Healing & Cures // Kupona & Matibabu -- September 19, 2012

DIE, AGNOSTC // Amanda Leigh Lichtenstein

I loved a sculptor, once.

I was clay, and took on the shape

Of desire.

My body learned to relent.

It was better than lent.

I was cured of all sin.

For the next five years,

I carried around a low-grade fever

Of sadness.

Everywhere I went,

Those with any keen sense

Could smell my sorrow.

It was all I could do

To hide that nagging lament

That bellowed on the inside.

I read poems about bullfighters.

Their wounds, their blood, their sequins

Allowing for a new sequence.

First, I would keep sinning.

And then, I would never repent.

I am all for contradictions.

The heart wants what it wants.

In a field of trees, I choose the criminal.

In a sea of green, the addict.

I visited a healing hospital in Mwera.

They told me I had devils.

Drink the word of God, they said.

We dipped God’s script in water,

Sipped on those prayers that air-lift us

Out of the Nowhere of hurt.

God is great, but not as great

As misery. Between the two,

Misery’s got the loudest wail.

If you’re feeling like this now,

You’re bound to stuff yourself sick

With poems when you’re old.

Cancer, yes, a cure. But for pure

Pain, acutely insane, exiled or broken

It may just be the shofar’s call

That wakes you from the gruelling dream.

Whole, broken, whole again,

The world round, made light.

I’ve long forgiven you all for loving me.

It’s not your fault. How sickening -- the sound

Of failure.

My apologies suffer from a limp.

It’s congenital – born with loveable fissures.

No tinctures will do, but maybe a song.

If all goes well, we’ll die in our sleep.

If all goes well, you’ll love me sooner.

If all goes well, this won’t hurt a bit.

RESTORATION//Karlie Query

A blind man once told me

Young lady

You’re a beautiful young lady

A deaf man once told me

Young lady

You’ve got a beautiful voice

A lame man once told me

Young lady

I’ll run to you

A mute man once told me

Young lady

I’ll sing for you

A mad man once told me

Young lady

We’re here for you

And I believed them

Oh men

See, Hear, Run, Sing, Believe

For their cure is not restoration

Restoration is never the cure

Laughter, Love, Life


SUPER TREATMENT//Mohammed Saleh Ali

Healing and curing an age old art and science
Keeping together odds and ends for a calmer finish
A process of rejuvenating what went amiss
Its success prolongs life span, its failure seizes it

Hospitals, clinics and health centers sprout all over
Doctors, nurses adn orderlies team up fire in them.
To concert surgeris is ultimate of treatment doses
In health operations, studiousness of precise actions' a must

Human Anatomy and Pathology must react well to drug prongs
Administered and managed by those with expertise
Confidence psyches recofery better in total mechanistic ways
At times slow at times fast the sick becomes well again

Alas happiness from pains, tough it was to cure one well again
Thank the medics, thank the mothers and thanks those who cared
Not forgetting the nurses and orderlies who made it possible so
I treat them all to a party for my recovery from dubious norms.


TIME IS THE HEALER//Thomas Green

Time is the healer.
At least that is what I am told.
With time and perserverance
all paint and injury somehow subside.
But then why is it that when I stop, I do stop to think on that one loss.
Despite the mounting minutes, hours, days, years,
That same pain can stir once more within my chest.
The same tears can flow freely down my cheeks,
as if it were just now, and again, just now.
That first dagger of pain pierced my heart,
Then clutched it tight making each heartbeat
pound loud banging in my head
the only sound I can hear.
I guess that time is the healer.
Time though may not be the cure.
With time my heart suffers less and less
With time less frequent the stress
Of the love long lost, once sure.
The one that somehow left me behind
Left me without a last word
Left without a last touch,
a last embrace.
Yes time is a healer
But it is not this pain's cure.


HEALING & CURE.//Amir A. Mohamed

Words can heal,
words can kill.

Food has a healing power,
even water, fruits and flowers.

We may fall sick and live longer;
We may be stronger and die.

It's a mystery of life,
I don't know why.

We may be sick in a short time,
by healing may take time.

Healing with speed,
that is what we need.

Treatment with efficacy,
That is what we fancy.

We help the poor to seek devine blessings,
Healing is giving, caring, loving and even kissing.

Life is good health
but every soul will meet death.

Human being is subject to decay,
even monarchs must obey.

There are diseases which are hard to heal,
some are hard to cure, especially the mentally ill.

Worries can kill,
despair is the mortal seed.

Let us stop worrying and dance with life,
let us avoid nagging like a commanding wife.

We invented Yoga to cure our inner conflicts, faith healing,
discovery of medicine to cure sexual healings.

