Diswomansworld

Woman of soul

2006-03-14T16:06:00.000+02:00

Oh Woman of soul
Can you see what is happening to you?
Yes Woman of soul
Look deep within you

Your pain is painted with blood
Thick clots of blood bleeding from self-hood

Your tears fall with hate
Self-despising rage covering your identity

Explain yourself Woman of soul
Explain yourself so I can understand you

Defend yourself Woman of soul
Defend yourself so I cannot hurt you

Expose yourself Woman of soul
Expose yourself so I may see you

Define yourself Woman of soul
Define yourself so I may know you

Was it for love that you lied or did shame get you first
Was it in fear that you lived, backed up behind a lonely fist

I see you Woman of soul
In words written in your memory
But you are dying Woman of soul
And your walls are falling off your sanctuary

They or you – who filled your body with death,
You or me – who kissed away your life,

Long live this Woman of soul
In hips enlarged by Africanism
Long live this Woman of soul
In leaps taken through femininity

Long live… oh sweet soulful woman
Long live your soul

MaZungu
14 March 2006

Inspired by the work of Zanele Muholi

Black River

2006-03-13T08:22:00.000+02:00

Black River

Where do you follow and can I come too
You wash past issues of misrepresented childhood
You rush past rocks of trials and tribulations
Same spirit same grace, you flow to the next village

Black River

Where do you follow and can I come too
Your streams flow too heavily for my African pace
Your streams are too bold for this ocean to hold
So you pass broken hearts broken paths and fallen strangers
Who once delighted in the company of your Devine

Black River

You amaze me in the mad hours of twilight
Black River

With no fears just life from pure sunlight

I’ve seen your strokes as you lay it past my days
Meditated on your arrogance or misunderstood grace
You’ve carried my heart though ridges of pain
And reminded my spirit to let the tear drop rain
Cause whether in love or lies this river still flows
And washes my feet off this life with no breath
Dead soil beneath my feet

Flow Black River flow
What would they think

if you ever lost your glow

- MaZungu

www.poetry.co.za

2006-03-09T16:50:00.000+02:00

I just found out that not only has my work been chosen for publication on the 2005 Poetry Africa's anthology (entitled: Soulfully seeking - How accurate) but I have also won a prize. For any Poet, anywhere, being published is a prize enough but when you actually get awarded for what you love - it just becomes a shower of wow's.

So keep a look out for YOU by Zama Zungu on the 2005 Poetry Africa's anthology entitled Soulfully Seeking.

Thank God for poetry.

With love

2006-03-09T08:30:00.000+02:00

It is a marvelous thing when you catch up with life and learn to keep walking with it. You find your pace, you find your space and in there you find your peace. When you catch up with love and learn to live with it, in it, through it and for it.
You find your spirit and all the many sounds that sing you back to life. The journey to such is paved with tiny thorns, invisible potholes and rough stones but the promise and presence of love and life in love (self-love) reminds you in every step that the pain and fears are like night to morning – they too will pass.

When this marvelous thing happens to you, your reaction and understanding of this experience determines how you experience …the experience. Because you see life is incredibly persistent – it will teach you the same lessons over and over and over (and over) again until you die or until you learn them. That is why sometimes you trace your past and find a pattern – you listen to your words and think it is dejavu…kanti it’s not, it’s lesson-on-you. I say “lesson-on-you” because there are lessons that life will teach you to help you find … YOU and understand you and express you the best way possible but more than that, experience YOU for who YOU essentially are!

The content of these lessons will not be about why your Mother left you at age 7 to marry her new man, why every person you date has enough reasons to leave than stay…nor will it teach you why your parents fought for over 20 years and yet never left each other… (DO NOT FIND ROMANCE IN THAT). Instead life will teach you why you have so much fear inside of you, why you subconsciously expect people to do you wrong and why you need someone (or something) in order for your life to have meaning. Now when life teaches you these lessons, it gets kinda harsh – not because life is mean but because if we gonna clean you up we have to check you out first and find all the dirt.

Now while the search for dirt is taking place, you will be tempted to feel as though that is all that is in you – because the search engine will be going on about how bad this is, how unhealthy that is and how unnecessary that has come to be. Be careful of that feeling, because it is that feeling that draws you to defensiveness, to being offended by the truth and therefore hide, reject or manipulate it. At that point you will not be open to learn anything, because you will be closed up by fear (of judgement, of being failure etc) That is why it is imperative that when life is zooming in on you and pointing out all the “guts 2 go’s”, you remain opened, to the truth, to information, to healing, and to whatever else that will take you where you were ordained to be - in love. Leave Hollywood-love out of this – am talking about SELF-LOVE.

