Ndongolera C. Mwangupili
Ndongolera C. Mwangupili is a poet, fiction writer and essayist from Malawi. His stories are published in Modern Stories from Malawi (2003) and The Bachelor of Chikanda and Other Stories (2009). His poem the Genesis was anthologized in The Time Traveller of Maravi: New Poetry from Malawi (2011). Another poem Letters to a Comrade is published on www.openroadreview.in. One of his poems is published in Belgium in a collection titled The Aquillrelle Wall of Poetry of passion and romance, members’ anthology. His poem Songs of a Peasant is published in The Criterion: An International journal in English, ISSN (0976-8165) Vol. 5, Issue. VI (December 2014). For the Unmarked Tomb is published in a chapbook by Praxis Magazine Online (2017). His three poems are anthologized in Free Fall, an International Anthology (2017). He edited two books, namely, Poetry for Malawian Senior Secondary Schools (2014) and Call it Fate and Other Short Stories (2014). He works as a Senior Inspector of Schools in Malawi. He is also the Secretary General of Malawi Union of Academic and Non-fiction Authors (MUANA). He is finalizing writing his first novel Sweet and Bitter and compiling a collection of his poems Fragments of Broken Voice.
Published 07/29/17
Published 07/29/17
“I Have Walked”
I have walked in days and nights,
my poetic eye alert
to capture the vitality
of our land and
its twenty-first century vanities.
I have walked in the dead-land
of the lost kingdom
and dallied awhile in the waste-land,
uttering elegant wordless phrases
to no one but everyone
in that lost kingdom where
a handsome ugliness is born.
I am like a vacillating louse
that, due to its mobility, gets killed.
I have walked in light and darkness
and have trod where spirits
fear to go. But I was
more careful than
a chameleon that measures
its steps before treading where
a handsome ugliness is born.
“The Empty People”
I
We are the empty people,
we are the void people
eating our own
stuff and nonsense.
our void cries reach
deaf ears of laughing hyenas.
but a hyena is a hyena.
even if it came down from the mountains
to dwell in the reeds along the lake,
it remains a hyena.
II
Solutions without love,
thanksgiving without gratitude;
but smiles of aversion.
and hatred forming a shapeless
hollow in us - maybe – like the water
of nothingness… And we remain
the empty people,
the void people.
“For the Unmarked Tomb”
(He was born kicking
and died fighting;
he lived for freedom
and whatever he did
he did for freedom’s sake.)
If greatness is height
or size;
if prowess is weighed
by the applause;
if manliness is eminence
and ascendancy;
you are an empty bottle.
But if heroism is heroism,
- no shape, no colour,
no prize -
you are the greatest hero
who ever lived.
Your soul is,
forever and ever,
a beating tom-tom.
“Love Letter”
Dear….
I shall go with you, you alone,
when the sky is blue, the air is still
like the breath of the Holy Spirit;
I shall go with you, through the winding path,
through the dangerous bush, to
where animals great and small
sing songs unsung before.
we shall go up
to the holy hills
to sing a song of love.
I shall take with me my flute
to pronounce your name
to the spirits still living in the Stone House.
Woman, your sunny face is my mirror
to see the beauty of creation;
for your beauty is pure as gold.
black woman, you are
moon-faced ringed with corona.
I dream to see your hand
around me,
your head sleeping
on my shoulder.
long, long have I longed
to sing a love song for you
in the Stone House where people lived and died
talking about history.
We shall walk, hand in hand, from garden
to another garden of roses
while a comic drum
will beat in a distance.
Earnestly I shall put a piece
of tapioca food on your lips
and habitually you will swallow it
with ecstatic delight
and in love of perpetual bliss.
We shall find time to dance,
time to laugh,
time for recreation
and time to study creation.
I shall close my eyes
but still see your beauty;
I shall close my ears
but still hear your sweet voice;
I shall close my nose
but still smell your natural perfume.
Dear, when the day comes,
the earth will quiver rhythmically
to respond to your foot-steps;
the birds of the air
will help me sing your name;
insects in the green grass
will compose melodies about love;
the village dancers will dance
to the tune of your voice.
