school-radio teacher

17 May, 2019 - 00:05 0 Views

The ManicaPost

Morris Mtisi Education Correspondent
The following poem will be the source of our Practical Criticism or Literary Appreciation exercise on radio on Sunday 23 May 2019…3:30 to 4:30pm.

So keep this paper and follow the brilliance of a plucky Literature student. She will be my studio guest.

Do not miss this one-hour school on radio.

This is your chance to learn from other students and enjoy the services of your local radio-Diamond FM. Who said radio was for music, news and entertainment alone?

 

The Poem is titled ‘Before The Next Song.’

(1)

Delek, delek, delek

The juke box coughs,

preparing to sing.

Has it drunk blood tonight?

A scratch on the record

Sends the needle leap-frogging.

 

Smash!

               A quick hush.

               Someone has broken

               his converted dollars.

               Like a snake

               that had paused to listen,

               the noise pours out again.

Suddenly,

                 Several perfumes rise,

                 they rush and waft around the room

                 like panicking widgeon,

                 bristling amidst human grass.

 

                 the beat

                 of heavy pursuing odour,

                 marches past

                 like a clumsy posse

                   led by a blind, unwashed man.

 

At last,              

             the box bursts into a tune.

              Deep baritone booms out

              slapping the ear wetly

               like sweat drops shaken

               from an enemy’s fist.

 

                 Feet and legs,

                 Wet clay pillars,

                 siddle the dance floor.

                 yellow eyes wink

                 like a rogeur

                 in the act.                                     

            

(11)

Adam stumbles out of the Wine and Wench,

the music still buzzing in his ears,

like a swarm of insistent mopane bees.

 

Wading in mercury,

Adam forges ahead

clutching the air for support.

 

                   Inshide,

 

                   Inshide je naitcub,

                   je people’re danshing.

                   je people’re performing

                   inshide je naitcub

 

Lazerised eyes in the dark

piece to the back of Adam’s brain

leaving potent venom.

 

A wall looms ahead,

heavily dressed in graffiti,

Slogans and curses,

nicknames of the sacred

Jurassic park monsters

naked men and women

in flagrante delido.

 

As Adam sweeps past,

life-size graffiti detaches itself

and clogs towards him on wooden soles.

 

Ten bucks only

only bucks my honely.

 

The voice is crunchy and yet soft

like gravel ladled with a polythene spoon.

 

Blood throbs in Adam’s veins,

like Chitako-cha-Ngonya’s drums

beating on new moon night.

 

Towards a dark copy-cat taxi

crouching by the kerb,

Adam steers his new found Eve.

 

And, as they pile inside

to circumnavigate the night,

faint strains

of the next song,

this time,

a dirge,

filter from the East

of tomorrow.

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