Some poetry

"The incense crackles beside me
In the quiet space;
The tattooist makes his mark"

"The scent of jasmine
On the air;
The night is now at its end"

And that's about the most you'll get out of me for a long while :P

I've never been particularly good with poetry, even though I like reading it well enough.  I think I may have added to my English teacher's grey hairs growing up because of my general un-willingness to put prose to paper.  I can make up a poem on the run, but my word, never ask me to it into writing!  I have this obssession with written rhyme that goes beyond accepted levels of sanity.

The thing for me is that the first poems I heard were kiddies' rhymes.  Yes, I know, for the most part this applied to all of us, but for me it goes back to the thing where once I have the idea in my head, it sticks.  I have some difficulty being open to new ideas on something I "know".

I have one or two friends who actually have no poetic issues whatsoever.  The one is Ivic-Wulfe (his DevArt handle) and the other is my ollamh, who was supremely surprised to blog a poem he had written after a conversation over my last blog.  I loved the poem, but he told me honestly that he never "poems".  His poem is below, no paraphrasing or anything done to it:

"From the dark entrapments of HER soil,
I rise unto this world.
The dust swirl around my feet
as the winds sweep the leaves
to follow in a whirlwind of birth
where I now, in the eye of the hurricane
stand tall and free
an African Man.

Although my skin tells the tale
of Skyscrapers and Ossewa's,
my heart tells the sings the songs
of the Hyena's laughter,
while my blue eyes speak of
Union Jacks and the money market
Soul rumbles like a Lion,
reverberating through the forests,
for all my animal brothers and sisters to hear.
For I am an African Man.

For too long has HER soil
been broken and torn by clash
of our indifferent heritage.
The time is here to show the world
that all of us have at some point or other
been nursed on the placenta
of HER primeval void.
But we have denied her,
And set ourselves apart from,
while claiming always that we are not of  her.
White as I may be,
I am an African Man.

No longer do I linger
on the promises of a world fulfilled
by machines and hatred.
No longer do I beg for knowledge
at the feet of man
who does not hear HER heartbeat.
No longer do I wish to understand
the magick of Europeans,
Lost in their books.
I am an African Man.

My heart beats to rhythm of HER drum
and my every step is guided
by the Ancestors and the Buffalo
I learn from the tales
retold by the Zulu Shaman
and I feed on the nectar of HER breast
while embracing the magick
that moves not around me
but within my very being
For I am an African Man."

-Z.

Isn't this just lovely?

Peace, love and good Karma to one and all!!

P.S.:  for samples of Ivic-Wulfe's poetry, here's the link.