Poetry — Ndaba Sibanda

Sibanda is a Bulawayo-born poet, novelist and nonfiction writer who has authored twenty-eight published books of various genres and persuasions and coauthored more than 100 published books. Some of Ndaba`s works are found or forthcoming in Page & Spine, Piker Press , SCARLET LEAF REVIEW , Universidad Complutense de Madrid, the Pangolin Review, Kalahari Review ,Botsotso, The Ofi Press Magazine, Hawaii Pacific Review, Deltona Howl, The song is, JONAH magazine, Saraba Magazine, Poetry Potion, Saraba Magazine, The Borfski Press, East Coast Literary Review and Whispering Prairie Press. Sibanda has received the following nominations: the national arts merit awards (NAMA), the Mary Ballard Poetry Chapbook Prize, the Best of the Net Prose and the Pushcart Prize.

Links: https://www.amazon.com/Books-Ndaba-Sibanda/s?rh=n%3A283155%2Cp_27%3ANdaba+Sibanda

https://www.pagespineficshowcase.com/ndaba-sibanda.html.

https://ndabasibanda.wordpress.com/2017/03/26/first-blog-post/

Humanity Mirrored In Style  

Her fifth book was a masterwork 

What a feat, it flew off the shelves

Upon release it had its own wings

The author couldn’t clip them at all!

I glided beyond her wildest dreams 

A publisher who had snubbed her 

Suddenly had rueful bended knees

As if proposing marriage of a lifetime 

 

It had its own life, verve and voice 

It invaded debates, contests, venues

It became topical in magazines, on TV

Business ventures were named after it

It got movie directors wooing, drooling

Readers and publishers stampeding    

Some said it awed and hypnotized them, 

Others claimed it was mania and magic          

It was such a huge accomplishment 

For a writer whose first one was a flop 

Nompilo`s fifth novel could cast a spell  

It graced timeliness and ruined records   

There was body language and texture

Her characters had a weird presence      

Their lifestyles and antics were magnetic

Shockwaves coursed down a reader`s spine

Yet there was depth, there was innovation

Her book strike a basic chord, bared truths

Her words stripped away the pretentions 

She had a knack for courting controversies     

One sat on the edge of a chair and cried, cursed 

Or laughed like crazy as one gobbled her narrative 

Such was the wildness and uniqueness of her work

It lingered with a charm that was lively & leading-edge       

The Thighs Of A Tortoise 

Thoko was looking for foreign 

currency to make a payment,

 an international transaction;   

highlighting the scantiness

of forex, her father indicated

that it was the sight of none

but the thighs of a tortoise! 

A Pain She Paints With Poetry 

  

he says a poem that shines a light

on her tenderness is a delight

she says a piece that pieces

together the intricacies 

of their union 

is a canyon 

an ache she can`t dislodge  

is an infinite and unseen gorge

whose river patters, pours with passion

into her like a cloud that carries an abrasion  

she claims that there is sweet poetry in her pain

that drives her hurt heart to prance like a pounding rain

A Healing Heart

inner beauty is priceless

its twinkle is taintless  

its hoot is humankind

its love is one of a kind 

 

inner beauty is invaluable

its splash & sparkle ,silent & able  

it is an oak wood which is yielded 

from the solidest timber ever preserved 

in general, it provides trust, temperature 

moderation & is prized for real furniture,

groundwater recharge, water pollution

attenuation & air pollution reduction      

like an oak tree, its heart is harvested

& invested in humanity, it`s cultivated 

to weather moisture, rotting and decay 

during different seasons & times, I say!

 

butted by lost winds & earths that are unclean,    

inner beauty remains shiny, solid & evergreen, 

it grows both in temperate & tropical climates, 

a handsome heart heals medical ailments & mates 

Fantastic Beyond Scholastic  

the professor professed 

possessing witlessness 

over his student`s claims   

that her relationship with him 

was exceptionally complex 

and often intimate and wily

Kindling And Kind Heart

  

her heart is a hefty, happy hearth, 

a fireplace blazes and plumps 

the depths of her interior life

it glows and grows every day

as if fuelled and fanned 

by some frantic firewood