O young woman, fresher than a baby,
I shall look through your bright eyes
to see the wonders of the world,
those which existed, the Hanging Garden
of Mesopotamia, for example
and those yet to come.
you are my mirror of the world.
We shall jump arm in arm
on the hills
for the worlds ancient and present
to see us.
I shall love you as I love my soul -
can one hate his own soul?
Passers-by will admire
and admit that
we are a faithful couple!
***
With you I live
in time without devices,
space without distance.
in you I see all times and places.
Your eyes that see beyond,
your ears that hear far,
your smile that gleams like a star
are to me one thing:
the work of a Fine Artist.
***
We shall go down. Yes! We shall go,
you and I, to the lake
to see waves
and feel a still air of love.
Your erect breasts,
those full of sweet milk,
will be pressed on my chest
to feel a masculine touch.
on sand we shall lie
holding each other
like a dove couple.
A rose will grow
in our lake of love,
waves will whisper
to our hearts
and an inner drummer will drum
the drum of love.
We shall swim together in the lake
as the fish of the same species swim together.
the fish will make a circle around us
and in their midst we shall sing love songs.
we shall sail the lake
to see its beauty and wonders.
woman, the lake is a symbol of plenty
to the lakeshore people.
you, too, are my symbol of plenty.
We shall whisper honey words
and the humid air
above the waters will respond.
we shall embrace each other
to warm ourselves
against the chill breeze of the lake.
How pleasant it will be
for a man and a woman,
born for each other,
to dwell together in love,
to spend a day together at the lake.
***
Love is amazing,
no beginning and no end.
no word or gesture ever
defined it.
sages have thought and reasoned,
but all in vain.
***
I shall lead you to the altar
where we shall vow
before a priest and the laity.
you will put a nuptial ring
onto my finger
and I will do likewise.
we shall drink from the same chalice
and share the Holy Communion.
our love shall be blessed everlastingly
like the perpetual supper in paradise.
We shall then go to my home
as villagers sing
traditional songs.
I shall take you to my bedroom
in that small hut made of mud
where through a window
we shall hear men bearded and bald
speaking about us at the beer-place.
At the place where villagers dance local dances
and drink from calabashes of local beers,
village minstrels will compose
minstrelsy of our love epoch.
The winds of the earth
will be pregnant
with songs of love
sung by a wagtail
flying from nowhere,
going to a place unknown.
People unknown to us
will hear about us
and sing songs about us;
for our life will be full
of nuptial bliss.
We will, o yes,
we will be the love models
for all couples to see and admire.
We shall spend our days
playing, praying together;
chatting, chanting together;
and walking, working together.
From north to south,
west to east,
people friendly and unfriendly
will love one another
with fraternity
to have seen
how we shall live, you and I.
We shall change the world
into another paradise
where people of colours
will live like twins.
all people will dance
to the love songs without end.
We shall be poised
between centuries
like in an eternity.
do not ask me “How?”
wait and see,
it will happen.
We shall support the same party
and embrace the same creed;
for lovers are two bodies
but one person.
My dear, in love there are conflicts.
but, as they say, buttocks are always in friction
yet they never separate. Who are we?
our union is beyond conflicts.
In love no one is inferior.
love is the union of two souls into one.
did you not hear, an old sage argued last night
that the human image is not manliness or womanliness
but the harmony of the two.
***
Woman, you are my Africa,
my land, my hope,
o yes! My river.
but do you know
when it rains, the river swells
and swallows the land, the home?
***
My love, queen of my dreams,
I have chosen only you
among all the flowers and fruits
of our great races of the earth,
among the women of this generation.
Young woman, more flesh
than rain water
and more fertile than
the banks of our village river,
I shall invite you to the festival
of the harvest as the handsome men
of the village dance
while the beautiful girls fan them
with perfumed handkerchiefs.
In the fertile vale of our village river
drums will beat out your sweet song,
you woman, whose beauty
is beyond the measure of mathematics.
