Poems Rethabile Likes

My drought land by Kelwyn Sole | Poems Rethabile Likes My drought land by Kelwyn Sole In answer to Cavafy My drought land slumbered away peacefully, little changing, every winter. But the season's turned, we're told: and there is no more time for songs, or gleeful children, or heels scuffing the way they used to when we led each other into the dance. * * * For now crops planted by the invaders unsheathe their green knives  and unfamiliar leaves flaunt sharp edges into a wind that preaches unending rain  as if this were, for...

The Funeral by Donald Hall | Poems Rethabile Likes The Funeral by Donald Hall It is the box from which no jack will spring. Now close the box, but not until she kisses The crossed, large hands which she already misses For their caress, and on his hands the ring. Now close the box, if we close anything. She sees the wooden lid, and she dismisses At least a hundred thoughtful artifices That would enjoy the tears that they would bring. The coffin does not matter. It was one Like many in the row from which she chose it. Now to be closed in it, he must become Like all the other dead men, deaf and dumb, Blank to the...

The Harlem Dancer by Claude McKay | Poems Rethabile Likes The Harlem Dancer by Claude McKay Applauding youths laughed with young prostitutes And watched her perfect, half-clothed body sway; Her voice was like the sound of blended flutes Blown by black players upon a picnic day. She sang and danced on gracefully and calm, The light gauze hanging loose about her form; To me she seemed a proudly-swaying palm Grown lovelier for passing through a storm. Upon her swarthy neck black, shiny curls Profusely fell; and, tossing coins in praise, The wine-flushed, bold-eyed boys, and even the girls, Devoured her with their eager, pa...

Where the Grass is Warm by Rethabile Masilo | Poems Rethabile Likes Where the Grass is Warm by Rethabile Masilo I walk to where the grass is warm; you have words that move to close each gap within; we talk about old times, and suddenly I say: here's a face, a good place you can turn to, it is yours and you may keep it if you will, and I hand you myself as a young man who adored you, before they slew you— the time we played morabaraba on the flat boulder above our home in Qoaling—that house now trembles when it's approached, like a child beaten into submission for years who sees a face that resembles its sex maste...

This Is What You Shall Do by Walt Whitman | Poems Rethabile Likes "This Is What You Shall Do" from the Preface to Leaves of Grass by Walt Whitman Walt Whitman (1819–1892) — from the Preface to Leaves of Grass (1855). Read by RedFrost Motivation What does it mean to live a life worthy of poetry? Whitman answers in this prose manifesto — a call to love the earth, stand up for the broken, and trust your own soul above all creeds. It is the preface that changed American poetry forever, and it still sounds like a challenge. This Is What You Shall Do This is what you shall do: Love the earth and sun and the animals, despise riches, give alms to every one that asks, stand up for the stupid and crazy, devote your income and labor to others, hate tyrants, argue not concerning God, have pat...

Old boat by Michael Cope | Poems Rethabile Likes × Books by Michael Cope Novels: Spiral of Fire (David Philip, 1986) Goldin: A Tale (iUniverse, 2005) Sunderland (Jacana, 2014, with Ken Barris) The Fall of Ugarit (Vanity Press, 2025) Poetry: Scenes and Visions (Snailpress, 1990) GHAAP, Sonnets from the Northern Cape (Kwela Books and Snailpress, 2005) The Craft (Left Field Press, 2017) Memoir: Intricacy: A Meditation on Memory (Double Storey, 2005) Other: Concerning the Work (Thin Ice Press, York, UK and River Press, Cape Town) — about the jeweller's tools ...