It is when you have self-love that you can give love (unconditional love, that is given from a well of love that needs no re-filling – meaning: love that asks nothing in return), it is when you have self-love that you can receive love (and know what to do with it) and it is only when you have self-love that you will be able to honour yourself, your needs and your worth in this place. Because the truth is, you cannot give what you do not have and that truth is in bold when it comes to love – ANY KINDA LOVE. My understanding of this fascinating truth is that love is like a language – to speak it - you must know it, to hear it – you must understand it and if you wanna get into a Zulu conversation – every joke, every word of caution, every song, every experience and expression in Zulu – begins with understanding the language, being able to speak it and being able to hear it. Now if you begin to see love in that light, you will then be able to understand why you cannot get into a relationship (without self-love) and expect to find love from someone else… Just like you cannot start a conversation in Zulu and expect that the Zulu-words spoken by the other person will turn you into a Zulu-Speaker. What needs to happen is that you need to learn and gain the language first and then approach a Zulu-speaker and share a conversation of Zulu with them. Now let’s turn that into love – you need to learn and gain (self) love first and then approach a love-filled person (you cannot hold a successful Zulu conversation– as fluent as you may be – with someone who cannot speak the language) and share love (the expression and experience of love) with them.

In brackets I have “the expression and experience of love”- this line helps me understand what I LOVE YOU is to mean to me – I LOVE YOU has to come with the expression (not just verbal, but the manifestation of love, loving action, and loving projections) and experience (I LOVE YOU has to take us through love, loving living, loving interactions and loving intentions). This is meant to help me define (and clearly outline) what love is and what it is not. Now do not get me wrong – you may disagree in love ( you should), you may even disapprove but in all of it – love must be present – otherwise it is no longer in love – it is in fear. Fear that your partner‘s actions mean that you are not respected, you are not important, fear that you are being cheated, hurt or you will be left. Now when you operate in fear, you operate in offense/defense mode. 1 John 4:18 (The Message) says “There is no room in love for fear. Well-formed love banishes fear. Since fear is crippling, a fearful life--fear of death, fear of judgment--is one not yet fully formed in love”. So already I know that what I am now experiencing (or expressing) is not love and I can re-establish myself in love immediately – by altering my intentions and changing my behaviour. This does not mean that you do not love your partner anymore, just because you are now yelling and swearing at him/her – what it should mean though is that the source from which your intentions and actions are coming from is not love and so it will not produce loving results. This information is not meant to judge you but rather to caution you – provide you with information so that you may use it to make constructive choices in how you wish to express and experience your relationship, your love and your life.

When you are open, to truth, to caution, to healing, love will bless you with a consciousness that will allow you to live your life from the fullness of who you are – from the centre of love – from within. In this place, you become love, you become all those things that you believed were meant to come from a partner, from a good job, from money, from better parents, from anywhere else (but within).

Imagine if all the things you were seeking were actually already inside of you. If affirmation was inside of you, if acceptance was inside of you, if forgiveness was inside of you, if joy, and meaningful life experience were to all come from inside of you – imagine how that could change your life, your feelings about your life and your dependence on certain things – now imagine if this was how it was always meant to be. IT IS!

This is not a taboo, it is not (necessarily) philosophy, It is the truth about love, about humanity and about life.
May you remember that you ARE the essence of love, that you were created by love and made in the likeness of love and so love – for you – will not come from out there but from within – where all living and loving begins.

With love
Zama

Forbidden

2006-03-08T14:26:00.000+02:00

Keeping your company is no longer enough
Accepting the carefully selected servings of you
Leaves me starved
The half-measured cuts of you
Expose my naked longing to be with you
Truly BE with you…inside and around you

I secretly fear that I will always be open to you
Quietly inhaling more of your sweet subtle scent
Religiously letting go, and yet keeping for myself
Only as much as desire demands

And so I command, right here – right now
That the washing of the stains of my want BE DONE
I demand that this forbidden fabric
Be hanged out dry for the sun to soak
Leaving me with the fresh feel of freedom
From a feeling I never chose

Let it be false
That I will always secretly want that much of you
I can never want out loud
Let it be false.

September 2005
Z.Z
Nothing is as piercing as silent longing - for love, for peace, for freedom...silent longing takes the soul to silent death.

