Phoenicians Once Sailed from These Shores

Fishermen, shoulders bent,
set sail daily,
carrying baits,
oil lamps, a loaf of bread.
Theirs a biblical patience,
taking them farther
every day,
muscles tight, foreheads furrowing,
awaiting for the secular miracle,
their nets deployed
in an ancestral garb,
flutters as a dancer's veil
enveloping the dense,
sterile Mediterranean waters,
scooping algae, residues, dead fish,
fugitive ripples.
They return home empty-handed,
later every time,
at dawn or dusk,
eyelids lowered,
disappearing under thick eyebrows,
their flattened nets
heavy with absence.

First published by Live Encounters
From The Taste of the Earth (Press 53 2019)

The Abandoned Stone House in Damascus
          Don’t ask me what side I am with!
                    ​Don’t ask me about the outcome!

They say rain won’t wash the indelible blood splattered in the streets, the moans and cries of
children resonate in my aching ears, filling each crack and corner of my heart. Will anyone open
doors and windows wide, let the wind in to erase the bitter clouds of gunpowder? Faces smeared
with dust and sweat all look alike, come and go as they please, their footsteps resonate in my
temples as over worn out, stretched out drums. My walls yearn for the daily smell of freshly cut
herbs, for the warmth of the hearth, the familiar sight of the iron pot hanging over glowing coals.
Once, the simmering stew was singing with spices and children played under the shade of the
olive tree. I can still hear their mother’s humming while separating lentils from stone.

First published by Mizna Literary Journal
From The Taste of the Earth (Press 53 2019)

Cotton Fields

Fields of cotton
as far as the eye can see,
row upon row of soft white balls
always thirsty
the plants and people,
always hungry
the plants and people.
A crop so thirsty it can dry up a sea
in socialism.
A crop so hungry it can starve a people
in capitalism.
A crop so needy it can render sterile the land
forced to grow it.
A crop so demanding it can destroy,
enslave
and exploit
wherever it goes.
Its softness hides a heart of steel.
But still it’s natural.
Always natural.
Only natural.

First published in The Drabble, April 2021

The Potato Eaters

The harvest looks good today
un-blighted
so we know that we shall eat
this winter
and there should be enough
to pay the landlord
and put a roof over our heads
this winter.
So we will kneel and say a prayer
that he will not ask too much.

First published in Trouvaille Review, December 2020

Things I Know About Hungry

Some kids at my school
Their dad’s building a house
With a big ocean view
But they never bring snack
They eat fries every day for lunch
They stay in with the little kids
When our class goes on field trips

My grandmother was an only child
And they say my grandfather was adopted
But Grampy worked for the Bell
All through the Depression
Sometimes my dad and Aunt Glor had 20 cousins
Around the table for Sunday dinner

School was just out for the summer
I happened to drive past the gym
And saw my colleague’s sister at the curb
I thought she needed a ride after a tough workout
But she just sat there crying
She said it was hard with four kids
An 11-month contract means
You don’t get paid again ‘til September

After Hurricane Irma the whole hillside cheered
When the first Dutch transport touched down
Because we knew they would have
Canned beans and crackers

And even Spam would taste great
With the green papaya stew
We made from the fruit we found
On the road in our neighborhood

You never knew Heaven
Until you had white bread and mustard
To take to school my mom said
And you smiled all the way there and back
If you got a little sugar
To sprinkle on that sandwich

Hungry isn’t only poor people
Hungry isn’t only other people

​Click to hear the poet read the poem.

"Food inflation"

Ours ain't hunger pains after a bumper harvest
Lately, twisted fate forced a wrong turn on us
Tilling farmland suspended, a dark cloud had engulfed us
Missiles that time never told were coming, fell like the monsoon rains
Announced wasn't a tranquil break but
fight or fright or flight
Iron hoes had clobbered head to head in the fields
Sirening a so abrupt shift of activity.

May you not say we got bread shortage on the table from nil supply
Rather say, wheat scarcity was our own stitching
Shot down was our willing and able bread winner's promise
To feed nations out of a comparative advantage and nothing else.

Say ours was a taxing choice that traded ploughshares for swords
One more time, kept up gun barrels oiled with toxic sharpness
Amarment sharpness recklessly gunning down our wonderland wheat farmer
Now we are left with even the smallest rivers claiming that they are seas!

May you not say we got bread shortage on the table from nil supply
Rather say, our wheat scarcity was our own shortfall
Than breach masculine desires, we went showboating power -- existent or not
Say that our inflated ego has kept fortunes waning

With this warring,
Food prices have sky rocketed like an erupting Mauna Loa volcano
With this warring,
Displaced are many many families from food access,
worse the physically vulnerable.

