
Collaborative Poem by Sandile Ngidi and Yuri Kageyama (still untitled but ongoing; begun Aug. 31, 2020. all rights reserved by the artists.)
1 (S)
Poetry kins us to these basal stems.
Moisture is life.
Gardens petals fresh & resilient.
Mother breathes songs of roots strong.
Words curate a healthy leaf mass, fruits defying leaf scorch defining these heavy seasons.
Plumes as words dancing in the winds.
2 (Y)
Dragonflies flutter by the slowly swelling river.
Moisture is life.
Blue-green of their wings play in the light.
Mother cries songs of currents deep.
Leaves of Grass bend soft with the seasons, shining dew recalling these tears of birth.
Plumes as words dancing in the winds.
3 (S)
Far in the somewhere of dazzling seas,
nothing stops the seasons of fruitful friendships.
Dancing field to field feeding the imagination,
it’s the spring of delights, radished words.
Grass gesturing towards well-shaped flower leaves, moistured mosaics of words.
Life.

4 (Y)
Plumes as words dancing in the winds,
Tiny sparrows warble, not in fun but fear,
Scattering like debris, dirt, weeds and words,
Over oceans and deserts, swamps and streams,
The now of Dreams connect the All of history, the eternity of Forgotten nightmares.
Yes, Life.
5 (S)
Across seas the rooster is red,
Crowing in the weeds.
Greek sea edge sinking Black lives.
The wind is nightmarish.
In drying Eldorado Park, slain Nathaniel Julies is rising.
Fresh gardens strut their stuff,
A poetry skyline in full sun,
greening the eversick landscape. Life.
6 (Y)
Poetry whispers in tanka and haiku,
Across oceans, red, blue, yellow and black,
Repeating of pain, repeating of life,
Repeating of love? Repeating,
Iwao Hakamada just smiles and believes
In God.
7 (S)
After the soft rains,
Blooms fresh.
My epistle is no flower.
Naked, Black and pregnant,
Woman shot beast-like on a darkened Mozambique road –
Drowning soldier-savagery
Shamed seasons.
Lizalis’idinga lakho,
God of Black women now rise,
in tanka-maskandi cries.
Poppies.
8 (Y)
She is duped and gets easily used;
She is defiant and easily explodes;
She is vain, obsessed with appearance;
She let herself go, looks fat and shabby;
She is too quiet and can’t speak up;
She is psychotic and can’t shut up;
She is all these things, all at once,
Deranged.

9 (s)
Would you dance naked on your veranda
seeing madigras brass band
mad boots on grass,
killing your soul’s shongololo?
Beyond the gleam of your silverware, the sun still shines.
Shun the sun if drunk in the polemic of your vomit.
The palm tree is tall still,
yet peaceful.
10 (Y)
Her robe translucent like briny waves
An ancient pagoda zooming to a giant moon
She will never come back
To an earth that’s unjust, unequal, unfree;
She will never look back
At those who have sought to capture her
Her eternal dance
Gagaku

11 (S)
We hello each other, a morning ritual. He walks into the dew, whistling with the ancestors. Mapholoba, a sheperd breathing poverty. This dark mist, common as whites walking their dogs. Seeing them pee with glee. Peace. His dogged legs a plea. Ulaka lwabaphansi.
12 (Y)
Four an unlucky number, sounding the same as the word for “death,” the 442 has two fours and a two, any even number unlucky, divisible, inevitable separation coming, and Go For Broke they did, from desert Camps, to win what they never had, the right to be American, not an enemy.

13 (S)
Casting a warm eye on this land
my line to kiss her forehead
give her gladness sandwiches
water my mother’s spinach
add black pepper to the seasons
good taste into the bowl
a poetry pot firing the broil
simmering hope
the slow dawn of a brighter day.
14 (Y)
Taking a lazy walk next to this river
the gulls kiss the tips of the water
children laugh in floppy hats
I remember my father’s beatings
my mother’s Edamame
cooked in Salt, served with cold beer
a poetry pot firing the broil
simmering hope
the slow dawn of a brighter day.