Along this fertile river
I shall teach you how to cultivate;
for you are the daughter
of this fertile land.
You will enjoy the fruits of the savannah
planted with my human hands
which are as hard as the tree bark,
tattooed by the hardship of ages.
Be true to me, my love, be patient.
the future is at hand, be patient.
patience is a rose flower
growing in your heart.
impatience, an atomic bomb
in your heart
to be exploded within a second.
With love…
“The Political God-Father is Gone”
Indeed,
no matter if I am unpragmatic,
life is a paradox:
there is a time
when the victor surrenders
to the vanquished
and, maybe, prowess is a size-less robe.
Perhaps,
in real life,
those whose success
is in the bullet
their defeat is in it too
and, possibly, power is a formless chair.
“Songs of Children”
“Daughter of my mother,
these very men who sing songs for you
will craft a mask for you
that will haunt you to the grave.
when those ballooned thighs of yours
get deflated, they will turn their love songs into elegies.”
“Brother, there you go again
on your night sprees.
on the morrow, I know,
you will be telling your friends
about how many girls’ beads
you have counted
over the night.”
“Sister, don’t look at your beauty
as a gimmick for advertisement.
this land, this land of flames,
has had beauties;
girls who when going
as if they are coming.
girls, I mean girls who
when you once looked at them
it took ages for your eyes
to adapt to another sight.
but where are they now?
ask mama earth!”
“I know, son of my father,
that men bite as our elders say.
I am also told that with great prudence
you can discover snail’s eyes.
but it’s you, brother, who lacks wisdom.
how I wish you had joined the village boys’ cult!
brother, our forebears
weren’t crazy
to say women are burners.”
“Letters to a Comrade”
I
Dear…
Bulls know the cow’s moo
and one cannot mistake
a mirage for water
unless he has never
seen the tarmac road.
You will soon
come to believe
that those paradigms of love
are but only a pin
in your bosom
or a stubborn fish-bone
between your molars.
II
Do not forget as you walk
in the corridors of power
the aphorisms of ages.
Our aged sages say:
okra is palatable
when all people
reckon reciprocity.
III
As Time rolls and turns
you will come to terms with my foolishly uttered wisdom
that the only way
to maintain your personality
in this revolving world
is by struggling to change it.
The fault of our land,
believe you me,
is the mentality to be static.
IV
Friend, our land is free
but, believe it or not, freedom
without justice
is sheer anarchy
and justice without love
is total bondage.
Call me an absolute moron,
I accept it.
is it not said
that it was a lunatic
who saw an invading army?
Ah! Dear, don’t you know
that your snuff is in your nostrils,
the snuff on the palm of your hand
is for the wind to blow?
that is the law of our land!
V
Always remember that
the secret of political intercourse
is patience. That’s a political instinct.
haven’t you heard that
it was a man of great patience
who saw snail’s eyes?
You see, to survive
in a whirlwind of difficulties
you have to persevere.
VI
Remember, my mind is like
a waterlogged land
where bushfire cannot pass.
And do not forget,
how high a peak can be -
it has a top;
how deep a well can be -
it has a bottom.
Yours faithfully…
“AIDS”
AIDS, do not be proud.
though some people call you
mighty and dreadful,
you are not so.
for those whom
you think you have conquered,
die not, poor AIDS.
nor have you killed my sister.
you might have conquered her body
but her legacy still lives on.
her name is calved in my heart.
in fact, death is sleep
that takes people to eternal life
where you are with no power.
“In Queue for Relief Maize”
It drizzles it drizzles
yet we stand in the queue
our soaked coupons in our hands
for the coupon
is light
is hope
is salvation
The distributors joke:
these peasants are dull. Their children,
are they any better in class?
We grin a sheepish grin,
our dripping wet coupons in our hands
for the coupon
is maize
is food
is life
It drizzles it drizzles
a man collapses, a baby cries
as we wait for our monthly 10kg of maize
“African Lamentations”
I
For I do not love to love life…
for I do not love…
for I do not love to love…
longing for nothing but nothingness,
I do not exist, if beingness
is love in deeds.