"Dearest ID mom"

Mom is out on the road and in the open
Temporarily she's christened an Internally Displaced Person
This naming may however, turn out the most unkind to her
Should things end at the wondrous thought effort, phrasing alone than helping out
It becomes a special class tag, lacking on inclusivity than it alleviates her hope.

Mom needs both food for thought and swallowship, not only fellowship.
Unlike immigrant Miriam in a full camp freeing from bondage
Hers is isolated movement out of decent community shelter into a slum if unluckiest.

Mom is far placed on the priority list at this rate conjured by fate.
When will mom earn a right to no trespass of lands she possesses as a passer by?
Like it is with nomadic pastoralism, won't her gains of flock along the way be exhausted through
bartering for the so called staple?
Let's face it, can a nomad woman own own farmland?
Is it not her stomach too is entitled to staple?

Mom probably is gone for days without relief tent,
Parks are full so they say, try next and next.
Today her random displacement is by floods, cyclone Idai if not hurricane Katrina.

Yesterday by an Act of regional development to please any a promising investor
Tomorrow, it is her fleeing conflict of the Mfecane sort.

Mom is in the home and hungry, mom is out on the road and in the open much hungrier
If survival with child depends on food handouts, what if there is none?
Mom is a "GOAT" caught up in between a hard place and a rock
Our attention to detail on the degrees of vulnerability better be not an end in itself.

By Brian Manyati aka Towandah Ryan
tawandamanyati@gmail.com
+263772 815 211

​A poet under VaChikepe and The Hundred Sailors, a poetry music and arts ensemble from Zimbabwe 🇿🇼. Also a Chartered Governance Professional professional.

FOODBANK

In the rooms where we make parcels.
Stacked up tins and non-perishables.
When the virus has hit hard and morale is scarred
We struggle to hold all our marbles.

Tailored bags, veggie or meat eater.
Selecting each item with loving care.
Feeding the families without a prayer
in the house of the stain-glass eyed mitre.

My ties with Islamic culture,
Cater to the tastes of the ummah
in accordance with their sunnah.
Dignity beneath the vultures.

Gluten free treats for the children.
A chocolate for mum
to sweeten the glum.
Community alms in the temple den.

Plant based milk for the vegans.
Generous with pulses and pasta.
Queues at the door as we pack faster.
The dejected flocking to the subsistence haven.

The excitement of something nice.
M & S biscuits or a Waitrose dessert.
The priceless small pick me ups we insert.
A leg up for basic human rights.

Outside the lofty rose window
a clattering of jackdaws noisily caw.
Premade bundles conceal the storeroom floor.
Misfortune offers no furlough.

Protein for the meat eaters,
Beef curry or steak and kidney pie.
Taste the orient, a chicken Pad Thai.
Ignored by carnivorous leaders.

​A fairy cake, home baking kit
for quality time with the family.
Amid poverty, making memories.
The smell of baking embalming the kids.

Those already acquainted with nothing
and those who have lost it all
filing into the hallowed hall.
The hurt of the broken calls,
sometimes, thankful and others, biting.

Each of us, one pay check away from destitution.
There but for the grace of God...
The God with a punishing rod.
Party politics offers no divine restitution.

A Morsel of Kindness
By Dorothy Lowrie

Perhaps he expects too much,
After all, why would he deserve,
Even a morsel of kindness?
Yet though she passes at first,
She walks back,
To where he sits, unseeing,
On the cold, dirty sidewalk.
Placing the coins into his open palm,
She presses his fingers closed over them.
Her fingers are soft and he can smell roses.
And he’ll never be quite sure,
She wasn’t really an angel.
(written 2019)

The Refound Poem
(a gloss on The Planter by T.A. Niles and Foretells the Moon's Hunger by JC Wayne)
                                                    Edited by T.A. Niles, v.j. calone 12/31/22)

“Maybe Christmas, he thought, doesn't come from a store.
Maybe Christmas, perhaps, means a little bit more!”
                                                    “How the Grinch Stole Christmas, Dr. Suess.”

Tell me again about hunger my friend,
as I wipe away these crumbs from my beard.
Hearing your words, it's just as we feared
let he who throws the first rock be without sin.

It all started as a thought, a feeling, a seed
born- not out of want, but more out of a need
from he who knew a few things about planting.
A few of his fields left fallow, despite his recanting;

The earth throws up shields, as do its people.
You can touch a soul without (w)ringing a steeple.
Soil conditions, irrigation, feeding and weeding,
how does the color of one's skin lessen the needing?

