Things Fall Apart

Turning and turning in the widening gyre

The falcon cannot hear the falconer;

Things fall apart; the centre cannot hold;

Mere ANARCHY is loosed upon the world,

The blood-dimmed tide is loosed, and everywhere

The ceremony of innocence is drowned;

The best lack all conviction, while the worst

Are full of passionate intensity.

- Excerpt from The Second Coming by William Butler Yeats

The Lost Years

I recently realized I do not have any photographs of myself between the year 2000 and 2007. Between people helping themselves to my prints and me changing laptops several times and losing data thanks to viruses even the digital record of my existence in those years is very sparse. Pictures are a great way of documenting one's life and are great for remembering what one was thinking or feeling at a certain point. While I do not really have much of a pictorial record I did find my "big green forever book" which is kind of scrap book I've kept since I was 14 years old and in which I have been recording the contents of my mind and the things that interest me over the years. The Lost Years is a timeline in which I have selected some of my writings from the big green forever book. I may not have visual evidence of what I was doing, with whom and what I looked like during those years but it does give a glimpse of what I was thinking about around and during my coming of age.

Photo credit:  CSU-Pueblo Today

Being Swept Along Is Not Enough

She followed slowly, taking a long time,

as though there were some obstacle in the way;

and yet: as though, once it was overcome, 

she would be beyond all walking, and would fly.

- Excerpt from Going Blind by Rainer Maria Rilke

I generally dislike ranking things but I think I can safely say Rilke is my favourite poet (sincerest apologies to Neruda and Wordsworth) and the poem below is my favourite poem of all. Admitting this leaves me in paroxysms of guilt. While I can almost see all the other poems I dearly love skulking off dejectedly and as much as this pains me, I simply cannot pretend to be poetically polyandrous anymore. Allow me to introduce to you: “the one.”

As Once the Winged Energy of Delight

As once the winged energy of delight

carried you over childhood's dark abysses,

now beyond your own life build the great

arch of unimagined bridges.

Wonders happen if we can succeed

in passing through the harshest danger;

but only in a bright and purely granted 

achievement can we realize the wonder.

To work with Things in the indescribable

relationship is not too hard for us;

the pattern grows more intricate and subtle,

and being swept along is not enough.

Take your practiced powers and stretch them out

until they span the chasm between two 

contradictions... for the god

wants to know himself in you.

- Rainer Maria Rilke

We all have different reasons for smiling at the sun

Exploration. Discovery. Gratitude. My explorations have led me to discover, with gratitude, Joshua Bennett. There is not really a great deal that I can say except that he gives me hope, a profound hope that I will share with  you in my long overdue post on Parenting 101: Part 2.

"10 Things I Want To Say To A Black Woman" - Joshua Bennett

‘I wish I could put your voice in a jar. Wait for those lonely winter nights when I forget what God sounds like, run to the nearest maximum security prison and open it. Watch the notes bounce off the walls like ricocheting bullets etching keyholes into the sternums of every brother in the room. Skeletons opening rose blossom, beautiful to remind you that the way to a black man’s heart is not through his stomach, it is through the heaven in your hello. The echo of unborn galaxies that pounces forth through you vocal chords, and melts ice grills into oceans, baptizing our lips, until harsh words fade from our memories, and we forget why we stopped calling you divine in the first place.’

"Women" - Joshua Bennett and Justin Reilly

We all have different reasons for smiling at the sun.

Mine just happens to be you. 

So let's pretend that gravity is an inside joke we have with the ground. 

Grab me like a drunken bouncer 

and hold on for dear life

I promise I won't let you fall.

Because I've been dropped before.

...

But love shouldn't feel like an accident,

Like two high speed hearts crashing,

Burning,

Mistaking the sparks for stars.

And I can no longer settle for love that won't last

Living life as a condor in a coffin, married to the mud,

When I was promised the clouds.

Joshua Bennett is an award winning performance poet with an outstanding academic background in English and Africana Studies. He was featured in the HBO series Brave New Voices and has performed at the Sundance Film Festival as well as at President Obama's Evening of Poetry and Music at the White House, where his piece entitled Tamara's Opus which was dedicated to his sister literally reduced me to tears. 

"Until you have seen a deaf girl dance you know nothing of passion."

