Pearls of Awareness

Tendai Mwanaka

Description

This collection has 60 poems that tackle spirituality from different perspectives as they also tackle day- to-day activities of the protagonists, from love, truth and lies, what is right or wrong, politics, death, existence, growing up stories, memories, gender and sexuality, what beauty is, etc. And in all these poems there is the search for our beginning (where we came from) to find the path to here (where we are) and what this here represents. A conscious thread runs through and weaves these worlds into some form of religion, an individual spirituality.

Sujets

• African
• Poetry

Informations

• Publié par: Mwanaka Media and Publishing Pvt Ltd
• Date de parution: 23 janvier 2024
• Nombre de lectures: 0
• EAN13: 9781779331731
• Langue: English
• Poids de l'ouvrage: 1 Mo

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Pearls OF AWARENESS

new and recoected poems

Tendai Rinos Mwanaka

PEARLS OF AWARENESS

New and Recollected Poems

Tendai Rinos Mwanaka

Mwanaka Media and Publishing Pvt Ltd, Chitungwiza Zimbabwe * Creativity, Wisdom and Beauty

Publisher:Mmap Mwanaka Media and Publishing Pvt Ltd 24 Svosve Road, Zengeza 1 Chitungwiza Zimbabwe [e-mail] [e-mail] https://www.mmapublishing.org www.africanbookscollective.com/publishers/mwanaka-media-and- publishing https://facebook.com/MwanakaMediaAndPublishing/

Distributed in and outside N. America by African Books Collective [e-mail] www.africanbookscollective.com

ISBN: 978-1-77931-458-1 EAN: 9781779314581

©Tendai Rinos Mwanaka 2023

All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, mechanical or electronic, including photocopying and recording, or be stored in any information storage or retrieval system, without written permission from the publisher

DISCLAIMER All views expressed in this publication are those of the author and do not necessarily reflect the views ofMmap.

Table of Contents

UNBROKEN AWARENESS…………………………………...1 ORIENTATIONS……………………………………………….3 UNTIL YOU CAME TO IT……………………………………..4 WHAT WORDS WOULD TELL……………………………….5 WATER IS MY PERSONAL SERVANT……………………….6 THE CHOICE IS NOT MINE………………………………….7 INTENT………………………………………………………....9 STOLEN FROM DEATH……………………………………..10 A ROAD TO SOMEWHERE………………………………….12 I HAVE LIVED ME…………………………………………...13 TIME IS INVOLVED IN ME…………………………………15 HOW I HATE IT!.................................................................................16 A season of hope………………………………………………..18 WHY I READ THE OLD TASTEMENT……………………..20 IF I LIE………………………………………………………...22 NOBODY TELLS THE TRUTH……………………………...23 SEE HOW IT BEGINS TO DISTORT………………………..24 TOO FAR FROM YOUR TIME……………………………….25 GRAINS OF INSIGHT………………………………………...26 LISTEN TO YOUR ANGER…………………………………..27 ON A SUMMER HERDING DAY……………………………29 MESSAGES OF A FOREFINGER……………………………34 O OCEAN……………………………………………………...35 I REMEMBER…………………………………………………36 IF WE ONLY KEEP TO IT…………………………………...39 OLD AND NEW………………………………………………40 CHILD TO CHILD…………………………………………….41 TO AGONY OF DEATH……………………………………...42 GRANDMOTHER’S BONES…………………………………43 TO THE WIND………………………………………………..44 NORMAN……………………………………………………...46

