Friday Night in Zimbabwe - published in Plebian Rag - http://theplebianrag.com\

The gastric juices prowled noisily in the caverns of his empty stomach, the acidic contents eating away, corroding the walls of his intestines, sounds emanating from within, like the thunderstorms in November.


He closed his eyes and tried in vain to wish the sounds away, but experience whispered softly in his conscience – such wishes were never granted it said, over and over again; experience told him that the grumbling would continue until he would stand up and gulp down a glass of water, whereby it would cease, and in its place would emerge that sickening, nauseating turning and churning of his insides, like a huge river of mud worming its way around and round, his heart presiding over the proceedings with a dull thud – thud – thud …….


Outside, the wind howled eerily sending clouds of spilt-filled dust into the gaping mouths of the township drunkards as they made their way to their homes, home to their sex-starved, frustrated wives, their malnourished children and their houses, constantly under threat of closure by the local council.


Their “beer-hall” wives staggered drunkenly next to them, making a last desperate reach for the almost empty wallets, proffering in exchange their miserably sunken sagging, breasts and the promises of pleasure from between their shriveled thighs.


Some among the drunkards, held on to their near–empty wallets their unsteady consciousness nagging at them about their nuptial duties – the wife, the kids, the house; whilst some falling head-on for the sagging breasts and the promises of pleasure in the nearby bushes; “quickies” from which they emerged minutes later, wallets empty, sex-drive stalled, hangovers assured and breaths stinking to high heaven of beer, cheap prostitute’s perfume, semen and whatever else cheap prostitutes wearing cheap perfume stink of…


And so it was that Friday night, the son waiting at home hunger threatening to drive him to oblivion, and the father, staggering home, dragging a staggering human piranha, a fisher of men hanging precariously onto his arm sucking away at all his humanity, his being, his dignity …

Welcome to Joburg

Welcome to Jozi


they come for different reasons; but they all come;
some running from old skeletons in their cupboards,
seeking anonymity in this jungle of humanity;
seeking recuperation; bitter from the thorns that life has embedded deep in their flesh;
some bored, seeking excitement in her red light zones;
disorientated, seeking direction, hoping for a second chance;
disillusioned, weary and tired,
seeking asylum within the sagging breasts of the big prostitute that she is;

some are diseased; seeking magical elixirs,
concoctions to cure their ailing souls, their deranged minds and their rotting bodies;
she bares her thighs, like the wanton whore that she is,
and gives them carnal satisfaction they that seek it,
holding them close to her bared breasts, giving them warmth and protection,
and as she opens her legs, they that seek excitement dive in,
like sex-starved travellers in a foreign land;

to the disillusioned, she gives more hope,
illusions disguised and coated with the pseudo lights;
a train hurling through a tunnel, heading straight for them, to crush them to oblivion;
some go back to their homes;
botching up whatever good they have in their lives by using their new found wisdom, and when that fails, they come back;
bitter and vengeful, seeking to ravage this whore; this modern day Delilah;

she accepts them back,
offering them more mirages in the distant horizons,
shrugging off their meagre attempts at revenge,
holding them close, hugging them,
offering them the warmth of her inequities until they finally succumb once more,
sure that this time they will emerge victorious;

she swirls them around in her acid-poisoned intestines;
until she has had her fill;
until, eventually, she spits them all out,
blessed with all the diseases of the body, the soul and the mind,
spoiled, scarred, miserable excuses of humanity,
pitiful caricatures of their former selves,
the remnants of a once mighty nation,
the debri that would be the future of humanity,
the reluctant trustees of the posterity of this great country;

Welcome to eGoli, welcome to Jozi…

(Dedicated to all those coming for the FIFA World Cup 2010, you gotta know the reality!)

My Friend

I have stood at this point before; where you now stand;
Beaten down by life's journey;
bereft of any solutions,
hanging by a thread to my honour, my virtue,
my very being;

I have heard the mighty winds of fate,
howling by in the valley of death below,
the rivers of disillusion,
cascading violently to the waterfalls of certain demise,
waiting to swallow me up, with no hesitation and no mercy;

I have known that there would be no way out of it,
save to fight for my life,
and so with one foot hanging over the abyss,
and one foot on the shifting sands of my circumstances,
I have held on to my sanity;

I have stood up tall, and looked fate right in the eye,
I have grabbed her by the balls, and refused to let go,
And with the roar of a castrated bull,
I have shouted in her face,
" Go to hell, see if i care!"

