Many Elegies Compressed To One Poem by Stella Sisanda Qishi

Especially for Lesley Manyathela
Gift Leremi and Fernando Matola

streetlights blur before every dark hour
the plangent drums pause letting the BANG! be heard
and steal my breath away in a whispering murmur
and bring it back flooded with tears of despair

the beast blew sticky breath across your face
so cold my heart had never before been this numb
across latitudes, whirling winds and climbing clouds your soul raced
to report things down here done and undone

now this fervent heart in this world is saved
felled by some silent affray on some unfortunate day
all that's left now are canned poses in many scattered lenses
clinical, aplomb, salient, eminent and innocent

the flamboyance is forever borrowed
like it was yesterday and the day before
as you trudge to your windowless flat
grounded to muse about the good life you led

not even this pandemonium can bring back your pulse
neither sirens nor eulogies can hinder your walking away
the baleful chimes tempered with your longevity before the end of day
and stole you to some adorned world where happiness is a must

the dazling light of the glimmering sky left your lonely lass
abated, ailed, addled and frohting with disgust
hoping your memory won't be folded and shoved into dark compartments
or your existence be forgotten with the passing of long days and years

in the waiting room you'll see familiar faces
as they anoint you, welcoming you to the envied life
as they massage your fatigued body in varying paces
and pacify your troubled soul throughout the night

in a few years you'll be turning fossil
torpid, unbecoming of your vlient self
cor blimey! the age is stooping lower and lower!
like gravity pulling me down from a rooftop of the tallest tower