Oh son of man, heal me
from the disease of not loving.
it engulfs me.
it pierces me.
Not my will,
but your will be done.
The disease is highly contagious
and my folks are butchering each other;
they, too, are suffering.
II
I kneel in prayer. Lord, look
down upon us - the lost flock -
for you are the way, the truth and…
God, you are
colourless!
you are the blackness
because black is the absence of colour.
Look upon the black people,
the colourless people.
My people are throwing
metal balls at each other, flaming metal balls!
we are torching the land. We are torching
it with bombs and cannons!
This is how a people perish!
this is how a people end!
this is how a people end!
we end like a shattered prayer. Amen.
I have walked in days and nights,
my poetic eye alert
to capture the vitality
of our land and
its twenty-first century vanities.
I have walked in the dead-land
of the lost kingdom
and dallied awhile in the waste-land,
uttering elegant wordless phrases
to no one but everyone
in that lost kingdom where
a handsome ugliness is born.
I am like a vacillating louse
that, due to its mobility, gets killed.
I have walked in light and darkness
and have trod where spirits
fear to go. But I was
more careful than
a chameleon that measures
its steps before treading where
a handsome ugliness is born.
“The Empty People”
I
We are the empty people,
we are the void people
eating our own
stuff and nonsense.
our void cries reach
deaf ears of laughing hyenas.
but a hyena is a hyena.
even if it came down from the mountains
to dwell in the reeds along the lake,
it remains a hyena.
II
Solutions without love,
thanksgiving without gratitude;
but smiles of aversion.
and hatred forming a shapeless
hollow in us - maybe – like the water
of nothingness… And we remain
the empty people,
the void people.
“For the Unmarked Tomb”
(He was born kicking
and died fighting;
he lived for freedom
and whatever he did
he did for freedom’s sake.)
If greatness is height
or size;
if prowess is weighed
by the applause;
if manliness is eminence
and ascendancy;
you are an empty bottle.
But if heroism is heroism,
- no shape, no colour,
no prize -
you are the greatest hero
who ever lived.
Your soul is,
forever and ever,
a beating tom-tom.
“Love Letter”
Dear….
I shall go with you, you alone,
when the sky is blue, the air is still
like the breath of the Holy Spirit;
I shall go with you, through the winding path,
through the dangerous bush, to
where animals great and small
sing songs unsung before.
we shall go up
to the holy hills
to sing a song of love.
I shall take with me my flute
to pronounce your name
to the spirits still living in the Stone House.
Woman, your sunny face is my mirror
to see the beauty of creation;
for your beauty is pure as gold.
black woman, you are
moon-faced ringed with corona.
I dream to see your hand
around me,
your head sleeping
on my shoulder.
long, long have I longed
to sing a love song for you
in the Stone House where people lived and died
talking about history.
We shall walk, hand in hand, from garden
to another garden of roses
while a comic drum
will beat in a distance.
Earnestly I shall put a piece
of tapioca food on your lips
and habitually you will swallow it
with ecstatic delight
and in love of perpetual bliss.
We shall find time to dance,
time to laugh,
time for recreation
and time to study creation.
I shall close my eyes
but still see your beauty;
I shall close my ears
but still hear your sweet voice;
I shall close my nose
but still smell your natural perfume.
Dear, when the day comes,
the earth will quiver rhythmically
to respond to your foot-steps;
the birds of the air
will help me sing your name;
insects in the green grass
will compose melodies about love;
the village dancers will dance
to the tune of your voice.
O young woman, fresher than a baby,
I shall look through your bright eyes
to see the wonders of the world,
those which existed, the Hanging Garden
of Mesopotamia, for example
and those yet to come.
you are my mirror of the world.
We shall jump arm in arm
on the hills
for the worlds ancient and present
to see us.
I shall love you as I love my soul -
can one hate his own soul?
Passers-by will admire
and admit that
we are a faithful couple!
***
With you I live
in time without devices,
space without distance.
in you I see all times and places.
Your eyes that see beyond,
your ears that hear far,
your smile that gleams like a star
are to me one thing:
the work of a Fine Artist.
