The black bin of life

I was standing at the 3^rd floor window of my flat
Exploring the beautiful view of night Soweto
I happen to notice a stranger picking up from a bin
A black man, late 20’s, ripped himself around by a dirty blanket
He seems not to find a thing in the bin, i can feel his anger by the way he kicks it
I can feel his hunger scratching my tummy, and tears start to fall out of guilt
Which reminds me of my father, and his fathers’s black codes, ethos
When that once gave life, love, ubuntu
And back then your poor and my rich stood for all, like birds of the sky, and animals of the earth
I cried your tears, I mean I was black too.
And that’s how my culture was born, I was born.

He starts to walk away and sees me looking down at him, but doesn’t care.
I track him untill the end of the window as he disappears in the dark of no hope, and no eyes, he turns once more to see if i’m still there.
I now wonder if that’s the only difference, him down there, and me up here?
So I still feel his eyes looking up at the guy from the window, because I wasn’t him, at least I didn’t feel like him for that moment
These were perhaps little distress
And daily acts of no conseguence
Then no men is born to be poor
Then no men is born to be rich

A broken heart's letter

She smiles like I've never seen that part of the world before,
 anyone before
Her laughter, jokes, body movement, ooh my god!, her face
Everything about her seems to be the first and the last I think of when I sleep, even when I wake.
I could easily guess what she's saying at this exact moment, words she likes to say, favorite tv show, sport.
And every time when I'm with her it feels like
I could spend the rest of my life in the middle of the conversation, because she says one thing and I say the other, and it's a perfect storm
Hands I forgot to ask for her number the first day I spoke to her
I forgot her name,
I forgot where she lives
Hell!
I might even have forgot my own name at that particular moment.
And that's the good part about being in love, you forget and realize.
Realize that you are utterly stupid, realize you have a smile, a heart and you have never loved like this before, maybe never will.

So I later discovered that she didn't really love me as I did, as I thought
And that those went her real smiles
But eyes, eyes never lied
He had a car, he was working, I was far, both in distance and in love, not that either of them helped anyway.
So I looked at her, smiling and crying both at the same time
It was then, for the first time, that she really smiled, but she smiled at me with Petty, and never smiled again
I did not know I was too hard to love
Too tall to stand with, too stupid or too wise, maybe to much to have one
I learned how to smile alone
I learned how to sing along
I learned I was not the problem, not all the time
Yes, It was hard, to forgive myself for the decisions I made

So I told her to take care of herself out there, because it's a big bad world, full of ups and downs And people have a way of blinking, and missing the moment, the moment that could have changed their lives
I only hope that now she's happier

A Mother In A Refugee Camp

No Madonna and Child could touch
Her tenderness for a son
She soon would have to forget. . . .
The air was heavy with odors of diarrhea,
Of unwashed children with washed-out ribs
And dried-up bottoms waddling in labored steps
Behind blown-empty bellies. Other mothers there
Had long ceased to care, but not this one:
She held a ghost-smile between her teeth,
And in her eyes the memory
Of a mother’s pride. . . . She had bathed him
And rubbed him down with bare palms.
She took from their bundle of possessions
A broken comb and combed
The rust-colored hair left on his skull
And then—humming in her eyes—began carefully to part it.
In their former life this was perhaps
A little daily act of no consequence
Before his breakfast and school; now she did it
Like putting flowers on a tiny grave.
"THIS IS ONE OF THE BEST POEMS I'VE EVER READ"
BY: MR Chinua Achebe  "R.I.P"