USE ME WELL………………………………………………...47 A JOY HERE.........................................................................................49 WHO WOULD PLAY THE HUSBAND?......................................51 LOVE CAN BE………………………………………………...53 PLAYING TO LOVE’S GALLERY…………………………...54 JUST BOYS TOGETHER……………………………………...56 TELL ME YOU FOOL………………………………………...57 I AM UGLY…………………………………………………….59 HOW DID WE TRUST………………………………………...60 THAT LOVE…………………………………………………...61 LOVE IS A LONELY CHOICE……………………………….63 IN THIS SEA…………………………………………………...65 I AM THE ONLY NEEDLE…………………………………..66 I HAVE ACHIEVED ME……………………………………...67 MYTH KILLERS………………………………………………69 WHAT ARE YOU WAITING FOR…………………………...70 I HAVE A LEGACY…………………………………………...77 BAD VIBES……………………………………………………81 SEEDS OF RUIN……………………………………………...82 WAITING STILL………………………………………………83 IT IS NOT MOVED BY ME…………………………………..84 “GO!”…………………………………………………………..85 JOHANNESBURG…………………………………………….86 OUR DESERT OF OUR DESERT……………………………87 TO SEED AND GROW STRONGER………………………...88 REMNANTS…………………………………………………...90 I CANNOT SEE YOU…………………………………………92 THE SUN EXIST IN ITSELF…………………………………94 A POET’S MIMESIS…………………………………………...97 Mmap New African Poets Series………………………………104

Introduction

The search for spiritual homes is an ever-present quest for human beings since time immemorial. As humans connected with their surroundings they also connected with what they couldn’t see, thus therefore they created rituals that became the strings to connect them with the unknown and with each other. Thereby crocheting the entire human race in all sorts of spirituality and religions. I grew up a catholic, most of my life, and there were larger questions I asked and failed to get adequate answers to. In my quest to wrestle with these larger issues I have been exposed to all sorts of religious and spiritual perspectives and learned or unlearned from them. This collection wrestles with some of the issues I am still unlearning or learning from. Poems in this collection bends more to individual religion or spirituality This collection has 60 poems that tackles spirituality from different perspectives as they also tackles day to day activities of the protagonists, from love, truth and lies, what is right or wrong, politics, death, existence, growing up stories, memories, gender and sexuality, what beauty is etc…, and in all these poems there is the search for our beginning (where we came from) to find the path to here (where we are) and what this here represent. A conscious thread runs through and weaves these worlds into some form of religion, individuality spirituality. I wrote most of these poems in the early 2000s, between 2004- 2010, when I lived unsettled, on and off in South Africa and Zimbabwe and that also gives this collection the yearning for home, a home I was also realistically trying to create, this is a physical

home. The failure of which, or success, can be felt in the poems as well. I suppose this is what we humans are ever doing, trying to reconcile the physical home and the spiritual homes in our ever present quest to understand why we are here on Earth.

UNBROKEN AWARENESS My life is now a floating shell. I am a vessel on that river. The storm, the ship, the sea, Whose shores we lost in crossing. I can see the milky distances- In your eyes, but you cannot see me. A thin melon slice of first moon, Melting into songs and slivers of ice. You could feel small creatures dying. Cowering humans in their burrows. Fighting for lives other than theirs. Aware they could not escape. Each of us comes into being Knowing who we are, What we are supposed to do? But why do you try to hold back- The sands, falling in your hourglass? I am now unconscious. In a way..., but mute. A little pearl of awareness, But this pearl is not me. Knowing yet unable. I am now timeless!

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All times and in all futures. I am a universe of windows. I cannot be touched again. I am in an endless dream. But I can see you outlined- Looking beyond what you know. One day the seeds would return And life would continue.

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ORIENTATIONS We are these cells, this soul, this being. We are the choices of our own awakening. We are light that pours through the generations. Innocent little children dancing to the rain song, For a season of green to atone for our wrongs. We are a hunter caught in his own snares. We are a tidal wave in a sea of broken dreams. We are flickering whimsy, a breath’s laughter. The sacrificial dove, the hooting owl, the forlorn falcon O, those surreptitious angels in their sweet anger! Muttering of dreams lost, deep in our own silences. We are haunts cries in the aftermaths of battle. We are fine theatre made out of lost relics. We are a spider’s webs, a tender weave of time. Over here the wind blows, over there a story told! We are dry leaves in this intricate whispering. Augmenting to a morning of silent conversations. We are this pen conversing to these sentences. Lighting the threshold to that wordless portent If we turn, what do we see, a river or a shiver? Or had we bitten more dreams than we could chew, And we are now waiting for someone who never comes?

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