***
We shall go down. Yes! We shall go,
you and I, to the lake
to see waves
and feel a still air of love.
Your erect breasts,
those full of sweet milk,
will be pressed on my chest
to feel a masculine touch.
on sand we shall lie
holding each other
like a dove couple.
A rose will grow
in our lake of love,
waves will whisper
to our hearts
and an inner drummer will drum
the drum of love.
We shall swim together in the lake
as the fish of the same species swim together.
the fish will make a circle around us
and in their midst we shall sing love songs.
we shall sail the lake
to see its beauty and wonders.
woman, the lake is a symbol of plenty
to the lakeshore people.
you, too, are my symbol of plenty.
We shall whisper honey words
and the humid air
above the waters will respond.
we shall embrace each other
to warm ourselves
against the chill breeze of the lake.
How pleasant it will be
for a man and a woman,
born for each other,
to dwell together in love,
to spend a day together at the lake.
***
Love is amazing,
no beginning and no end.
no word or gesture ever
defined it.
sages have thought and reasoned,
but all in vain.
***
I shall lead you to the altar
where we shall vow
before a priest and the laity.
you will put a nuptial ring
onto my finger
and I will do likewise.
we shall drink from the same chalice
and share the Holy Communion.
our love shall be blessed everlastingly
like the perpetual supper in paradise.
We shall then go to my home
as villagers sing
traditional songs.
I shall take you to my bedroom
in that small hut made of mud
where through a window
we shall hear men bearded and bald
speaking about us at the beer-place.
At the place where villagers dance local dances
and drink from calabashes of local beers,
village minstrels will compose
minstrelsy of our love epoch.
The winds of the earth
will be pregnant
with songs of love
sung by a wagtail
flying from nowhere,
going to a place unknown.
People unknown to us
will hear about us
and sing songs about us;
for our life will be full
of nuptial bliss.
We will, o yes,
we will be the love models
for all couples to see and admire.
We shall spend our days
playing, praying together;
chatting, chanting together;
and walking, working together.
From north to south,
west to east,
people friendly and unfriendly
will love one another
with fraternity
to have seen
how we shall live, you and I.
We shall change the world
into another paradise
where people of colours
will live like twins.
all people will dance
to the love songs without end.
We shall be poised
between centuries
like in an eternity.
do not ask me “How?”
wait and see,
it will happen.
We shall support the same party
and embrace the same creed;
for lovers are two bodies
but one person.
My dear, in love there are conflicts.
but, as they say, buttocks are always in friction
yet they never separate. Who are we?
our union is beyond conflicts.
In love no one is inferior.
love is the union of two souls into one.
did you not hear, an old sage argued last night
that the human image is not manliness or womanliness
but the harmony of the two.
***
Woman, you are my Africa,
my land, my hope,
o yes! My river.
but do you know
when it rains, the river swells
and swallows the land, the home?
***
My love, queen of my dreams,
I have chosen only you
among all the flowers and fruits
of our great races of the earth,
among the women of this generation.
Young woman, more flesh
than rain water
and more fertile than
the banks of our village river,
I shall invite you to the festival
of the harvest as the handsome men
of the village dance
while the beautiful girls fan them
with perfumed handkerchiefs.
In the fertile vale of our village river
drums will beat out your sweet song,
you woman, whose beauty
is beyond the measure of mathematics.
Along this fertile river
I shall teach you how to cultivate;
for you are the daughter
of this fertile land.
You will enjoy the fruits of the savannah
planted with my human hands
which are as hard as the tree bark,
tattooed by the hardship of ages.
Be true to me, my love, be patient.
the future is at hand, be patient.
patience is a rose flower
growing in your heart.
impatience, an atomic bomb
in your heart
to be exploded within a second.
With love…
“The Political God-Father is Gone”
Indeed,
no matter if I am unpragmatic,
life is a paradox:
there is a time
when the victor surrenders
to the vanquished
and, maybe, prowess is a size-less robe.
