Poetry

By

Learnmore Edwin Zvada

Loners die alone

When a rainy day dies, together with a few unfortunate souls

I ponder at the notion of painting a colourful picture to put up in the small room in which my body will rest someday

It’s a picturesque vision of life or lack thereof that does seem to linger too long in my eyes

Like a distant mirage…with the loneliness of a dog dying in labour

But then I realize, I’m no painter and a few drawings I have in my studio are just but an illusion illustrated into a fading inartistic shade

Still my words die alone, without the back-patting of a bemused audience,

At that wretched distance upon which they forage

Still I walk the mile, forever tailing everything related to fame

And I realize, if fame belonged with me, I wouldn’t take it to my grave

How violent fame is, how cruel are the paths toward its mansions and castles

I remain alone, without honour, without substance, except within my own verse and prose

The world smiles on them that know how to be seen

How can I remain a part of this voice; this, a covetous congregation that only seeks fortune upon fortune?

So I settle my soul on a quieter whim, as I type away a few notes on a map to the closet that sometimes enshrouds my lines

I know that I’m to find my ticket to sanity someday and the funfair that exhibits cold poems like mine does promise such

Soon enough, I gather, the world with its agricultures will single me out as a weed but that won’t defuse my freewheeling

I rhyme like a winter song, my lyrics form like a mistress’s desire for a man

My typing dances into gay letters that constantly rearrange into romantic phrases

Syncing emotional words with a lullaby’s undertones

Sleep catches up with me, finally: the everlasting slumber that ensnared mum,

And I too am to be a part of this shadow-chasing marathon

Loners die alone, washed up onto the shores of a solitary island where fame holds no sway

On Spring Night

A thorny amaranth grew close to my grave

And it never bore me cold fruit to rot atop my headrest

But on spring night it recalled my solitude

On whose eve I napped with the stars and the moon

I remember ghostly patterns that ran about the hem of my bridle

‘Be merry within this unfit distance’

Their colours always flaunted such malice

In all of treedom, a lone barbed tree called me up in thorny affection

Tiny spring leaves carpeted the scrub around my headstone

Prickling prickles tingled my vive

Coercing my extremities to scratch a fundament of knife edge rise

A saltation against a sullen heath ensured

As bones monkeyed about in a bath of carefree alacrity

And cheery again we were, my bones and I, merrily floating in leafy cadence

Enwrapped around the notion that perhaps we weren’t dead after all

Perhaps Not My Overzealous Foot

Perhaps not my overzealous foot

I cannot take you on my date tonight

You continue to add injury to my amorous impediment

I have gone from date to date

Walking this forever path with you

You are slow at your step

Every time we set out to hunt for ‘the one’

You linger to caress those shapely pebbles by the brook

I cannot trust you to let me go once you are tamed

The scented flowers of the forest lie in wait

For that day you take me into the April sunset

I cannot discern the colour you are

You go from feisty to dull

From glum to twinkle

Someday you’re heavy at my standing

To bend me over when you are too lazy to heave

In a near mo you could fashion another disturbing gait

Wobbling under the scrutiny of a potential mistress

Stay this expedition my foot

Perhaps and another day as I implore

Learnmore Edwin Zvada

Learnmore Edwin Zvada is a poet in the making. He hails from Zimbabwe’s Harare Province where he is studying towards a degree in Engineering. He fell in love with poetry at a tender age and he began writing his own in high school. At present, he is working on a poetry anthology whose main theme is centred on love. He enjoys travelling and spends most of his time reading.