A letter entitled: Without

2006-03-07T19:01:00.000+02:00

I miss you so much it hurts

It scars me open and bleeds in and out of me
It’s like a desperate cry from a soundless soul
It cracks the walls of my heart
And reaps the strings of my being
Stabs my centre to death

In every thought, every heartbeat, every second of your presence.
I bleed my longing to ends

I thought I missed you
When I saw you
I realized that I am without
– without you!

Word Up

2006-03-03T08:10:00.000+02:00

It doesn’t matter how far or how fast I move, but only how much of myself I take along for the journey.

My lesson learnt

2006-03-02T16:17:00.001+02:00

Frozen on photographs
I found my truth
Broken on holy ground
I met my soul
And yearned to touch the space
Between here and now
Where death defeats dying hearts
And lies lure lying minds

With curious eyes I followed
To find the ways of my wind
And feel the fullness of my being
From within

And today…
I find home in passing moments
When the sun sets before it rises
yet rises with every setting
It is there that I learn
That if life is molded in womb
Than love’s unfolded anew
Everytime I die
Everytime I live

This is my lesson learnt
This is your lesson to learn.

- MaZungu
- 02 March 2006

What If?

2006-02-22T18:23:00.000+02:00

"Define yourself, for yourself, or you will crushed into other peoples fantasy of you and eaten alive" Audre Lorde

These are the words (roughly) of the poet,lesbian, activist and sister named Audre Lorde. They came into my head when I couldn't define myself because I was afraid of what other people will think of me...after a bit of poetic confession, I realized that it wan't the people's perception of me that scared me the most, it was my own. The poem I wrote from that introspection helped me realize that even if what and who I am was celebrated, if it was encouraged, I would still have a problem with it because my biggest problem is not what you think of me...my biggest problem is what I think of myself. And so I learnt to DEFINE MYSELF, FOR MYSELF OR I WILL BE CRUSHED INTO MY FANTASIES OF WHO I AM AND EATEN ALIVE!

This poem was introspection for me and it is through this poem that I was able to face myself for who I really am...good and bad. I thank God for poetry because since the day I discovered word, I have been discovering myself.

Read: What if

What if loving another woman was celebrated
with songs and dance around rich African flames
where tales of my people are told.

What if following desire
was sang about ‘round traditional fires
with Mothers filled with pride
as Africans rose from boys to men.

Would my beads be crafted in colours that signified the love I live
Would the making of isishweshwe be in beautiful patterns of my kind
the kind that lives to love out loud.

What if streets were named after those that lived their lives to its fullest
What if their names were printed on the finest yatch
And lit up bright as everyone watched

Would I join the Durban Pride March
In celebration of these beautiful people
Would I love outside social parameters and
live defined by obvious diameters

If rain fell as melted gold and praises were sent up to God
With grateful hearts – none of them cold
And open hands for us to hold

Would my walk be carved like Art and
would I live with an open heart
Would I smile at the sound of them calling
As they define me a lesbian-light

If a holiday was declared and
much respect was reclaimed
If men marches were conducted and
tall towers were constructed
To commemorate the Gay-Kingdom-come

Would my confusion and muted confessions
be the lyrics to our African anthem
Would my expressions of love and female affection
be the colours of my African Nation
Or would I still find a brand new reason
to hold myself bound from the greatest love I’ve found

MaZungu
07 June 2005

Be Free

2006-02-12T13:12:00.000+02:00

Caged bird be free
Caged bird thats me

Who put those bars around you
Who summoned you to sit
Who placed your dreams in a frame
Like memories of the dead

Caged bird be free
Caged bird thats me

Potential they say you've got
Essential for any flight
But why mould your wings with wax
avoiding to reach your max

For a life of fortune or a life a fame
Whatever you grab will be your game
Instead of fantasies or dreams (you call them)
Let yourself loose, set yourself free

Caged bird be free

Caged bird thats me

Dreamers are citizens in their own minds
Until they strip off all fear's bind
To find a song a poem or dance
That will be enough to give them a chance

Caged bird be free

…Caged bird thats me

MaZungu
30 April 2004

I am yours

2006-02-07T13:01:00.000+02:00

When all my hopes and dreams
Have been betrayed
I stand before you
My hands are empty

I am yours
If you are mine

When I fall and stumble
Flat on my face
When I’m ashamed and humbled
In disgrace

I am yours
If you are mine

When voices call me
To question my faith
When misperception
Taints my love with hate

I m yours
If you are mine

When time decides
It won’t stop for me
When the hawks and vultures
Are circling

I am yours
If you are mine

© 2001 Tracy Chapman – From the 2002 – Let it rain album

These are the lyrics to Tracy Chapmans "I am yours", a beautifully simple and elegantly expressed art of human emotion. I blogged it because to me, it is POETRY. I love music and I love poetry, so when music meets poetry - I find heaven. This is a beautiful song...I hope you will bless your ears, your mind and your soul with it some time.