Perhaps,
in real life,
those whose success
is in the bullet
their defeat is in it too
and, possibly, power is a formless chair.
“Songs of Children”
“Daughter of my mother,
these very men who sing songs for you
will craft a mask for you
that will haunt you to the grave.
when those ballooned thighs of yours
get deflated, they will turn their love songs into elegies.”
“Brother, there you go again
on your night sprees.
on the morrow, I know,
you will be telling your friends
about how many girls’ beads
you have counted
over the night.”
“Sister, don’t look at your beauty
as a gimmick for advertisement.
this land, this land of flames,
has had beauties;
girls who when going
as if they are coming.
girls, I mean girls who
when you once looked at them
it took ages for your eyes
to adapt to another sight.
but where are they now?
ask mama earth!”
“I know, son of my father,
that men bite as our elders say.
I am also told that with great prudence
you can discover snail’s eyes.
but it’s you, brother, who lacks wisdom.
how I wish you had joined the village boys’ cult!
brother, our forebears
weren’t crazy
to say women are burners.”
“Letters to a Comrade”
I
Dear…
Bulls know the cow’s moo
and one cannot mistake
a mirage for water
unless he has never
seen the tarmac road.
You will soon
come to believe
that those paradigms of love
are but only a pin
in your bosom
or a stubborn fish-bone
between your molars.
II
Do not forget as you walk
in the corridors of power
the aphorisms of ages.
Our aged sages say:
okra is palatable
when all people
reckon reciprocity.
III
As Time rolls and turns
you will come to terms with my foolishly uttered wisdom
that the only way
to maintain your personality
in this revolving world
is by struggling to change it.
The fault of our land,
believe you me,
is the mentality to be static.
IV
Friend, our land is free
but, believe it or not, freedom
without justice
is sheer anarchy
and justice without love
is total bondage.
Call me an absolute moron,
I accept it.
is it not said
that it was a lunatic
who saw an invading army?
Ah! Dear, don’t you know
that your snuff is in your nostrils,
the snuff on the palm of your hand
is for the wind to blow?
that is the law of our land!
V
Always remember that
the secret of political intercourse
is patience. That’s a political instinct.
haven’t you heard that
it was a man of great patience
who saw snail’s eyes?
You see, to survive
in a whirlwind of difficulties
you have to persevere.
VI
Remember, my mind is like
a waterlogged land
where bushfire cannot pass.
And do not forget,
how high a peak can be -
it has a top;
how deep a well can be -
it has a bottom.
Yours faithfully…
“AIDS”
AIDS, do not be proud.
though some people call you
mighty and dreadful,
you are not so.
for those whom
you think you have conquered,
die not, poor AIDS.
nor have you killed my sister.
you might have conquered her body
but her legacy still lives on.
her name is calved in my heart.
in fact, death is sleep
that takes people to eternal life
where you are with no power.
“In Queue for Relief Maize”
It drizzles it drizzles
yet we stand in the queue
our soaked coupons in our hands
for the coupon
is light
is hope
is salvation
The distributors joke:
these peasants are dull. Their children,
are they any better in class?
We grin a sheepish grin,
our dripping wet coupons in our hands
for the coupon
is maize
is food
is life
It drizzles it drizzles
a man collapses, a baby cries
as we wait for our monthly 10kg of maize
“African Lamentations”
I
For I do not love to love life…
for I do not love…
for I do not love to love…
longing for nothing but nothingness,
I do not exist, if beingness
is love in deeds.
Oh son of man, heal me
from the disease of not loving.
it engulfs me.
it pierces me.
Not my will,
but your will be done.
The disease is highly contagious
and my folks are butchering each other;
they, too, are suffering.
II
I kneel in prayer. Lord, look
down upon us - the lost flock -
for you are the way, the truth and…
God, you are
colourless!
you are the blackness
because black is the absence of colour.
Look upon the black people,
the colourless people.
My people are throwing
metal balls at each other, flaming metal balls!
we are torching the land. We are torching
it with bombs and cannons!
This is how a people perish!
this is how a people end!
this is how a people end!
we end like a shattered prayer. Amen.