मिस्सिंग यू...

Missing you…

I wait here;
queitly, silently,
watching the never ending traffic in and out of your life,
sometimes angered by the choices you make,
sometimes amused by the demeanor of the other watchers,
sometimes intrigued by those you decide to invite in,
sometimes blown away by the splendid colours emerging from within,
the sounds of joyful laughter, of soft sobbing and of quiet breathing;

I wait here;
smiling, grinning, and even crying,
remembering the journeys that we have travelled together,
knowing that once, a long time ago, i was a part of it all,
of the joy and the pain,
of the tears and the laughter,
of the past and the future,
of the hopes and the dreams,
the magic of knowing you once embracing my very being;

but today , i wait here;
and as the winds of time begin to erase our footsteps in the sand,
I continue to wait,
hoping that my dreams of you will not give in to the nightmares of my today,
wishing that my tomorrows would be as defined as they were when you were in my arms,
longing for the solitude of the valleys of your exquisite body,
dreaming of a joyful reunion far away,
missing what we had,
missing you...


© Thamsanqa N. Ncube

Writing is in the Blood??

The post below is extracted from my younger brother's blog, at http://mbotsellasie.webs.com, check it out let me know what you think;

The Writers' Bloc - Mbonisi P. Ncube

What drives the so called writer to want to write? To create that grandiose masterpiece that everyone ends up wanting to lay their hands on? Is he driven by a pure inspirational thought? Or a crazed notion that he needs to change the world through his art? Or simply, is it a sudden urge to pen down his emotions, to well down, so well and perfect, his entire heart on paper? Or maybe it is a calling, heavenly or otherwise, that impels him to create a work of art, to push pen against rustling paper, amid the noises of the street below him. What drives him to create a work of art so mesmerising that whoever reads it begins to ponder about the level, or state of thought that the writer was in, during that demure second, or that period of brilliant creativity... But writing is a tool to manifest one's feeling, it emancipates the mind from its over-the-top thoughts, to the surreal world that the writer lives in, and he can put word to paper, scribble vigorously, and manage to live out his dream when he begins to write..What drove Tolkien to be so unique? To create a Middle-Earth so real, so real that when you read the adventure, your heart twanged with joy, and wonder at the creativity of the world he so envisaged? Or Shakespeare, the wordsmith who penned down plays that still 'breathe' even up to this day? Chinua Achebe, Dambudzo Marechera, Arthur Miller, Wole Sonyika, Shimmer Chinodya, William Blake, Chaucer, Caryl Churchil, Charles Dickens, Tsisi Dangarembga... the list is endless, for prose and poetry is an endless pit of creativity as well. It spans all modes of life, all aspects, all roads we travel on, our reactions and actions to tragedy, comedy, history.. just about everything that this world has to offer...As a fellow writer, I have also penned down many things, some which are very close to the sinews of my heart, some pure fiction, a resultant swoon of a spark of my creativity; and some which merely bend the rules of this world. But, that's the marvel of it all; for when you write, you cannot have any boundaries, for there aren't any boundaries. You cannot have censorship, for that too is non-existent. There are no dermacations into the writers' lane of life... he must cruise along with his emotions, climb and trudge along high walls, be swallowed by huge water bodies, in his sole quest to achieve his main purpose in life; that is, to merely write, write, and write....to feed that instatiable thirst that he has within his trembling pen... For the writer, the pen and ink are his sword, and the paper becomes the world he must live in, and the brain, his strategy on how he must wield his sword...

Good people, hi, hope all's well...

Am new in bloggosphere, and will therefore ask you to forgive me any faux pax i may commit...

So, now what do i do?

Am setting up this blog to talk to you about my poetry book, Mureza, in the Shadow of the Flag... as well as all my other projects; of which they will be many.

I would like to invite all of you to feel free to become a part of this world; and together we can make beautiful music in the literary arts. I am very grate ful to my newly found friends in the arts; the likes of Ivor Hartmaan and Immanuel Sigauke; who have literaly been holding my hand as i embark on this journey into the wild blogosphere.

I promise you, guys, i will walk soon, and before you know it, i will be running...

Keep on blogging!!



This is an extract from the book, hope you enjoy it, and give me feedback....