15 (S)
Stratus clouds in the skies
Wishing blue skies smiled
Chuckled like Louis Armstrong
The air was friendly
Night undaunting
Unbanning lazy solitude strolls
Poets oets perching in trees
Chickening every silly sunset
Dazzled by darkness
Her seductive light.
16 (Y)
Skyscraper windows
Unblinking light
Dot the aging skies of night
With stories each window tells
That age-old face of every city,
Tokyo, LA, Johannesburg,
Breathing suicidal loneliness
With violence smoothed only by time
His seductive weeps
Await that trickle of dawn

17 (S)
after a long trip is a place
where one returns
changes into fresh clothes
puts the heavy load down
drinks cold water
eats porridge and amasi
while the dog licks wounds back to health
where suicidal fantasies die
hopelessly lacking any poetic imagination.
18 (Y)
sighs of exhaustion breathe through
the night, screams of wind choked silent,
kissing pleats on rain-filled waters,
river to river, sea to sea, blood to blood,
is it dawn somewhere else?
do the birds care enough to remember
the messages from that somewhere else?

19 (S)
He says hi
inkabi back from jail
straw grass world
exhaustion
brute storms
leopard lonesome
blood-heavy yoke
motherless calf
can’t be licked for first milk.
He’s a local
no hate blues.
Do I offer my hand
to the killer-ox
talk weather
disgust Bushiri?
20 (S)
Body seducing sleep
Swinging on her axis
Tell the night be tight.
Behind the sun sleep is light.
In dreams lovers kiss the ground in flight
Saliva no dread on Covid lane.
Children dance the morning dew into song.
Laughter.
Phezu komkhono!
Bujitsu

21(Y)
That needed daily fix of kimchee,
Granpa’s growling snores
Rattles shoji screens,
Like gently shaking maracas:
Where miso soup cooking,
And cooking and cooking
Wafts through
The peppermint morning air.
22 (Y)
Memories repeat
Even in dementia eyes:
A ring that sparkles,
Gem of yellow,
Rainbow and diamond,
Promising a love eternal,
Fool-proof, never betrayal,
Like the immeasurable,
Unfailing Worth
Of Truth and
Freedom.

23 (S)
In a deadly pandemic
blackened skies
hellish eyes
greed so pathetic
so trump-manic
muzzled jingle bells
Wakashio in Mauritius
shits oil
kills marine life
kills food
kills kanji
even after Fukushima
drills invade the Okavango
kill life
kill laughter
Pula.

24 (Y)
Death nudges closer
The pandemic world we share,
Skin cracked of disinfectant,
Sweat dripping on masks,
Prayer and hope,
Remembering music:
Winston Monwabisi “Mankunku” Ngozi

25 (S)
Pain pierces the heart like an assassin’s knife.
See the restless sea.
Shingled memories, the coffee blues.
Rumours of Christmas in the warming moist air.
Humming with the moon, its tears.
Pleading for the lost lotus flower seeds.
Impepho.

26 (Y)
one pandemic year
blurs
into the next,
those who hate
must hate
blinded to truth and fact
but we recognize
more than ever
what is important,
and who

27 (S)
America, poop fools climb walls in tantrums.
Haters copiously eat garlic.
Whiteness is no guesswork.
Hard stools on TV.
For COVID-19 deaths to be sweet & swift.
Trumps.
In my hood, the owl headlines death.
A cry for a strong midrip.
Palms.
28 (S)
The stubborn heaviness in our shoulders.
The bloodshot eyes, now we know,
our lives are being irrevocably torn apart.
Those who are ill, dying and dead, are familiar names.
Family.
Friends.
Beloved ones.
Death is no longer a metaphor.
The nightmare. The nightmare.
The nightmare.
29 (S)
Since we are already here.
Poetry of faith at the full.
Kindly keep these sandwiches, too.
To be shared at the golden hour
That poets dream of,
Even as it madly thunders.

30 (Y)
Our poem will end
When we overcome;
We will celebrate
For once,
An end
As we always do
With beginnings
31 (Y)
Laugh, belittle, ridicule,
Call me naive
Over-blown
Narcissistic,
Easily duped,
Those names,
Whatever is up
Entitled sleeves,
To silence stereotype enslave.
32 (Y)
It still hurts
But I know
I am right.
I will be vindicated.
And I will win.


“I must answer to my brother poet’s challenge and spirit, our words weaving together as family, across oceans, skies and continents.” _ YURI KAGEYAMA