Dear Michelle

 I stood idly by

All the messages I did not reply

All the moments I closed my eyes

To your silent cry.

I did not protect you,

I did not look after you

Like I was supposed to.

Time and time again

I abetted abuse

To misuse you;

I enlightened eyes to undress you.

I looked aside

When the disheveled hair on the chest

Pricked you.

I held my nose

When the musky scent of sweat

Nauseated you.

I clapped for him

I did not reprimand him

The first time.

I did not throw him out

The second time.

I feigned absence

When he came into your room 

The third time.

I thought your smiles were genuine

I thought you locked your room

To pray and read your books,

I thought you asked for paracetamol

To relieve the pain of Saskatchewan's toll.

Nothing I do can bring back what you lost back then

Nothing I write can numb your pain.

Nothing but Grace can make you feel whole again.

 

 

SHE LINGERS

 

She lingers...

In nifty corners,

In plantations,

In corporations.

A thief in the night

Awake in daylight's shadows,

With a despicable plight.

Patiently,

She lingers...

Ready to pounce 

On those who linger;

Their backs turned,

Facing the trigger.

Blow your whistles oh, laymen.

Don't cast your feet upon the linen path!

For there,

She waits...

She prays:

"Piece by piece

Limb from limb

Soul, from spirit"

She lingers...

The moon, alight,

The day, scorching bright.

Swaying her hips,

Licking her lips:

"Oh, the time to devour is nigh!"

A poem courtesy of the book One Last Smoke by Edgard The Bard

EARWORM

 

Every time I think,

My thoughts are drawn towards you.

Every time I close my eyes,

I see you.

A splitting image.

Every photo, billboard, poster, is awash

With your glowing eyes, your glittering face.

 

Every whiff of air I breathe,

Smells like nectarine, like you.

Every time I rub my palms,

I feel the softness of your deft touch.

 

Every love song I listen to

Reminds me of you.

Every time a voice is swept towards me

I hear the whispers of your sweet melody.

 

Every time I hear a cry,

I feel you on my chest

Squeezing my ribs

As I whisper:

“Everything will be okay.”

 

Every time I use a pen

You finish all its ink.

Even when I use a pencil

You make its lead go extinct.

 

Everything within me is screaming,

Beaming, teaming.

A passion so wild and true;

Pointing me towards you.

Written by Edgard The Bard

JOHN 3:16

 

JOHN 3:16

For God so loved the world,

He gave His only begotten son.

Whosoever believes in Him,

Should not perish but have everlasting life.

 

Do you really understand what this means?

 

For God so loved the world,

He gave His only begotten son

To a world where man hates fellow man,

Murder is permissible

Dishonour, fashionable,

And sin is our soft cushion:

Sons kill fathers

Fathers kill sons,

And mothers abandon their babies.

 

Where are role models for the gentlemen and the ladies?

 

 For God so loved the world,

He gave His only begotten son,

To a world where fornication is splendour,

And hypocrisy a constant action:

Man sleeps with man, woman with woman.

Father with daughter, mother with daughter,

 

And this, they call the new world order.

 

Nudity is in season:

Decency, an archaic, despicable style.

Forget marriage.

It’s nothing more

Than walking down a well-decorated aisle.

 

Dead bodies traverse the earth in artistic piles.

 

For God so loved the world,

He gave His only begotten son

To a world that doesn’t believe He exists.

 

 Behold! John gives us a new twist:

 

For God so loved the world,

He gave His only begotten son.

Whosoever;

Thieves, smokers, drinkers,

Prostitutes, murderers, fornicators,

Rapists, idolaters, even adulterers,

Believes in Him,

Shall not perish but have everlasting life.

(Written by Edgard The Bard. One of the poems in the book One Last Smoke).

JOB'S QUESTIONS (PART ONE)

 Question:

Who are You?

Are you who the Bible says you are?

Which version of the Bible?

Or are you who my Pastor says you are?

 

Who am I?

My apologies,

I speak with indignity coupled with an abject base of absurdity

Because I want You my Lord to listen to me.

 

Where do You come from?

Scratch that…

Where do I come from?

Sorry, I had said one question,

 

Mention;

Why is life so hard for me?

Alpha and Omega;

You promised, You promised that your word is true,

Tension, tension is what I feel after her latest abuse.

 

Question Two:

Where are You?

Where do you hide as I lay in here in these tears?

Why is it, why is it that when I seek your face in these desperate times,

I can’t, I can’t hear clear?

Where were you when she stabbed my heart with spears?

 

Where were You when she said no?

When I went on my knees,

Gave her my love

And she grabbed it,

And threw it out the window!

 

WHERE WERE YOU WHEN MY FATHER DIED?

Where were you when my mother cried?

I feel, I feel so low

Like, like depression got me hypnotized.

