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.

A contemplative poem about Africa by David Tombale: Pursuit

This is a contemplative poem about what Africa means to me and what I might possibly mean to it.

Pursuit

The whispered words of a mother

to her crying child have somehow

caught my ear,

have brought me sounds of love and

joy amidst the worried clamor of my peers,

oh say I speak of voter booths,

of blood soaked tears, of Africa?

Say I speak of sun dried fields,

of absent rains, of the shadow of the day,

I who’ve spent my days in misery,

in pursuit of Africa?

A contemplative poem about wind by David Tombale: The wind

There is a beauty and freedom to wind that I’ve tried to capture in this piece.

The wind

The wind will breathe through me,

it will spin around the photos on my fridge,

leaf through the pages of these books before

I read them

conversing with the wind I have learned

the roundness of my limbs, the hefty weight

of my sagging waist.

I am fat and weary and the wind

will tell me of the hills gone brown with time,

the leaves fallen from the trees,

the waters drying on my lips.

The dust lies around my window

like a faithful hound watching over

the mortared yard,

the grass has grown to weeds,

the days to years and the wind

has stuttered and ceased to blow.

A poem about love and age by David Tombale: The hourglass

The hourglass talks about whether love can survive over time, as memories fade and age begins its work on the body. 

The hourglass

Trickling down the hourglass come
these moments, come this chance,
as she declines my hand,
as the clouds go swimming past,
my heart has run away with you,
it’s stolen sunshine from the gloom,
kisses by my daddy’s swimming pool
and I will lay with you,
I’ll steal those worries from your lips,
catch those random thoughts that flit
like birds around your mood.

I have loved a woman with tenderness
while time remains, as love acclaims
I have loved you even as I age.