Peace!

We are loved!

2006-02-07T09:48:00.000+02:00

Starting today, I will count my blessings and cast my worries aside
Because today is a song played anew and my spirit, a listening ear
So I will hear the love and beauty of God in every melody in every sound
I will discover the purpose for my life in every ballad in every lullaby
Because this song was written with me in mind
that I may feel and trust in the everlasting love, ever-peaceful presence

and ever-flowing grace of the one who called me to life!

Beginning today, I will fill my prayers with THANK YOU‘S
My mind with appreciation
And my heart with gratitude for he has done great things
And he has done them because he counted me worthy of love
Worthy of peace
Worthy of forgiveness
Worthy of life and life abundantly
No matter how I have been, over all I thought I knew
There has always been a Spirit above all spirits that breaths me back to life every single day
No matter what I heard, what I believed
He never left me, never gave up on me
And if the maker deems me worthy, how can I figure otherwise

I am not perfect, never will be but if the stars spot beautifully every night
And the ocean leaps on these very grounds
If my breath finds my body every morning
And a smile curls around my face every now and then
Then surely, certainly someone is on my side
Definetly there is a Spirit that holds us all in one hand
And counts us all as his own

I’m not religious, I’m not a saint
But 23 years of living has proven without a shadow of doubt
That my life has survived and prospered

not by might nor by power but by grace
and it is that grace that brings me back to life

every time I die

in the pain of a broken heart

in the tears of deep depression

in hopelessness and faithlessness

his grace brings me back to life

every single time I die

I live because he loves me

Mya I always remember, always know that

He stitches infinite patterns of life, love and laughs every time I breath

In and around every one of us
Without fail and without measurements
Without favorites and without prejudice
God loves us and reveals that love in every single way

We are loved!

I am a believer!

2006-02-01T19:09:00.000+02:00

I am a believer
in life and its pattern-less course
in love and its never-made promise
in people and their misunderstood minds
in possibilities and the infinite find

It is because I am a believer that humanity has captured my soul
it is because I am a believer that poetry has become my song
it is only because I am a believer that I stand in the firm grounds of an unknown foundation
living life till tomorrow when God's next move will unfold.

I believe in more possibilities than 23 years of life has seen
I believe in people than people so far have been
I believe in me than today and yesterday encourages me to
and I will believe in all things till my breath catches its last second of life.

I am a believer!

She found me

2006-01-31T10:45:00.000+02:00

Behind the door of my mother's toilet
under the eye of Durban's starlight
in silent corners and thick cotton covers
from windy words and pouring tears

She found me

Inside the thoughts of a poetic teen
in world war moments of a dramatic queen
through daydreams and wishful thinking
for solid love past sordid course
Poetry found me

And saved my life!

Love Life

2006-01-30T18:17:00.000+02:00

I’ve seen the eyes of hope in the last hour of sorrow
I’ve heard the sound of life in the last breath of death
And my mind suddenly understood what eternity means
When pain comes uninvited in hearts graced with fear

But as surely as death awaits all
Love lives past histories of failed attempts
Even passed issues of pain attacks
And catches us in that moment
When we assume all doors are locked

Yet if we live to see the days to come
Of what value would our last breath of death be
Or our last hour of sorrow
Cos if we’ve never loved then we’ve never lived!

-MaZungu

So I blog!

2006-01-30T15:59:00.000+02:00

There are times when you feel the heavy burden of an untold truth and you wanna grab a pen and just write it out. Except it does not want to be “ just written out’ so you sit, walk and talk with the heavy presence of something you just cannot write out!

Wish I could open the floods of my spirit to let the truth ooze out of me in every openness I carry. Wish I could stop counting the buts, stop fixing the broken, stop trying...stop stop stop

THERE'S NOT A FORCE ON EARTH, HEAVEN OR UNDER THAT CAN BLOCK THE PATH OF TRUTH!

So how can I?

IT IS WHEN TRUTH ARRIVES THAT WE MEET THE FINE FACE OF FREEDOM AND TASTE THE BITTER-SWEETNESS OF TEARS THAT EVERY SOUL RELEASES JUST BEFORE DEATH.

So I blog!