It swallows me so deep

That I can touch sorrow’s throne…

No! Not even hell is this low.

Ripped to shreds I whither in my pillow,

You say, you say

Be still, be still

But like a statue I am stuck

Sinking below sea level.

 

So where are you?

Why did you go?

Why did you leave me?

Why did you leave me all alone?

 

Written by Edgard The Bard

(To be continued...)

I AM LOVE

I am ruthless yet kind,

You better be on the wrong side of the guillotine,

For I have brought down the best of mankind.

I have faced the sword of adversity,

Brutus’ sword at my throat,

Hitler nibbling at my heels,

And Amin’s gun at point-blank range.

 

I have derailed many a democracy,

And shattered many a dictatorship.

I disrupt the dispute within the institute and remain resolute.

I am the Lion roaring in the jungle,

I feed on those who purge, steal, and smuggle,

 

I criticize the uncriticized,

Satisfy the unsatisfied, and rectify the satisfied.

I am a rose of thorns, a piece of humble pie.

I am that which you use to crush a lie 

And turn its cry into a simple lullaby,

 

I am LOVE!

 

I am the shame that nags your bowels,

And the odor that terrifies your nose.

I am the youth that excites the hormones deep within your bosom,

I palpitate as you lift your chest.

 

I am a Father to the Orphans,

A monument of peace,

And a token that cannot be broken.

I am a light in the tunnel, a tunnel in the light,

 

I am the beginning and the end,

The Alpha and Omega,

I am the old school and the new trend,

I am the fathomed unfathomed reality that

Love will never end.

 

I am LOVE!

 

Written by Edgard The Bard.

RECKLESS LOVE

You feed a rat

You feed a snake

You feed a mosquito

You feed a bed bug,

How much more do You love me?

You feed a hyena

You feed a vulture

You feed a maggot

You feed a virus,

How much more do You love me?

You dress cacti

You dress weeds,

You dress thorns and twigs

You dress poison ivy,

How much more do You love me?

Written by Edgard The Bard

JUST ONE TOUCH

Shoving, crawling,                         

Scraping, chaffing.

My voice taut,

Bone and sinew stretched out.

My target;

The hem of Your garment.

 

For twelve years,

A filthy rag,

An ugly street dog;

That is what my mirror showed me.

 

For twelve years,

Blood and tears,

Pain, anxiety, and fear,

Are the friends that held me dear.

 

For twelve years,

Twelve dead rats,

Twelve dead bats,

Are the perfumes that engulfed me.

 

For twelve years,

Pill after pill,

Prod after prod,

Guinea pig, guinea dog,

 

For twelve years,

Shilling after shilling,

Doctor after doctor,

Eluded me, deserted me.

 

So I reach out:

Shoving, crawling,

Scraping, chaffing.

My voice taut,

Bone and sinew stretched out.

My target;

The hem of Your garment.

Written by Edgard The Bard

 

BREATHE

Brothers and Sisters,       

Photo by Oladimeji Odunsi on Unsplash

Breathe...
Freedom is in our lungs.
Breathe...
Take it in.
We are Spirit, Soul and Body.
They may crush our bodies
But they will never destroy our Spirits.

Kings and Queens
From every temple, crack and crevice;
Come out of hiding.
The light beckons,
The air is still
And the world is quiet.

Quiet it will be no more.

Let the soils shake,
Let the grounds rumble,
Let the world hear,
Tremble at the sound of our united voice.
Let the truth of our story be told,
This oppression will hold us down no more.

We shall no more call ourselves victims,
We are not the oppressed.

Photo by Oladimeji Odunsi on Unsplash

We are eagles flying with constantly targeted wings.
We fly, we sing
We do everything that we think of,
Everything that we dream,
We shall no more be slaves to the system.

For eons we have searched for the missing piece;
What can we do for them to see us as is?
Beautiful beings.
For
We are not inadequate.
We are brilliant, gorgeous, talented and fabulous,
We are powerful beyond measure.

Brothers and Sisters,
Be still.
Tarry if you please,
For the sun will shine on our melanin,
And our skins will glow in the moon's effervescent light.

Breathe!


A poem written by Tumuhairwe Bruno Edgard a.k.a Edgard The Bard (c) 2020

DOWN BUT NOT OUT

Down but not out.

Distraught,

But we shall not frown.

Our tears,

The glue that holds us together.

We dare to cry

But we cry as one...

A WAR CRY!

Loud and proud.

Not defeated

Like that of a child.

A broken record,

We repeat.

Be not fooled.

Our tears

Are daggers

That pierce the hearts of our enemies.

Our predicament. 

We paved this path.

We paid mind 

To petty squabbles

And inflated egos.