We still face formidable challenge of incurable diseases,
like AIDS, leukemia, cancer or measles

We use steam baths, acupuncture hot springs to build our spirits.

The Greeks invented the Olympics
to keep our bodies fit.

Building correct behavior and avoiding bad habits

Are we healthy?
Are we happy?

Are we emotionally strong?
Are we satisfied with life?

Do we love ourselves and love others?

Are we dying or born again?
Smiling faces can drive away our pains.


OK, BUT IT'S A ROAD TO NOWHERE//Said Suleiman

In the middle of a desert
I've made this tree grow
watered it
when there was no water
when the rain was a tale of an old dumb fellow
when the sun was a fire of the angered beast
burning bigger, strong old trees totally down
when the wind uprooted and separated,
I've stood by this tree, I've made it grow!

I cured a disease
when there was no cure
when docters laid down their tools
when prayers were gibberish
when hope replaced failure,
I cured the incurable!

It's tree, grown up, high above the sky
beautiful flowers, beautiful fruit
admired, making mouths watery
making eyes flashing, staring
but it's soil the credit's going to
for without soil there is no tree
 

I won't stand in your way
if you really want to go
but it's you tree
and I am soil
and it's a road to nowhere...
 
And I shall heal
like I never had an injury.

AFRO-DISIAC//Gerry Bukini (ze Anonymous Poet)

My Afro-disiac
Antidote to my sickness
Cure that's pure
From the time of no religion or class
That's where we started
Dirt, mud and poverty
Still we danced to the good music
From farming to kids yawning
You never left me
From drought to heavy rains
You remained colorful

My Afro-disiac
Healder of my sickness
Hearer of my requests
Fertile with your adolescent smile
Curer of my heart desire
When I am in sorrow you sing me nice songs
When I need knowledge you gave me wisdom
You gave me food for my stomach and food for thought.

My Afro-disiac
Healer of my sickness
I am entrapped
Its limbwata
Hakuna Matata
Though tumboni hakuna mabatata
Voodoo, Superstition
No Mzungu medication
Yes I love this portion
Put me in a bottle or tie me on a tree
But with you I am healed
With you I am free

My Afro-disiac
Freedom is your sound
A-free-car that's what they call you
A-free-car that all want to ride
A-free-car to take you to your dreams
A-free-car to dump all the wastes
But I promise I will always ride on you A-free-car

My Afro-disiac
You told me being A-free-I-can is what will heal me
Now I know
A-free-I-can; take care of myself
A-free-I-can; get out of this poverty
A-free-I-can; eradicated all diseases
A-free-I-can; be seen
A-free-I-can; be heard
A-free-I-can; be healed from this I-can't philosophy
I am so glad that I met you
Afro-disiac
My antidote and healer of my sickness
Cure that's pure


HEALING//JunGuLee

Pain cures
if you only allow that direction
you're looking for a healing?
think you need
                                          a doctor?
                                          more sex?
                                          better friends?
                                          nicer life?
                                                                               Let's go together in the opposite direction
                                                      you think I'm in your way?
                                                      I'm not enough?
                                         take your time
my name is healer
                                         I sometimes disguise my face

Teaching & Learning // Kusoma & Kufundisha *SPECIAL JAHAZI SESSION W/ SOUTH AFRICAN POET KEORAPETSE KGOSITSILE

*all photographs by Peter Bennett, 2012

THE LEARNING//Thomas Green

Our road points in many directions

With so many points it seems there is no point at all

It twists us and turns us in every direction

And intersect wherever however they fall.

This is all part of life’s learning experience

Showing us to make some sense of it all

Taking those many points going in all directions

and making us take on the sense of it all.

My teachers of my youth gave me the basics

A handle on language, math and many a thing

they taught me the history that lies beneath the surface

giving a sense of place to start , a sense of where I am and should be.

Like the big bang we started from near nothing at all

Compacted energy into infinitely tiny space too small to hold

So it explodes in all directions taking on form space and mass

A celestial cosmos of infinite variation and throes

Yet of basic construct yet too complicated to completely understand

The things that affect the outcome to be as we go

From those that have taught me the basics I did need and do grow

Come experience to teach me lessons long lasting  that stand

Circumstances sometimes seeming random and unplanned

that happen to me on this path that is life so grand

And on each step of the way of the path I do grow.

I learn that there is a beginning and also an end

To this life that we lead as a part of the planet infinite yet no

We are but a tiny spec in the universe

Unversed, reversed, gone first and arrived at last

We do end, but the way is a constant learning experience

until we must breath our last existential breath.