"Mureza is a brutal, yet searingly honest look inside the mind and heart of an ordinary Zimbabwean today; be it the guilt-ridden economic refugee slaving away in some dirty job in a corner of the world somewhere, the Shebeen Queen battling with the morality of the way she has to earn her living, or the sweating priest of the local ‘vapostori’ church, dancing the night away in the religious dances of desperation…
It is the voice of the bleeding heart of a broken nation, a once proud people reduced to scavenging the conference halls of the Diaspora, desperately begging for the world’s attention, sympathy and understanding; and yet somewhere in the poems, the reader can still hear the silent voices of hope, determination, tenacity and promises of another day…."



1. THE HOME COMING

When this era of madness comes to an end
When the dark clouds of
Uncertainty clear;
And the drums of fear stop
Rumbling in my land,
I shall go back home;
I shall go back home,
And see my mother;
To lay my bruised pride and ego

On her shoulders of love,
I shall go back home
And see my father
To listen carefully to his words of
Wisdom,
As he takes me through the
Pathways and bye ways of my youth;
And tries to explain
How it all went wrong;
I shall go back home and see my lover;
To feel the sensuous touch of her lips,
As we discuss the brief but sad history of our Motherland,
The tabernacles of pain,
Upon which our youth, our dreams and aspirations have been sacrificed;
I shall see my friends,
We shall sit down at the table of regret, anger and disappointment,
Engaging ourselves in the futile discussions of the what-might-have-beens,
Seeking to find solace in the still pulsating dreams and hopes
For a better tomorrow,
I shall go back home;
And in the shadow of our beautiful flag

We shall attempt to rebuild our land;
And as the waters of the mighty
Zambezi cascade over Mosi-o-a tunya,
We shall stand together and begin to walk,
Towards a better day;
Full of hope, promises and never-ending tomorrow…







29. VOICES….

I Hear voices,
I hear the silenced voices of the people of my land,
I hear voices of anger, disappointment, dissent, disapproval…
I hear voices of the starving children of the motherland, and tears come to my eyes;
My heart bleeds for the women that gave birth to them, only to watch them slowly die;
I cry for the men of this land,
As I hear their voices screaming silently in the middle of the night;
Muffled…Deadened... Dying….
I hear voices,
I hear the voices of the young men of this land;
As they labour away in the dirt holes of the world;
Breaking their backs in the service of foreign lands;
I hear the voices of my sisters;

Proud daughters of the soul;
Disillusioned; prostituting their bodies and their souls all over the world;
Ugly flotsam in the confusion of the tyranny of this land,
Their hard earned education gone to waste;
Unused... Unutilised… wasted...


I listen to the voices..;
Everlasting hope and on-going despair,
Long forgotten joys and present anguish,
Apathy and talk of revolution,
Peace and war…

I hear voices.., and sometimes...
Sometimes, I cannot help but wonder,
If the voices I hear are inside my head; and if they are not;
Does anybody else hear them...?
Does the world hear them...?
Can you hear the voices…?
Can you…..



30. TELL ME NO MORE…

Tell me no more;
No more stories of your anger and pain,
For I have had enough,
Enough of your endless mourning,
Of your tales of crushed hopes and your endless anguish,
Of your days of terror and your nights of hunger;
Tell me no more, for I have heard it all before;

And no matter how much we spoke about it,
Nothing changed...
We watched as our motherland was violently raped,
Our daughters deflowered by the tyrant’s thugs, and
Our sons die with hunger, and our fathers wilt with shame;
And still nothing happened,
We talked about it,
Long into the night,
How wrong it was,
How we should do something about it, how a change must surely come, someday;
We talked about it,
Long into the night,
And still nothing happened…

I do not want to hear anymore;
Your sons have packed up and gone, your daughters take no heed of you,
I will not listen anymore,
So please tell me no more;
No more of this revolutionary nonsense,
For it will get more of our people killed;
No more of this fighting spirit talk,

For it will lead our children into prison,
I do not want to hear it,
So tell me no more...
In my mind, I will always be free,
My daughters will always be pure, and my sons will be men;
And the flame of freedom will burn forever in a little corner of my heart;
So, go on;
Sing your songs of war somewhere else,
Let me be,
Leave me alone,
I do not want to hear anymore;
So; please, tell me no more…-