Yes, he knows a thing or two about supplanting,
robbing Peter to pay Paul through letters while chanting.
Give him a loaf and a couple of fish- now make a wish
then back up that truck and hand him your dish.

And how can so many still be left starving?
How can we, with ourselves, strike this bargain?
Can we at least help to feed our own little corner,
and clothe needy people so they may be warmer?

Whatever does not kill you only makes you stronger,
or stiffens your spine so you last a bit longer.
You can get upset and angry, but I have not lied.
So please lend a hand; don’t stand to the side.

​There are 1000 ways to expire on our earth,
starvation shouldn’t be our very last berth.
Become like the planter think not of yourself,
your soul's also fertile scatter the wealth.

​Click to hear the poet read the poem.

The Store on
Shakespeare Street

It feels like a funeral.
They’re closing a final door on the oatmeal,
the cage-free eggs,
the Bush’s Baked Beans (Original),
the frozen peas that flow from this old store
through our kitchens and into our skin,
our blood, our hearts.

Shakespeare is dead.
Where is he
now that I really need him? (Shall I compare thee to a Shop n Save?)
His street will be buried twice now.
They built the store and kept the name
and now the store and the name and the poetry
will soon be gone.

They’re packing up in boxes
the work of Myra, Bernice, Debra, Tom and Larry,
who smile for my camera on this Last Day.
Each of them for over forty years
has released the food to us and taken our money.
They have done this faithfully and together.

One aisle over as I pass half-empty shelves,
someone says to Larry, “Come sit with us.”
That’s it.
That’s what this day calls for most.
Customers and workers,
we all need to just come sit together
on that ledge beside the doors and the shopping cart,
as a summer storm tosses treetops
one last time
out beyond the streaming plate-glass windows.

OUT FRONT

I am grateful for...

The arched roof above my head
The twin rafters with
The twin lights, holding it in place
The four walls surrounding me
The two windows with
The two Venetian blinds, down & shut at all times
The red brick floor below my feet
The wooden shelves full of books & movies
The VHS by themselves & DVDs in clear totes
The Keetsa© mattress I sleep on
The melatonin that helps me sleep
The vegan food in my fridge, a meat-free zone
The fruit & vegetable juices I savour
The filtered water I drink more than tap shit
The hardcover journal notebooks and
The rollerpoint pens I sue to express myself
The shower I use, even though I'm a bathtub man
The Hewlett Packard laptop computer aiding creation of
The once and future poetry volumes
The Samsung© TV & VCR/DVD player combo
The little house in East Oakland I call home
The vast collection of political slogan t-shirts
I wear the convictions of my heart
On my chest
SOMETIMES ANTI-SOCIAL ALWAYS ANTI-RACIST
Remains a personal favourite but
BEING BLACK IS NOT A CRIME
Gets me the most love on the street

But most of all

I am grateful for...

The bus drivers
The firefighters
The restaurant
Deliver drivers
The subway train conductors
The launderette clerks
The grocery store workers
The farmer's market workers
Which I happen to be one
The doctors
The nurses
The paramedics
The pharmacy workers
The protestors for the rights of all Black lives
The dead and the living
The mutual aid collectives
Giving food, water, medicine and household
Items to the people living hand to mouth
During this goddamn pandemic
And long before

All the heroes
Out front
In our service
Seeing to our immediate
Survival needs

They could use the praise

And you don't need
Super powers
To be a hero

Just be there
Out front
For us--

W: Stonewall Anniversary 2020
[ For Jennifer A. Minotti. ]
[ From the book Rusty Gallows: Passages Against Hate, Vagabond Books, 2020. ]

Now Carry the Tears that Feed You

Go head and close the eyes
that look into the pain you feel
when extreme hunger
pulls on your belly

Here
see the love
of yourself now
as a mother to be

Now carry the tears
of a child inside you
being nourished alone
by your undying heart

Understand the cost
of there is no way, use, or time
for you to blame poverty,
the profiteers of war,
the heartless manufacturers
of mass migration,
the GMO malnutrition markets,
God's tax exemptions,
organized religion's vaults
of priceless jewels, art,
and real estate holdings

For now the littlest of heartbeats alone warm you.

There's no use in waiting
for inhumanity incarnate to stop being global oligarchs
who only live to play war games
with their puppeteering selves

​You are too busy giving
every morsel of compassion
you have
to your belly of hope,
and yet still share your heart
with everyone selfish enough
to only pity you
while they eat.