EDUCATE//Karlie Jo Query

Teach me

Oh teacher

Teach me

Student

The world is open

My student

Teach me

Your ways of growing

Teach me

I will give

You’ll receive

A seed

No teacher

Do not give

A seed, I do not need

Why student

I can teach

Teach you

I want you to teach

Teach me how

Teach me the way

Because true generosity

Lies in a seed

A seed not given

But a seed grown

I will show you how

To grow the seed

To prosper and flourish

Than you teacher

For your generosity

For your teachings

Thank you student

For today, you are the teacher

For you are the true teacher

VOICE OF A PATRIOT//Said Suleiman

That’s the teaching of the wise
and the learning of the brave
for between wisdom and bravery there is patriotism
and patriots we are
as we’ve been taught by our man
“Love your country
more than you love your own being”
but just as we’ve been consuming this teaching
the man was assassinated!
assassinated by his associate
whose lion skin covered by beautiful white skin of a she-goat!
but time tells no lies
the lion skin will be uncovered
and the assassin will be naked, publicly displayed

You say you are free?
you are about as free
as one of those cows out there
you can move around
long as you stay inside your master’s fences!
It’s hard to make a cow see reasons
but that’s cow
she’s never meant to see reasons
one shouldn’t bother to make her smile
for she doesn’t even know
the meaning of smiling
she’s got a mind but not a thought

Very dangerous this candy-business
how can leaders of a country let themselves popped candies?
like popping candies into kids’ mouths to keep them quiet!
The world is big place
and it will call out to you
but you can’t get away from your roots
no matter how far you go.
We are crushed
don’t pretend you can’t see the crack
in a wall you thought was solid,
‘cause I reckon pretending is a habit of a fool

You can own people not minds
but in this case you can own nobody
let alone people’s minds.
Not too late
anybody can climb high
long as they’ve got something to step on
and we’ve got ourselves
and UAMSHO behind us
to take us out of TZ-manacles.
                                                                                                        

EDUCATION//Mohammed Saleh Ali (ATD, ACI-DSM, Secretary General of Zanzibar Writers Initiative)

Teaching and learning educates the young as well as the elderly

A process of acquiring information in phases produces a skill, get techniques.  

A profession, an expertise a well-cherished noble income gets tactic.

Teaching and learning broods friends and enemies alike.

This simple tale enfolds the educating of me in my infancy, in my prime

As I teach, I still learn lessons; experiences enfold teaching others the good and the bad. 

The unimaginable and the hard to understand all simplified in their own complexities

Simpleton basics in time become complex arts or sciences and perhaps high technology.

This is how I was taught through generations of learning exposing realities hard to decipher as teachings and learning making me compare myself to others for it is what the world has made education to many as we are judged and excel by the listings compiled by examination authorities that action the truth of winners and losers in the battle of academic pursuits measured by those said to be better than ones being examined -- 

Who does really knows the truth?

As anytime the list can be barred and make brains devastate in the (narrow) streets demise.

Showtime to many when prospective graduates pilfering down the drains instead of the pipelines.

Graduating with certificates, diplomas or and degrees. Now that am older I still learn in post-grad certs

to pocket, and show for a promo at job get or simply show on the wall.

Often education been a hard road, at times easy like dizzy, as we mimed in school,

yet several times a challenge to overcome and bring out solutions from formulations

I dare say I loathe this world of education where academicals intelligence of scholarly stuff wits in battles of me around books I read, yet a must if one ought have the best education, quote with notes noting, for searches into researches, where minus and plus can mean a loss unless plus doubles and multiplies for a gain that can be migrated for whatever one think is right.

Not the scientist. He has laws and principles, theories and hypothesis to place in a mundane dance of symbols on a mathematical plane.

Maybe the artists’ imagination will give us a ride, a trip often into oblivions of acclamations

I love the notes that make me laugh out laud and clear.

I love those that coin abstractions into sense full worth sensations

All make this world a better environ to bear oddities only mis-education claims outcomes like fault in defaults I dare say work or not unless you’ve some expertise.

Least I praise the teachers who once snarled me for mistakes I deciphered not any wrong

Most I praise my parents who assured my schooling was easy despite the wars and shortages as

Whatever I asked of I got from them, was delivered as I wanted.

Now I see literacy falling just as I realized many newspapers and expensive books everywhere, How?

News ideals have changed much to the worse of worldly ways less to the better of friendly days

Yesterday scholar reads the daily not of newsmen worth or celebrity but corned up folks drag and dropped on colorful pages.

I end wishing all learners and teachers happier days in Education and overcoming challenges of experiences interpolated for all to know unless educated they’d grim again and regret things to say or said, think and write.