At the end of the day

The sun sets on a haggard city
Dusty, sweaty, angry, filthy
Running on empty
Frustrated and needy
Trudging home
Alone but not alone
Faces are vacant and hard
Like stone
Protecting soft places
We guard what we own
Guard what is real
What is raw
What's inside
And then carefully
Unwrap and release it at night
And beg it to salvage
Some lost piece of mind
Or bring back our runaway hope
Hope that is fragile and feels suicidal
Let's medicate it with prayer
And persuade it to live
Not to fade but to stay
Redemption may just be
One sunrise away

Ah Dela...Surely I have found a friend to my soul? I recently discovered Dela, a twenty-something year old, French genius of a music producer living in Canada. Below are the lyrics to the Changes of Atmosphere (Intro). They were written by Liza Garza, a highly gifted spoken word poet, vocalist, lyricist and activist whom I am absolutely thrilled to have discovered, and whom we will definitely be seeing more of on this blog.

Changes of Atmosphere (Intro) - Lyrics by Liza Garza


In the name of the Most Gracious, Most Merciful

Let her ask in faith nothing doubting 
For she that doubts is like a wave of the sea driven with the wind and tossed
Everything in this world cursed and lost in our forgetfulness
Why do we choose to ignore the obvious in wishful places far too distant
If we could awaken we would truly listen to melodies, they are so divine
Witness life blooming colors not apparent to our earthly eyes all the joys connected to our earthly lives are but a glimpse to what awaits
So this time I say I’m finally given rewind re-love for the sake fully living and desperate hope of fully dying in a pure state 
My only desire but to forgive and stay
My only hope that you would do the same
Our only mercy that the Most Gracious would remember our name and with this change we begin this gracious dance, this wholesome trance
Foundation so solid nothing shakes or bothers what’s rooted so deeply
We witness these mercies rescue us
We remember the Best of guides is guiding us
And with the firmness of this very step
And with our certainty of death we know that this is the most intimate caress
A kiss from the inside out
So close to truth we are now strangers to doubt
And now whether wrote in triumph or defeat
We throw our hands up in victory
This grace nearer to me than the arteries in my neck
Than my heart beating 
In my chest we are filled with the most gracious very breath
And finally you will kiss the truth just by kissing you
You will witness your love, loving you
And I will kiss the truth just by kissing me
I will witness my love loving me
We will kiss the truth just by kissing us
We will witness our love loving us in awe as loves descent from beneath us
Souls satisfaction, seven heavens await in atmospheres change in change of atmosphere

A human being

Finding her here

I am becoming the woman I've wanted,
grey at the temples,
soft body, delighted,
cracked up by life
with a laugh that's known bitter
but, past it, got better,
knows she's a survivor-
that whatever comes,
she can outlast it.
I am becoming a deep
weathered basket.

I am becoming the woman I've longed for,
the motherly lover
with arms strong and tender,
the growing daughter
who blushes surprises.
I am becoming full moons
and sunrises.

I find her becoming,
this woman I've wanted,
who knows she'll encompass,
who knows she's sufficient,
knows where she's going
and travels with passion.
Who remembers she's precious,
but knows she's not scarce-
who knows she is plenty,
plenty to share.

-          Jayne Relaford Brown

I was chatting with a friend yesterday who has just discovered she is an underachieving, lazy loser and is elated, thrilled with this realization. It gives her drive, and purpose, and a starting point from which to carve out the next stage of her life. She is not alone. The reason why her realization struck a chord with me is that I am also awakening to this new level of self knowledge. I can’t tell you how many exclamation marks and “omg, me 2s!” were used in the duration of our lengthy IM session. We spoke about the fact that we are hard to please and often find ourselves dissatisfied with where we are in life no matter how well we seem to be doing on the surface of things.
It seems we have arrived at a stage where we need to have clearly defined values that we actually, genuinely live by. Take for example integrity. It is easy to tell oneself that one believes in integrity; by generally living unobtrusive lives that do not deliberately negatively impact someone else we often delude ourselves into thinking that we have this commonly cited human value. I can tell you right off the bat that after having Googled the definition of integrity I am confident now that I am way off the mark. I have been functioning using a map that was great for navigating through adolescence but can only leave me poorly equipped for adult life.
So here we are. I need a new map, a new set of rules. This is what growing up is all about: having a clear definition of who you want to be and then striving to ensure that she comes into being. It’s a process that requires self leadership and a spirit that is malleable and willing to change. Applying my mind to the issue of my values and the things I want to do, that are in line with my values, for example career wise,  I re-read an amazing book I bought a couple of years ago called Wide Awake by Erwin Raphael McManus. He says

Life is not a color-within-the-lines project;

life is a work of art.

You have to keep mixing colors,

creating new blends,

and seeing things in fresh ways.

You must be willing

to get paint

all over you.

Life is about growth. Growth

demands change. Change

Requires humility.

Sometimes you need to bring change;

sometimes you need to be changed.