Earthling

2006-01-29T17:10:00.000+02:00

I just got off the phone with a friend of mine - My Earthling. Our friendship is as unique as the souls that keep it together, our union is as necessary as the honesty that holds it firm and our commitment is as strong as the affection that flames it to life. We are friends.

She re-writes my book on friendships, she reminds me of why I am so fascinated by humanity. She is a friend of mine. The poem EARTHLING was inspired by our friendship - and to this day, every line, every word is a true reflexion and a true expression of all that we call our friendship - our Earthling. She takes me away and brings me right back to a place where living becomes a blessing. She raises my hopes and erases my worries because when I am with her, I am with purpose, I am with hope, I am with every possibility that living brings to those that are alive.

Her face I do not know but her friendship is inscribed in the patterns of my palm. Her voice is coded in the waves of my hearing. Her presence is dined in the comfort of my heart.

To visit her world, I never have to leave mines out. To give her comfort, I never trade my own. She applause my prosperity as she reproves my impurities. She is honest as she is caring, she is opened even when she intends to be closed. Into her house of heart, I have travelled so freely that the corners of her discomfort have become ordinary to my eyes. Yet the beauty of her friendship still remains my favourite site. She is my friend and I, her friend.

We dwell in the comfort of our friendship and so we call it EARTHLING!

To her, I dedicate this poem:

Earthling

Take me through the waves of life
Teaching me what you have learnt
As you learn what I teach
And we will both expand into the fullness of this friendship
Sharing the comfort of companionship

Play me a song with sweet notes of honesty
So we can dance under the sun in pure majesty
Letting the pains of our past escape naturally
As we bare our truth explicitly

Because it is in your comfort that I find goodness
And in my goodness, that you find comfort

So arouse my curiosity with layers of your personality
And I will melt your attention with my poetic confessions
Giving birth to earthling – our new friendship

By: Zama “MaZungu” Zungu
August 2005

Carry me

2006-01-29T16:05:00.000+02:00

Carry me in your hopes for tomorrow
So I can leave my fears behind
Carry me in the arms of your courage
And keep me from evil’s bind
Because the only way for me to last
,Is to divorce my soul from my past.

So carry me and promise me nothing’
And I will never accuse you of anything
Just as long as you carry me home.

Zama “MaZungu” Zungu
15 September 05

Let everything we do carry us back home, back to our souls where all living and loving begins.

Poetry

2006-01-29T16:04:00.000+02:00

I started writing Poetry because I could. I could express my thoughts, the convoy of my experience into artistry and so I did. But when you turn 21 and life looks back at you with questions and expectations in her eyes, the purpose of living or doing what you do becomes one of those questions and so life asked me…

What is my purpose for writing?

I write and will continue to write until the words that come out of me begin as a flame that burns my soul back into life. Until that poetic flame burns my tongue into speaking, my mind into thinking, my heart into feeling and my soul into living.
I wanna write poetry that leaves footprints in its trail, poetry that exposes and expands my spirit every time it travels me. I wanna write poetry that reminds me of all that I have forgotten, poetry that reminds me that I am fearful and wonderfully made – that I have everything inside of me (not just to get by but) to live. Poetry that reminds me that in every scar, from every vain through every pore – I am enough. I need to write poetry that leads me back to my source of life, my source of living, my soul. Let me give life to poetry that will give life to me, that will question and answer every-and-anything. Poetry that builds, reconstructs and revives – because if Poetry is not a luxury (in the words of Audre Lorde) than by God let it be a necessity – otherwise what is there to write for.

Audre Lorde said “It (poetry) is a vital necessity of our existence. It forms the quality of the light within which we predicate our hopes and dreams toward survival and change, first made into language, then into idea, then into more tangible action. Poetry is the way we help give name to the nameless so it can be thought. The farthest horizons of our hopes and fears are cobbled by our poems, carved from the rock experiences of our daily lives.”

And I so say that is POETRY and the reason I write!

If

2006-01-27T16:00:00.000+02:00

"If you cannot be told - You cannot be taught" MaZungu

This is a lesson I learnt in the company of 4 God-given, God-ordained brothers of mines. God bless that time - what a wonderful time. Life with these boys shared (with me) many amazing things, many friends, many lessons, many blessings, many mistakes and many triumphs and it is with these brothers that I learnt much about Zama Zungu and much about sharing, about integrity,about compromise, about commitment between friends and about peace that surpasses human understanding.

May the presence of God and the peace of the holy spirit be company to all 4 of my brothers.

Niyazazi niwobani!

Peace

I am...