Our enemies,

Like thieves in the night,

Plotted and planned,

Marked their territory;

Our home,

Down to every pot and pan.

Our enemies

Walked right into our front door

And claimed domicile.

Our beautiful home

Ours no more.

Our response.

We came undone.

Shutting doors,

Silencing all corridors.

...

Our response.

...

Our response-

Our tears,
The glue that holds us together.
We dare to cry
But we cry as one.
A WAR CRY!
Loud and proud.
Not defeated
Like that of a child.
A broken record,
We repeat.
Be not fooled.
Our tears
Are daggers
That pierce the hearts of our enemies.

Photo by mwangi gatheca on Unsplash

LIBERTY'S CRY

LIBERTY'S CRY

"We hold these truths to be true, to be self evident,

That all men are created equal,
They are endowed by the creator
With certain unalienable rights,
That among these are life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness".

Courtesy of unsplash.com

No man was created to own you.

We do, hold these truths to be true,
That the virtue termed freedom is absolute,
That the view that freedom is only awarded 
To those that support the hand that wields the gauntlet of power
Is certainly not true.
We do, hold these truths to be true,
That the ideals of self determination and democracy
Were not created to be by man misused.
They are not tools that were created to be used
To impoverish and enslave those who don't have a clue
As to how these ideals ought to be used. 

We do, hold these these truths to be true,
That every man, every nation was created to thrive
And not to strive under the tyranny and corruption
Of Western domination.
We do of course, hold these truths to be true,
That life is a gift from God
And it ought not to be misused.
The tentacles of war have no reason to hold on
To the bones of human life

Courtesy of unsplash.com

Simply because there is nothing reasonable
Well, except from greed and corruption
That is worth fighting for. 
We do, hold these truths to be true,
That we are told to ignore
The old age precepts of morality
And replace them with the vile, incandescent 
And skewed principles of "modernity".

We do, hold these truths to be true,
That no man was created without
The abject and absolute values of justice
And of virtue.
What is right and what is wrong
Has always been strongly absolute.
We do, hold these truths to be true,
That no one can even try to allude 
To the fact that there is no such thing called Truth.

Courtesy of unsplash.com

We hold these truths to be true, to be self evident,
That man and woman are equal.
Man and Woman are largely distinguishable parts
That together form one whole.
Neither of them was created to be a sequel.

We hold these truths to be true, to be self evident;
Justice, liberty, freedom and the pursuit of happiness is for all,
Whether that person is black, white, brown, yellow, short or tall.
These virtues were created by God.
These virtues that in commonality
We all hold as absolute
Are meant to be enjoyed by all.

Courtesy of unsplash.com

A poem by Tumuhairwe Bruno Edgard (Edgard The Bard).

THE 14TH OF FEBRUARY

THE 14TH OF FEBRUARY

Courtesy of unsplash.com

Honey, sweetie, pumpkin pie,

As we sit here on this august day,

As I look at your dreamy eyes,

I cannot help but smile.

I cannot help but turn a blind eye

To the people who are walking through

This restaurant's isle.

Honey, sweetie, my pumpkin pie,

Let we wipe those tears of suffering

Off your eyes.

Let these words that I say to you 

Incline your heart to mine.

Let not these precious lines

Find a heart so resolute

That their powers would subside.

Together;

Let these words and your heart

Mix together like water efficiently mixes with lime,

Like how a stitch in time saves nine,

Or like how shades of blue dance on the surface of the ocean

During summertime.

Aye!!

Let these rhymes

Creep into your heart

And make it chime.

Let this season

Be our time.

Courtesy of unsplash.com

For so long we have been in the unfortunate position

Of being third in line,

Of always giving advice,

Of wasting our time

By being mediators

To couples that always fight.

Let us break this third wheel routine

And unlike them,

Let our love flourish sublime.

Let my hand be affixed in yours

Till the end of time.

Let my Poetry

Shatter all the glass walls

That pain and heartbreak

Have created in you overtime.

Aye!

Let my lips be the antidote

Courtesy of unsplash.com

To the poison that broken promises

Have smeared on your lips.

Let my tongue caress yours;

Until the language of lovers

To your vocabulary is restored.

I love you so!

Let me open

A new door to your heart;

One that leads to a route glittered with gold.

One that leads to a path that knows no sorrow.

Cupid waits on the other side of that door;

Mending a hollow heart with love shaped arrows.

He stands on the other side of that door;

Waiting to usher us into a world

Where our hearts are stitched together;

Where the love that runs through

The streams of our combined aortas overflows.

Let this first meeting between us be a day for us to forever rejoice!

...............................

For if you let me in,

If you delete the word no from your vocabulary this evening,

...I will forever be yours and you will forever know no sorrow. 

A Poem by Tumuhairwe Bruno Edgard (Edgard The Bard)