(Wide Awake, McManus. 2008)

The poem by Jayne Relaford Brown is an affirmation of the process I seem to be undergoing. Looking back at the trajectory of my life thus far I am encouraged and challenged to be more, to be better, to throw fear to the wind and tenaciously evolve towards becoming what I hope will prove to be indeed, the woman I’ve wanted. I am up for it and I love it!

Waiting...

Cupped in your hands

I am melting languidly

Into cracks and open spaces

Pour me into the core of the earth

Let me fill it with molten warmth

I am very slowly exploding

Into seven billion shards

In the palm of your hand

Blow me into the wind

Let me settle everywhere

On brown skin

On falling raindrops

On raging fires

And a thousand grains of white beach sand

Let me see your face

I want to hear your voice

I need to know that I am safe

Because I am melting

I am exploding

And I’m waiting

In your hands.

© Sandisile Tshuma MMVI

Sarah Kay: If I should have a daughter ... | Video on TED.com

Sarah Kay: If I should have a daughter ... | Video on TED.com

This is not a poem

I recently did an interview with a journalist in which he asked me all sorts of questions about my writing and me as a "writer" that I found rather uncomfortable. I kept feeling duplicitous as I responded to his questions because I struggle with the idea of being identified as a writer. In fact, I struggle with being identified as anything not biological as it seems incomplete. And of course I get that biological descriptors are also incomplete but it makes me less uncomfortable to be known as an average height, dark skinned twenty-seven year old for example, than it does to be identified as a writer, or a poet:

This is not a poem.
This is a map of neural pathways
trampled in my brain,
A string of molecular ranting
that seeks immortality.
These are the contents of my mind
set loose from somatic confines.

The critics, aghast, bay for blood.
There are rules to be followed
Non-conformity is adulteration.
I will never be included among
the literary greats
Like Shakespeare, Wordsworth and Yeats.
I will never be studied or quoted
My technique is raw
My ideas undeveloped.

But these are my words
and I choose to serve them
Freshly ground from the Seed.
This is not a poem.
It's not even "chopped up prose"
Has no intro, conclusion or body... or soul.
It is ink on cellulose,
These are pixels on a screen.
It is the nudity of my mind exposed.

I'm not even trying to pretend that I can rhyme.
It takes far too much time and I am not inclined
to demand this of my mind.
Indeed, I'm not obliged.

I don't believe in the death of poetry.
I believe in its persistence
through adaptation, evolution,
Revolution, slow and steady.
Leave it alone. Let it be.
Iambic pentameter schmentameter!
Who sets the parameters
for the expression of thought?
It is what it is.
This is not a poem.
And I am not a poet.

© Sandisile Tshuma MMVI

Merchant of Dreams

There is nothing much to say.
He is the poorest man alive.
A pauper's grave awaits his demise.
He has nothing to sell,
No one to con.
The price was too high
And his product invariably
Went up in smoke.
We watch as he shuffles past:
Rags, skin and bone,
And we think to ourselves,
Times are hard mate,
And you should have known
In a land where virtue is sold
In exchange for some breadcrumbs
There is no market
For luxury commodities
Like dreams anymore.

© Sandisile Tshuma MMVI

Day Sleeper by Rory Adityawan

African Renaissance

It makes no sense whatsoever
Not to me
Not to the boy selling
Grass brooms and feather dusters
At ten o'clock on a Tuesday morning
While a handful of his age-mates
Practices the five-times table at school
He's probably not thinking of a renaissance
As he deftly employs his number one marketing tool:
Public guilt

This idea is "whatever"
It doesn't mean renewal
Not to me
Not to the dry-skinned woman
At the rural bus terminus
Who vends shriveled fruits and roasted peanuts
To the distracted masses that cram themselves into overloaded buses
Whose very existence is a hazard
Her voice rises high above the buzz
As she offers cheap nutrition to an undernourished population
How's that for an "S.M.E?"
Does she fit into the dream?

Translate it!
Break it down for me!
I just don't understand it.
Neither does my seventy-five year old grandmother
No one explained it to her
The day she woke up early and hobbled twelve kilometres
At the promise of "food aid" which she was denied
On account of having "made noise"
For the overpaid paper-pusher dispensing it
An entire village turned away
Hungry and empty-handed after a twelve hour wait
Did not dream of the dawn of "black consciousness"
That night.

African Renaissance? What is it?
Some kind of evanescent idea
That is tossed around at conferences
At five star resorts by clueless men and women
Who have moved mountains
To educate their children in the "first world?"
Is it a vague but verbose press statement
That dissipates when they kiss each other's greasy cheeks
And exchange stiff embraces before boarding
chartered airplanes back home?

