zhawi

i write what i like | bantuism 2.0 | debut pamphlet/ chapbook - small inheritances (ignitionpress, 2018) | https://linktr.ee/zhawi.studio

[dyingenigma]

Frontières [2017] directed by. Apolline Traoré

[userinherownwrld]

Whitney Houston in South Africa, 1994

[mamoyobornfree]

my first solo single with support from arts council england

prod. by nova varnrable

mastered by oliver palfreyman

[nevver]

Korn, Uli Westphal (because)

[atoubaa]

From the series Namm Naa La (Senegal, 2021) - Charlotte Yonga

[nevver]

Sade’s business card, early 80s

[mamoyobornfree]

the almighty visual poet, Daniela Yohannes

[mamoyobornfree]

quick writes #024

Ndinoda murume anovaka

I want a man who knows

how to use his hands

to make and fix but

never to break things

[mamoyobornfree]

quick writes #023 - Lost In The Sauce

There’s a recurring dream, a known

family rumour: that I was

born with gills that fell off at my

first cry, turning a fish baby like me

into a girl child. Baby girl

grew; stopped mid swim & approached life

as a parked car half submerged in

waters inherited from her

father’s sins,  a life of chasing East

to West when home is South where the

music punctuates

milestones.

[ddrlbook]

+ title : Crooklyn (1994) + cinematography : Arthur Jafa

[emotionalblkthottie]

@miacharnelle <3

[mamoyobornfree]

quick (re)writes 021– I Think You Have Sinkholes for Eyes

 after A Glimpse by Walt Whitman

 The late winter night’s\ silently approaching\ I want to say\ hold me by the hand for a while\amid noises of your comings\ and goings; of we two, content

 happy in being\ together\ speak little

 perhaps not a word

 When I woke up\ your eyes were still closed\ I took a glimpse through\ my left eye seized  you\ saw you as an unsettled crowd\ of work-men in a brightly lit bar-room

 Saw you as one who loves me\ maybe\ whom I love silently\ especially when he seats himself\ near me a long while\ amid the noises of drinking and jest

 Seating himself silently\ happy\ being together

 speaking not a word

[mamoyobornfree]

quick (re)writes #020

after prayer by kahlil gibran

priestess, speak of prayer pray that you pray, also, of your joy your days of abundance expansion into the living ether pour your darkness into space

pour

& if you cannot

weep 

when your soul summons

touch yourself - again & yet again

till you meet the air. 

at that hour you may visit that invisible ecstasy sweet communion, asking you not to humble yourself be lifted: you shall be heard enter the temple, invisible

priestess,

 teach you to pray in words

save them through your lips

listen in the stillness, you 

shall hear, winged self

it is your desires, your urges that turn nights into aught before they are born in art, giving us more; all

[mrlifeisrich]

kathleen collins, losing ground, 1982

[mamoyobornfree]

hotline bling the ancestors

[c4randomacts]

[joyousrulerrr]

My 2nd film please watch + share!

[mamoyobornfree]

this made me cry a bit

[mamoyobornfree]

quick writes #018 ~ queen accused of accidental racism 

on the 18th of April 1979, my father tells me, a queen of a small frozen island - accompanied by a distant cousin, (who is also her husband) sat in the back of a white rolls royces, waved a small gloved hand to the thousands of light, medium & dark brown faces that lined the streets of a capital city of a small african country her island had formerly colonised for over a century. 

i imagine her tooth free smile grimaced like footage of jfk’s face when he sat in the same seat more than a decade before in a southern city of america. i imagine her as she sweated out her signature blow dry & under her pastel colour skirt-suit being confused by the smiles on the crowd’s warm faces. she’d expected rocks, rotten vegetables & other soft objects to fly everywhere, at her, for the young men who left & never came back & the young women who left too, came back but not really. she would’ve turned round to her phillip with drawn eyes, he’d have read her mind, nodded slow & said, “me too.”

i imagine the air smelled split. somewhere between jacaranda bloom & sweaty bodies. i wonder if she imagined the other ones father also told me about. that laid in gutters, makeshift graves on mountain sides or those of goat sacrifices by mothers who sent sons then daughters to fight? i imagine she’d have heard the toi toi songs they sang for morale & thought them praise hymns for her - she’d brought them civilisation after all!

Little does she know that in a few years the road her Rolls is rolling on, named after her, will hold the name of the man waiting for her at the end of the strip. She waves, smiles, sweats, wondering why these supposed savages gleamed just like their smiles sang, danced and forgave.

[mamoyobornfree]

quick writes #1 - when it just hurts

brown face like the turn of a long poem eyes like an orisha’s - yung Shango mouth like a bow - poisoned arrow. i pray you aren’t to bring me trouble i pray you don’t burn me to rubble

you’re a lump in my throat, a desire that I may never fulfil a constant flutter in my stomach & i can not control when it comes when it goes & it hurts because i do not remember when I chose you - decided you were the one to be allowed in the third ventricle - my dreams, the subconscious smiles should your name come up

hurts more than anything normal, anything tangible - any mouth skin genitals, cavities that i’ve kissed

beyond rationale or fire, sweet burn, heartbreak how is it so, sweet Jesus, how is it that a human like me can make me so?

even tears won’t wash you out even tears won’t blot you out i pray you aren’t the death of me i pray you won’t turn me into rubble

i can not afford you here one more thought one more day one more poem

so i beg please go please leave me till tomorrow (maybe call me)

[mamoyobornfree]

i once liked a boy this much?

[mamoyobornfree]

Hi i read a poem on here once and it was a amazing. Can only remember this stuff: something about 'what do you tell a girl'' burned ciggaretes

thank you anonymous. i vaguely remember that poem. will see if i can find it when i get a chance and re-post it.