Sleep Poetry

As I lay in my bed, dreamy

My sleepy personality imbibing

Carelessly on supposed words

Drifting & spilling all over my head

I am drowsy with Awe;

It is air breathing soul

Compassionately to my spirit

In the dead of night!

By Nomfusi Xinindlu
The Collection: Whispers of the day & Monologues of Today

Lucky

So lucky that everyday I wake up in my country & walk to work in the land & grounds of my birth-to live my work

The sun as it rises knows my name and it tucks me into bed when it sets-thick with love & warmth, even in winters landscapes

The rain when it falls washes away my tears & knows me by the sound of my prayers

The church as it stands has christened me & makes me purer when I want to learn more about Christ; the sweetest waters from the rivers hold my girth;

The hospital has given birth to me & heals my wounds when I am sick

My thoughts as they are guide me towards counting my blessings, because there are many many people in this world who wish to be heard-I am but a drop in the Ocean

On the days that I don’t feel & look so lucky it is because my existence comes with difficult responsibilities & favours

The economy begs me not to overspend its pennies

The democracy seeks patience from me to arrive safely to its conclusions & Ideas while I still can

The family warns me not to miss any more gatherings & ceremonies-they are tired of the excuses

The company threatens not to pay me and

The people ask me not to forget their names.

When I don’t feel so lucky it is because I am conscience that even alone as I stand I constitute the life-blood & intelligence of my land-my people demand it daily

As a people our intellect has its roots in our understanding of each other & survival to another day, another time

This intellect feels positive about time spent building & creating a colourful Buzz about our future

Our future is not easy to predict because of threats from others who have experienced strife followed by democracy, before us.

They speak of its short lengths, the false promises, the lies and the suicide of its birth. They speak of a dying youth-like birds, migrating to other lands far, to seek medical attention and a voice to tell their stories to others who will riot about it successfully.

The critics will even hold the ideas of the Youth League president hostage and search his pockets for anything to mislead his trail of thinking-in his quest to lead the fresh visionaries;

They wish for him to say nothing right

I am taken aback & reminded of my birth in the heart of the Bantu-Stans & am left feeling unlucky by the kind of strengths I need to remove dubious thoughts & silly street-talk that serves from this corner, another, soon: everywhere! It is twisted!

Nonetheless everyday that I live-I am Lucky.

By: Nomfusi Xinindlu
The Collection: Whispers of the day & Monologues of Today

Where have you been with your pain

Tell me, where you have been with your pain

Have you been at a deep dark place where your tears made you lazy to look for light

Have you been where calling for help was more unhelpful than anything you have thought of before in your whole entire life

Did it take you where silence was much cheaper

Did it stifle your best thoughts about tomorrow and did you freefall into nonsense

Was your pain super fast at re-charging your most drained state and did your pain make you tired

Were you battling with yourself tirelessly with energy borrowed from sheer hopelessness and were you too numb to care

Where you angry

Did your pain show you that it came, because you could never choose it

Did your pain show you a perfect time to die and did you believe it strongly

Dit it ask you to always remember its sting!

Of course it did…And then:

More tears went for gold on your face when you realised what was making you happy before

That no one back there stole a dime of your happiness

There was no need to drag yourself into your personality day-in & day-out

There was peace in Smiles and no one paid to see them

There was no need to build walls against the “perpetrators”-Whoever they are!

There was no need to hunt for prey or get hurt in a jungle that was not labelled as one.

Has your pain reduced you unbelievably instead of reducing the price to heal it

Where you charged a high price by everyone for not understanding its roots

Did your pain betray your age, your truth and your core & did it lie to you about your family, your education and your work

Did your pain make you wrong about every single thing that you ever saw-&-heard

Has your pain lifted your head-&-neck to horror about the time; and how long did your pain last

Forever, I guess.

Tell me, where have you been with your pain

Have you been where your lips are too dry to answer any of these questions

Has you pain forced you to be thirsty about… whatever

Is your pain a powerful force when seated next to your imagination

Where and though your pain has not made you feel better

May it show you always where never to be bitter…

By Nomfusi Xinindlu
The Collection: Whispers of the day & Monologues of Today

You Share Still-Africa


Sinking Paradise
Moral Paradigms
Non-indigenous accents stifling many who apparently lived with their eyes closed


June Sixteenth, a day in a month to locate
Remember, a moment then, at the turn of the Molotov cocktail, an occasion addressing re-dress.
Rising smoke, sinking hopes they write in the section of ‘Life-Style’ about it today and reflect their beings suggesting, time may change bur there-in lay our spirits.


Soon the flag will rise, the Pope rests peacefully, the media airs the time and Africa gives birth to its Heirs.
South Africa: her glowing face will not smile at you, her explosive temper will not scare you but Zimbabwe will tell you.


Shifting frameworks, deleted mental constructions, confusing infrastructure built to stand
The people don’t stand, they don’t understand.


Get up Mozambique! your fertile land is always yours:
plant great seeds on it & avoid disaster at Harvest-time Have reason;
You tie my soul with knots with your despair
You aspire to compress me with your tears
You light your big house with grassland fires when I visit
When their belts are blasting against their round abdomen
You starve.