2006-01-26T16:08:00.000+02:00

I am the red in blood, the shine in sun
The fullness of the moon, the curl of your smile
I am the truth in your honesty
Witty words waiting their freedom

And just as I am all this
I am also all that

I am the fire that burns
The lie that hurts
The voice of fear
The reason we’re here
Cursed as Friday 13th
Forgotten as the child within

Hold me anyway, for I need it
Love me all the way, for I’m here
Because bad is the good that keeps us apart
Good is the bad that holds us together

So have me as I am,

Altering not the bad as you celebrate the good
And when the sun falls on my face, let the honesty I have shared
Be the first to our everlasting.

MaZungu
19 Aug 05

I continue to LIVE!

2006-01-26T13:48:00.000+02:00

So I finally put up a real picture of myself, guess I needed to get to a place where I own this woman's world enough to put my face on it...I am hoping to add more pics of my world during the course of next week - you will get a visual of what all this blah blah blah is all about.

I am very blessed to have a space where I can share my thoughts, my perspective and my experience. There is so much more going on than this space has yet revealed but as our relationship grows I will open more and more, to a point where you get to here sob stories even he he he

I have had a wonder-filled life, from the time I was old enough to call it that. I've learnt many lessons and met wonderful people, I've tried new things and failed a few. I've changed my mind and even my image but in all that, I continued to carry the awareness that all of it adds up to what I call MY LIFE.

It's my belief that we are born complete (enough) but that living becomes the way in which we grow into who we essentially are. Meaning to me, finding myself means discovering the expanse of Zama Zungu, growing into who I fully and essentially am. So the feminine queen I was in 2002 is still this butch-like chick I carry myself as today. The mistakes I made in year 2000 are counted together with the A's I obtained for my BCom exams in 2003...it's all who (what) I am and owning it is owning myself. I own every second, minute, hour, day and month of my 23 years, even the ones I'd be just fine if I forgot. And that belief, that conviction, that truth allows me to carry myself every where I go - whether it is in the boardroom with my MD and some of his board of Directors or whether it's in a party with people I have never met before. I carry ME! And that is why I love the experience of living ... blue mondays or funky fridays - this moment is my life!

I spent much of my teenagehood being a dreamer, mostly because I was trying to escape the reality that to me, did not measure up to how I had designed it in my head. And so I spent a lot of my life dreaming about life...in the process, I missed out on living. Blessedly for me, I woke up early enough to change course and try again because I realized that life (real life) has so much to offer, but it all begins when you start living. If today is here for just one day, how much time do I have to live it and if it's not much, how can I waste it. So I vowed to live today and to love it!

Now I am learning to play, laugh,seek, discover, learn, yearn, plan, dream,breath, connect...to do it all but to do it living. Because today is only a day! and if I miss it - I miss it all! And if this is the only life I know (of) for sure, why not live it!

So yes, I plan, I budget, I organise, I strategize and then I remember to "Plan all you must just remember that before, during and after all that planning – you must continue to live.”

And so today, I continue to LIVE!

Just sharing!

Peace

Zama

Gratitude (The Poem - My freedom days)

2006-01-25T08:22:00.000+02:00

I was not joking when I said yesterday was love making day…IT WAS!
I had the most wonderful evening, filled with incredible love, amazing company, good food, great shooters, hilarious movie and body tingling love making
(As in loooooveeeee making he he he)

We went on a double date with these beautiful friends of ours, was served by a wonderful waitress, tried blow jobs (shooters) for the first time –A-M-A-Z-I-N-G and went home to watch monster in-law – then sealed the evening with a second round of mind, body and soul loving …what an amazing time we had.

It’s sad how we wait for moments to pass before we can quantify them and value them for what they are worth. I don’t have my degree yet, I have not seen any of my published work, I have not been to Zambia, I have not driven a 6.5 second car and yet in this normality I call life, there are so many blessings, so many exhilarating moments, so many gifts that this too is my grand time. So I won’t wait for that Degree (Unisa is too slow), I won’t wait for that car (budget too low) to say thank God for the 2nd of August 1982 – I will say it now and I will say it LOUD.

THANK GOD FOR THE 2ND OF AUGUST 1982

Peace

MY FREEDOM DAYS!

If the stars were painted fresh every evening
And the moon opened wider every night
Would this life be better than now?

If names were chosen before parents even met
And children were frozen in the image of their maker
Would the future look brighter than it does?

I don’t imagine better days because I love life’s flight
I don’t anticipate sudden change because I live in every night.
So if change and imagination were out of the way
Would we look and learn to love these freedom days
Or would we create brand new reasons not to celebrate
; But to manipulate this awesome life.

