A new pair of poems to celebrate the new blog design.
***
She captioned his heart like she captioned
her own pictures of herself:
seemingly profound but obvious
and unrelated to whatever
touch-screen-camera-phone-app filter she used
to unshade her blackness,
his blackness,
their blackness; with digital
skin-lightening cream.
As if to be dark was a sin.
And so she edited herself
to forgive herself.
Because Jesus had eyes the colour of her contact lenses.
Blue.
Because to be holy is to be arbitrary.
Because to caption his heart like she captioned herself
was easier than to just ask for his soul
through a no make-up selfie.
Or whatever else she thinks is actually her,
but still isn't.
her own pictures of herself:
seemingly profound but obvious
and unrelated to whatever
touch-screen-camera-phone-app filter she used
to unshade her blackness,
his blackness,
their blackness; with digital
skin-lightening cream.
As if to be dark was a sin.
And so she edited herself
to forgive herself.
Because Jesus had eyes the colour of her contact lenses.
Blue.
Because to be holy is to be arbitrary.
Because to caption his heart like she captioned herself
was easier than to just ask for his soul
through a no make-up selfie.
Or whatever else she thinks is actually her,
but still isn't.
***
When we grow up,
I will let our daughter
cry herself to sleep.
That way she will never
need nor expect
for her father's or her stranger's arms
to hold her so that she can fall
gently, gently
asleep.
When we grew up
our daughter never
cried herself to sleep.
That way she never
needed, nor expected,
for her father's... for her mother's
womb to hold her
so that she could stay
gently...
gently...
asleep.
Our dreams were born in a coffin.
You made me promise
to always, always
dry her tears
if I could.
I will let our daughter
cry herself to sleep.
That way she will never
need nor expect
for her father's or her stranger's arms
to hold her so that she can fall
gently, gently
asleep.
When we grew up
our daughter never
cried herself to sleep.
That way she never
needed, nor expected,
for her father's... for her mother's
womb to hold her
so that she could stay
gently...
gently...
asleep.
Our dreams were born in a coffin.
You made me promise
to always, always
dry her tears
if I could.
***
Anyhow, what's new in my life? Nothing much- just the continuation of exam season. You'll notice the formatting of this post is a bit funny, well, that's because I copied the poems from my HelloPoetry account (http://hellopoetry.com/tawandamulalu/) and the html/ java-script stuff decided to stick around. I'm far to lazy to fix it so I'll let it be.
Also, I was awarded a really cool award at the latest 48 Hours Film Project Gaborone thanks to the team of youngsters I was working with ('Phoenix Productions').
The award was for 'Most Promising Filmmaker' and it's an hourglass trophy. I don't have a picture of it, so I'll post this little image below....
Also, I was awarded a really cool award at the latest 48 Hours Film Project Gaborone thanks to the team of youngsters I was working with ('Phoenix Productions').
The award was for 'Most Promising Filmmaker' and it's an hourglass trophy. I don't have a picture of it, so I'll post this little image below....
The guy who gave me the trophy, an awesome dude called Thabo, got the award himself last year. He also told us why he picked an hourglass for a trophy...
Because...
Because...
'Time is fleeting, but talent is forever.'
P.S I'll write more about the 48 Hours Film Project at a later date.
P.P.S I still need to write a post called 'Moon Song'. But...whatever. We'll see.
P.P.S I still need to write a post called 'Moon Song'. But...whatever. We'll see.