Soothing words won’t maintain your trembling composure Africa
Digital minds won’t de-crease your demented and wild exposure but your instinct rings true and priceless,
Your paradise needs it now.


Jump onto the first train home
You always did believe in your loong generations
The stretched pace of age is all you ever had and in an era, a different gown for you.
Splattered and authentic images of inherently sour art forms smother your barren land now.


You forever divide yourself with eternal feud!

By Nomfusi Xinindlu
The Collection: Whispers of the day & Monologues of Today

                                                                  THE RIGHT

The right to walk on pavement with the white man

The right to enter and buy at a supermarket

The right to drink and sell beer

The right to read and write

It’s all I ask for

The right to own and sell my father’s LAND

The right to earn a living wage like all human race

The right to have children as many as I like

The right to use public toilets

The right to visit and have visitors

It’s all I ask for

The right to be who I am

The right to be called and use my father’s name

The right to believe in what I believe in

By Leslie Ndungane GPG
The Collection: Whispers of The day & Monologues of Today

The Trees in my neighbourhood

A child is walking around in this neighbourhood with matters hanging on her face, face looking flushed and pale

She is brave, she is scared and one can hear the concern in her voice

She speaks of the concern embedded in her in her eyes about what she no longer sees,

We cannot see what it is she speaks of but she is heavy with seriousness and mindful of what she knows.

She clings onto her sleepless nights in a place once beautiful; and surrounded by trees and grass so green, she loved to sit on it and think.

She portrays effortlessly of her love for this space, space around her she could use to care for herself. We understand this space; we love it because we love her.

She speaks of the beauty of this surrounding and how easy it was for her to expand her world. and now, she says: her world is shattered.

Asked why, she says “my mother never wanted me to see life through the lightning of these trees”.

Our parents in their quest to see and understand us have decided to cut down all the trees in the neighbourhood, because they believe them to bare evil spirits that keep their children attuned to them instead of the chores in the house and the love of a family bond.

Our parents think that these trees hold as much evil as the years they have suffered trying to find them.

The girl is wondering where her next source of inspiration will come from, where her dreams will be based and where her thoughts will go. The rest of the children in the neighbourhood are realising that they too have been keeping their dreams safely buried and founded upon the greens & the beautiful sounds of the trees when it rains.

They don’t say anything to the girl in their shocked and rather confused state but together, they know that soon, every other child in a neighbourhood will be crying and saying:

“My mother never wanted me to see life through the lightning of these trees”

By Nomfusi Xinindlu
The Collection: Whispers of the day & Monologues of Today

                 I left you at the bottom of my soul

I left you at the bottom of my soul

Days & days of some of your life sank to the bottom of me & all because I cared

The eyes of my heart were always with you, they probably always will be

We are the same you and I: when I see you, I see me & am always glad that together we are alive

But this is no coincidence

Your presence truly is, built on a strong foundation of sense

Your sense to love is powerful

Your sense to listen with the highest touch of clarity

Your sense to feel the difference

Your sense for freedom &

Your sense of being.

And now I am hoping, your sense to forgive.

You now have to sense & understand exactly what forgiveness means to you & this will change everything.

You are carrying a thick string knotted in a bundle: quietly try to undo it

It will speak to you

Understand who your friend was and why

See the strife & the hell & the abuse if you think it was there

Ask nothing if you have this far and

Just let your sense for time tell you exactly what you need to know

I left you at the bottom of my soul to tell you this

Because there was no telling where I could be;

And now I am standing here looking at you reflecting me & I am not wondering why we keep saving each other.

It is because in times of our trouble we switch on the light to see each other

We sink to the bottom of the sea first;

Cry until there is not a tear left;

Work until the sun sets;

Lose as if there were a big prize &

Yawn as though boredom were in style

But at the bottom of it all there is us, lining at the very bottom of each others’ souls, waiting to lift each other up

Waiting to remind each other that we are alive

Our skin

Our beat

Our rhythm & our words are alive to always be together.

Never wonder why you lie at the bottom of my soul;

It is truth invested in time to always care for you and you for me

Keep lying at the bottom of my soul and stay there until we soar

By: Nomfusi Xinindlu
The Collection: Whispers of the day & Monologues of Today

                                       Sing Again 

Life brought together by sound

Classics sang in style restoring souls, once I was rescued by a song

It told stories and anecdotes I could sense & fastened my memory into a clear picture

Pure drums still linger in my head and the beat of my gong still persists.

Hard instruments continue to compete with the weak & weeks go by before I forget.

Your song rests on the surface of the world and captures the depths within

Enough seasons tell me about the roots of your song & the burden of your silence.

Your music leaves wordy stains on my tongue & hazy views in my eyes.

I rub them hard as I realize that you can sing again.

Say, my song is love, it is a gift, an echo, it is love unknown, it is love alone

My song is a soft cry for those I heard, joy for those who loved it and a lengthy road to you; & all the hurdles we needed to jump to see tomorrow;

And now here you are, crying for the song:

" Let the river run, let all the dreamers wake the nation, come the New Jerusalem"

I wish you could Sing again: "Phind'U Khulume nkosi Yam"

By Nomfusi Xinindlu
The Collection: Whispers of the day & Monologues of Today