stars sit across the sky like little

old men cradling the dark stems of

burning pipes and below in the cold

green grass we lie sleeping,

comfortably waiting for sunrise and

in our silence I hear the beating of your heart

and it soothes me.

I wish to hold you like this

until morning comes upon our bodies

lying cheek to cheek breathing in and

out the same warm tides of air.

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 a city and a people by David Tombale: Chains

Chains is about a city and about being black.

Chains

Gaborone at night is like Mecca in the daylight,

there are prayers whispered in the quiet confines

of temples and hallelujahs sang beneath the broad

arch of churches that hug corners tightly while

car tires screech and horns blare,

a testament before cigarettes flare,

cupped in shaking hands, in front of torn nails,

these callused hands of a construction worker,

a farmer, a priest,

we are a working people, we many and bold

learning the sadness of our black skin draped in

chains we’ve never claimed.

A poem about solitude and contemplation by David Tombale: In my house

In my house is about solitude and the thoughts that can run through your mind when you open yourself up to them.

In my house

Sometimes I sink my nose into the pillows

and smell the fragrance of my cologne,

I spread a blanket beneath the window and

lay my head against the sill and imagine

the glow of moonlight around my fingers

as if I could bathe in it, infuse my thoughts

with silver dreams that I might share with

angels that flock around the winds of heaven.

Some days I sit alone inside my room and just

listen to it breathe and imagine the carpet

is like the lining of my tongue and this whole

house always yearns to speak to me.

A contemplative poem about love by David Tombale: Pearls

Inspired by the Carl Sandburg poem Maybe.

Pearls

Maybe when the sun goes down

she’ll be waiting for my call,

maybe sunshine will be the last line

in a poem meant for two,

maybe her love line will be long enough

for my own to wrap around and hold,

maybe loving her will be my hobby and

my job and I will work forever to keep

those flowers in her hair,

maybe by touching her I might shed the

shadows round my eyes and I’ll be watching

her until the days go by and my promises

are like pearls she wears around her neck.