Poem
Phillip Zhuwao
THIS MORNING NIGGER
THIS MORNING NIGGER
THIS MORNING NIGGER
The days have been like thisthese past 4 days
I've been trying to sell
my 2 copies of New Coin for few coins
Veldfire ravage evicts
mice hares locusts and her beauty to the hunter
to believe
I've walked to town and back
to try and secure that University scholarship
It's vain and vulnerable
achille's heel my roofs crush me
over the hills the beautiful Vumba mountains
the grassy drakensberg the sand-particled kalahari
my biological homeland Barotseland
Lewanika's eye and my true identity
My heart is now a bomb
the dish of water that pilate washed hands
Indians smoke peace pipe
When I'm reading Oom Smut's autobiography
We can sit in this sun
or beneath it
God's footstools
So long as
I have a single beer
When she crossed her legs on Farewell
She mentioned Upsaala Heidelberg
Then british airways. She was gone.
Baring the wolf's ivory fangs
trying to blaspheme if God slept at all
Wondering why poetry is personal
Why Im not yet dead the cat's whisker twitched
SHIT!
Again the blood and snot clotted in my nostrils
to the shouting outside
this dark little room where
the unmattresed bed
the tens and tens of books
the oversized jacket behind the door
the holed shoes
are POETRY themselves.
© 2004, Phillip Zhuwao
From: Sunrise Poison
Publisher: Deep South, Grahamstown
From: Sunrise Poison
Publisher: Deep South, Grahamstown
Poems
Poems of Phillip Zhuwao
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THIS MORNING NIGGER
The days have been like thisthese past 4 days
I've been trying to sell
my 2 copies of New Coin for few coins
Veldfire ravage evicts
mice hares locusts and her beauty to the hunter
to believe
I've walked to town and back
to try and secure that University scholarship
It's vain and vulnerable
achille's heel my roofs crush me
over the hills the beautiful Vumba mountains
the grassy drakensberg the sand-particled kalahari
my biological homeland Barotseland
Lewanika's eye and my true identity
My heart is now a bomb
the dish of water that pilate washed hands
Indians smoke peace pipe
When I'm reading Oom Smut's autobiography
We can sit in this sun
or beneath it
God's footstools
So long as
I have a single beer
When she crossed her legs on Farewell
She mentioned Upsaala Heidelberg
Then british airways. She was gone.
Baring the wolf's ivory fangs
trying to blaspheme if God slept at all
Wondering why poetry is personal
Why Im not yet dead the cat's whisker twitched
SHIT!
Again the blood and snot clotted in my nostrils
to the shouting outside
this dark little room where
the unmattresed bed
the tens and tens of books
the oversized jacket behind the door
the holed shoes
are POETRY themselves.
From: Sunrise Poison
THIS MORNING NIGGER
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