- MaZungu
20 May 2005

YOU

2006-01-24T16:26:00.000+02:00

It’s been love making weather for 2 days now…at some point you just have to comply! And so today is love making day for me…am not just referring to getting fresh, I’m talking about feeling, sharing and showing some body some good loving today. And in my case, a beautiful Sister named Jaz – (Name changed to protect identity he he he)

Jaz is a beautiful brown skin, brown eyed Sister who has been loving, encouraging, supporting and reviving this child called me for the past year and some good months! And it is because of that that YOU was born; my first and best love poem. Read and re-read every line, then you too will know that surely GOD LOVES ME!

You…

Your tenderness when your patient heart takes me in
Makes the doors of my heart swing open
It’s not that you have opened me
But the comfort of your smile and the sweetness of your heart
Have spoken me down to that place where I need not be afraid.

I wasn’t looking – no I wasn't hoping but you gave it to me anyway
I released my prisoned smile when you took that look at me
I realized my joyful soul, when you began to laugh with me
I would not have thought because I would not have guessed
That the sweetness of your simplicity could cause the goodness of my trinity
My Mind, my Heart and my Spirit to rise into yet another moment

You do not make me happy
Instead you remind me everyday that happiness rests in the pillars of my core
You remind me every day that joyfulness is the story of my soul

You tell me a story of simple laughs each time you smile
You simplify a gipsy puzzle every time you laugh
And somehow in that moment you call life
I find a miracle…

I thought love gave up on me
But that day when you loved me opened
And my truth oozed out of me in the tears that carried my fears
That night when you loved me to the moon
And filled me with you yang tenderness
‘Till I moaned my pleasure into a melody
I realized that love did not give up on me
But that I… gave up on me …when I gave up on love.

Surely God loves me

Because He stitches infinite patterns of love, life and laughs every time you’re near me.
Surely GOD LOVES ME.

MaZungu
> 11-10-04

Truth

2006-01-23T09:54:00.000+02:00

There is no telling how the truth will come
There is no telling just what it will look
Or sound or feel like
But there is one thing the elders know
That truth, like death, is always on time
And there is not a force on earth, heaven or under
That could block the path of truth
Because it is when truth arrives
That we meet the fine face of freedom
And taste the bitter sweetness of tears
That every soul releases
Just before death.

28 September 2005
Zama “MaZungu” Zungu

Poetry is in good hands

2006-01-16T20:49:00.000+02:00

Welcome to 2006, may you be filled with ernomouse gratitude for seeing the face of this year. I trust that you have resolved your issues with 2005 and if none, you were blessed.

It's been 2 weeks into the year and already I have tons to be grateful for...I'll refer a lot to gratitude as I have resolved for 2006 to be my year of gratitude! Beginning with...

Today I was blessed with a copy of Lebo Mashile’s Ribbon of Rhythm …what took me so long…I know.
Going through it left me so satisfied that if Poetry was a Country, I would insist that she be the President. To rephrase it…her work makes me say…
POETRY IS IN GOOD HANDS!

Contemporary poetry has faced its fair share of scrutiny and doubt in the heavy circles of the know-it-all, with comments that contemporary poetry compromises on artistry in order to fit into nowawadays. These comments aroused my interest in poetry even more but on the other hand left me wondering, just why we sometimes have the tendency to own parts of nature that was never created for ownership but rather to strike fellowship between humanity, God and nature. Poetry is not mines to hold with fearful hands against all my children, in the scare that they will destroy it. Poetry is not mines to snatch away from my Grandmothers hands in the fear that she will dull it. Poetry is a spirit with a life and a purpose of her own, owning her…is grieving her.

So I am blessed to be born in the times of Poetry through Lebo Mashile and I look forward to all lessons the spirit of Poetry has been sent to share.

May this year be a year of gratitude.

In all its splendor, with its brightness and its darkness…thank God for 2005

Peace!

I have just been born

2005-12-21T14:52:00.000+02:00

In the spread of last night

A silent display of God’s light
Turned inside out
Raised to great heights
I have just been born

In morning smiles
And sleepy goodbyes
Your loving hug
And my coffee mug
I have just been born

Ordained and on time
Today, all mines
And the mystery of it all
Is that God knows it all

And that the beauty of this moment
Though yesterday is gone
Is that I have just been born

Yet the victory is still to come
Because tomorrow, my birth will come

MaZungu
Before 07:30am – 13/06/05

It was a beautiful day when I wrote this piece, everything left me feeling brand new - I am sharing this with myself - more than anyone else - because the elevating effect of the day this piece was put together is most definetly needed today!