Bring me our visionaries
The great thinkers of our time!
Let's herd them together and lock them in a room
So they can hash it out
And come up with a pretty definition
Maybe in a poem!
I, on the other hand
Will be out here in the real world
Hacking my way through this jungle
Wading through the gunk
Stacking my chips and building a life
Doing more than just surviving.

I, too, once dreamed the dream
But now I am awake
Wide-eyed and blinking
Wondering as I look around me
How many times and how many ways
Does an African have to die
Before he is "reborn?"

© Sandisile Tshuma MMVI

Finding freedom: In broken images

There are people who have the gift of clarity. They always know what they want and what needs to be done to get it; they can assess a situation and determine the appropriate course of action in the blink of an eye. They shine in a crisis, rounding up the troops and firing out instructions like traders on Wall Street in a dream sequence of pure left brain brilliance. These are the folks who are quick on their feet, witty and resplendent in their ability to produce inspiring and flawless ideas during workplace brainstorming sessions, while the rest of us can only beg, cajole or butt-kick our brains into coming up with ideas that turn out to be so asinine that the team discards them before we even finish articulating our poorly conceived thoughts. These are the folks who then take our dumb ideas, pimp them up and re-brand them into the Hail Mary we have all been waiting for in the boardroom torture chamber. We are reduced to tears, slowly shaking our heads from side to side as one by one we stand and ovate. Let's face it.These people suck. Big time. They make us feel like inadequate buffoons.

The thing is, though, it's not like I don't have great ideas. I have fantastic ideas. Later. When I have had some time to let them simmer a little it turns out my ideas "out-bling" the Hail Mary in the boardroom in their sheer brilliance. They are rounded and balanced and have a low center of gravity giving them good stability. They take into account all the internal and external variables they need to, they consider local context, they are commercially viable and sustainable, they are innovative and exciting. These are ideas to last through the ages and maybe save the planet. I have ideas that give me wings! After applying my mind a little it turns out I can come up with some startlingly sharp thoughts.The problem is I live in a world built for quick thinkers so my life appears somewhat off tempo. But go figure;it turns out I have amazing clarity too. Later. Eventually. A minute after the fireworks. It turns out that after groping in the darkness and wading through the marshlands of my brain, digesting and assimilating the wealth of information around me and simulating all the different combinations and permutations, I really, really get stuff and I am a rather sharp shooter too. So cheers to that!

Here is a poem I found when I was 15...

He is quick, thinking in clear images; 
I am slow, thinking in broken images.

He becomes dull, trusting to his clear images; 
I become sharp, mistrusting my broken images,

Trusting his images, he assumes their relevance; 
Mistrusting my images, I question their relevance.

Assuming their relevance, he assumes the fact, 
Questioning their relevance, I question the fact.

When the fact fails him, he questions his senses; 
When the fact fails me, I approve my senses.

He continues quick and dull in his clear images; 
I continue slow and sharp in my broken images.

He in a new confusion of his understanding; 
I in a new understanding of my confusion.

 - Robert Graves- In Broken Images

I read it and thought to myself, well there we go. That's me he's talking about. Clearly...

Introduction: the beginnings of freedom

This is about collected things. Words, poetry, thoughts, music and images that I have stumbled upon, uncovered, marveled at and given place of pride. This is about cherished things, discovered and collected over time. It is about ideas, the kind of ideas that form organically after quiet observation, voyage and contemplation and slowly fit together like drifting continents revealing themselves to be a more honest version of the struggle of life. Because that's what it is, an exertion against the laws of nature from chaos to order and hopefully the highest level of existence: true freedom. So this blog is about collected things in my journey to freedom.
So where do we begin? We begin with a lesson on resilience; we begin with dandelions...

Dandelion Thinking 

Dandelions
don't care
that nobody cares
to cultivate dandelions.

Dandelions
don't know
that everyone knows
they grow everywhere.
Underfoot. In cracks.
Extravagantly. 

© Monica Cromhout 

I love this poem by the Zimbabwean-born Monica Cromhout because the vast majority of us have not had ideal conditions to nurture our development. Our leaders fail us, loved ones leave us, hunger, illness and natural disasters plague us, we blunder and fall. It's a life of hard knocks. But look at us still, dreaming, growing, learning, discovering and loving "extravagantly." Dandelions are those among us who are described by Paul in a letter to believers in Corinth a couple of thousand years ago as "regarded as unknown...beaten, and yet not killed; sorrowful, yet always rejoicing; poor, yet making many rich". Dandelions have nothing, yet they possess everything. 

Dandelion thinking is the beginning of freedom.

Freedom Square, Kliptown, South Africa. 3 000 resistors converged here in 1955 to draw up the Freedom Charter.

Two dandelions.

Will she make it through the cracks?