The Other Side

2005-12-21T14:48:00.000+02:00

On Friday the 16th, I met the other side of this woman’s world. The side I hope I will never meet again but fear that I will. I met the side that leaves your hairs standing, your mouth wide open, your eyes…disturbed. The side that makes you wish you could paint that part out. I met the ugly side of this woman’s world.

I woke up on Friday morning with ibhabhalazi curled around me… every part of me was a second late and all I wanted to do was trade bodies with anyone who wears beautiful brown skin, 36D chest and a dimple to match. But there was no one.

So I dragged my body through the long process of cleaning after a wild Thursday nite, a routine remedy for a drunken system and dressing up for a wedding. Somewhere between brushing my teeth and ironing my whites, Ms Bhabhalazi left me. And I didn’t even say goodbye.

So the house had a major buzz with everyone sorting themselves out in white wear and driving off to our first December wedding for the year. And so off we went to party up a storm…accept the storm the day had in mind had nothing to do with happily ever after. It was the phone call that rang to tell me that usisi wami uginqike nemoto…Now I wish the English language could translate the horror of that sentence enough to paint you that bloody picture. My sister crashed in her …what is the insurance term…beyond repairs brand new Nissan Micra.

Now I have many sisters, many beautiful sisters and somehow my heart was made for all 5 of them. And about 10 years ago, one of them was involved in a car accident that temporarily restructured her face and left her with a 15cm scar in her head. Getting through that was not only painful but it was traumatic and here we are again 10 years later crashing down that road. I cried.

True to our family nature, 3 of us (I share this town with 2 other sisters of mine) immediately drove down to Durban. Walking in that room and seeing her frail body sinking in that bed, opened and closed me up – she is too happy a person for that much sadness to house her body. I summoned the tears to go straight back from where they had come and I walked in, to walk out of there with my sister feeling loved.

In God’s mercy, she walked away with her life and so Christmas is still on its merry way. We left her on Monday – izolo – looking much better than she did on Friday, she was feeling even better too. Better enough to even joke – which is always a blessing, if your sister came out of that car!

In the horror of this crazy season, between that and getting back – we witnessed 3 accidents, in which in one the victim looked like he was turned inside out with half his body 60 cm away from the rest. It was horrific. And in the other, the guy’s body spanned off ground when the 4x4 knocked his day’s plans out of his day. It was shocking. And to seal the unknown purpose of that weekend, I went through my first encounter of getting cell-jacked. Let that be a story for another day.

I don’t know how your weekend was but by God, I pray it was better than mines and if it wasn’t; let us all pray that it was the last – atleast for 2005.

May your season be safe and merry. May you laugh and love louder than you have done before.

With gratitude in my heart
Zama
This was written on the 20th Dec 2005 so when I say izolo, I mean the 19th Dec 2005 - Peace!

Black River

2005-12-15T15:59:00.000+02:00

Black River where do you follow and can I come too?
You wash past issues of misrepresented childhood
You rush past rocks of trials and tribulations
Same spirit same grace, you flow to the next village

Black River where do you follow and can I come too?
Your streams flow too heavily for my African pace
Your streams are too bold for this ocean to hold
So you pass broken hearts broken paths and fallen strangers
Who once delighted in the company of your Devine

Black River you amaze me in the mad hours of twilight
Black River with no fear just life from pure sunlight
I’ve seen your strokes as you lay it past my days
Meditated on your arrogance or misunderstood grace
You’ve carried my heart though ridges of pain
And reminded my spirit to let the tear drop rain
Cause whether in love or lies this river still flows
And washes my feet off this life with no breathe
Dead soil beneath my feet

Flow Black River flow
What would they think if you ever lost your glow?

- MaZungu

2005-12-15T15:54:00.000+02:00

AUGUST:
Loves to joke. Attractive. Suave and caring. Brave and fearless.
Firm and has leadership qualities.

Knows how to console others. Too generous and egoistic.

Takes high pride of oneself. Thirsty for praises.
Extraordinary spirit. Easily angered. Angry when provoked.
Easily jealous.
Observant. Careful and cautious. Thinks quickly.
Independent thoughts. Loves
to lead and to be led. Loves to dream. Talented in the arts, music and defense.

Sensitive but not petty.

Poor resistance against illnesses. Learns to relax. Hasty and trusty. Romantic.
Loving and caring.
Loves to make friends .

This is supposed to describe all species born in August. I'm not grand on horospoces but I must admit -

This rings VERY true, interesting :-)