Best of Afrikaans Poems & Praise Poem of 2024

   The Cape cobra comes from his hole

and sneaksaround the ridge:
“It’s rained, the veld is wet,
and wet is the red-yellow earth.”
The meerkat comes and his small eyes shine,
and he stands upright and waits.
And the stone-old porcupine says “I think
it’ll rain again tonight.”
But the gecko squeaks: “It’s not rain at all!
It’s sticky, black and red:
Where in your life do you find such rain –
so smooth, so stiff, so beautiful?”
And the wise old stone owl risks his word:
“It’s blood, it’s human blood!
It’s lifeblood which this la    

   A woman fell silent from endless waiting:

earth slid through the spiral
of day and night, now green then gray,
she sometimes cried and sometimes laughed.
Oftenawakeduringthenight,
yet in her home and along the street
she spoke and acted as before
so no-one saw her waiting.
Desire becomes acceptance, step by step,
as waiting alternates with hope and despair, till the
two become one and silence reigns alone.
And through the years she grew intotheendof
the story: more beauty
has the power of her silence than the long-awaited.    

 What did the sun do to you,

orange?”
“He stroked me, kissed me.
Now I’m red and ripe and round,
a joy for eye and mouth!”
“The sun touched you with his light,
orange?”
“He scorched me, burnt and bleached me.
Now I am fire from that source,
pure flame, pure sun!”
“And at night the moon…what of the moon,
orange?”
“Her silver arms around me folded,
softly seeped into my juice, slowly.”
“The earth gave you nothing,
orange?”
“His clay drenched by dew or rain.
Now I am sun and moon and day and night,
possess of earth and air their moisture, and their might.”
“What did man do to you,
orange?    

   Down now the dark-red jacket glides,

first from the left and then the right shoulder,
then over the dark head the grey jersey slides
and in their bra the small breasts come alive
then her crossed hands shoot up past armpit bushes
quickly crossed, and in an instant drop
the ribbons and the two white nests
while over their dale the tiny twin peaks quiver
as she crosses again the arms a-shiver
takes the shoulder knobs, and above the rose-red
nipples and six white bridges of the ribs
the sun-brown of her elbows tremble
on a chair linen-shreds hang empty
and barely sway; shoes fall apart,
with many stirrups the stockings come away
and before me in the lightbrief you stand
then the whole of you emerge, brown with white, from there
the rounded muscles of the thighs around the shining black.    

   It started at candlelight with the tot

when vats enflamed and the ship
full of burning brandy leapt up
and shot me, Bontekoe, nearer to God.
I fell back…had to climb into a smaller boat.
A while, in the ship’s flames,
we see cheeses, human heads, watermelons,
cantaloupe, pickled pigs, and shoulder-blades adrift
in boiling water whipped
by swordfish and bluefin sharks.
I ration the bread and water.
The bread is done. From our last vat
Each morning I spoon into the nose of a shoe
a swallow. Each drinks his own urine,
bellies and legs swell – some burst green.
The sailors whisper and murmur at night.
See, see how at the young boy they stare.
I talk and implore, our Dear Lord beseech,
when all at once out of the mist and tropical rain
around us a thousand gulls screech.
Later the sailors again: the boy! I pledge
if no outcome, my body, my own.
But suddenly from the water breaks a bow
of flying fish. And bobbing nearer –
oh God, thrice praised! – a hairy coconut.  

    In the early dawn as the night leaves,
A quiet observance of a gaggle of birds
Somewhere tittering in the trees.
Peace in a sigh like a tardy waterfall
Or muddled wind from a still sky.
Insignificant am I, thankless and selfish
For not seeing the value of those crys.
A harmonic chaos of chemicals in time and space,
everything tossed in a flawed paradigm.
My earth mother, thank you,
It has been far too long since I gave praise.   

     Father God, I love You so;
You care for me even when I don’t know.
I often question Your intent,
Despite those promises You’ve already kept.
I try to make sense of all around,
yet my eyes focus narrowly on my own.
You forgive my impatience,
and my self-righteous thoughts;
And secured my salvation through Your Son’s
death on the cross.
He redeemed all my sins and gave me new life;
an act that cost a most precious price.
With Your help, dear Lord,
I will trust in the perfect plan
that is a gift from Your great hand.
Thank You for each day’s new mercies,
and the grace that wipes away all my inequities.
To You, Adonai, is my praise for always;
may my last breath be a whisper
giving You all the glory.  

  The rose is a rose,
And was always a rose.
But the theory now goes
That the apple’s a rose,
And the pear is, and so’s
The plum, I suppose.
The dear only knows
What will next prove a rose.
You, of course, are a rose –
But were always a rose.  

  Bring me all of your dreams,
You dreamer,
Bring me all your
Heart melodies
That I may wrap them
In a blue cloud-cloth
Away from the too-rough fingers
Of the world.  

   How beautiful is creation

On this warm, sunny day.
How grand to see God’ creatures
His own sweet words obey!

Every whisper of a breeze
Exhales its praise to Him.
And every bird that care-free sings,
Sings its own animal hymns!

And why can’t we, beholding this,
Just pause and do the same? !
Come! Let us praise the Lord—
Sing our Father’s holy Name!   

   Langston Hughes

Hold fast to dreams
For if dreams die
Life is a broken-winged bird
That cannot fly.
Hold fast to dreams
For when dreams go
Life is a barren field
Frozen with snow.  

  Nature’s first green is gold,
Her hardest hue to hold.
Her early leaf’s a flower;
But only so an hour.
Then leaf subsides to leaf,
So Eden sank to grief,
So dawn goes down to day
Nothing gold can stay.     

  All you who sleep tonight
Far from the ones you love,
No hand to left or right
And emptiness above –

Know that you aren’t alone
The whole world shares your tears,
Some for two nights or one,
And some for all their years.     

    Long walks at night–
that’s what good for the soul:
peeking into windows
watching tired housewives
trying to fight off
their beer-maddened husbands.   

    There are some nights when
sleep plays coy,
aloof and disdainful.
And all the wiles
that I employ to win
its service to my side
are useless as wounded pride,
and much more painful.   

  A picture memory brings to me;
I look across the years and see
Myself beside my mother’s knee.
I feel her gentle hand restrain
My selfish moods, and know again
A child’s blind sense of wrong and pain.
But wiser now,
a man gray grown,
My childhood’s needs are better known.
My mother’s chastening love I own.     

   Your love was like moonlight
turning harsh things to beauty,
so that little wry souls
reflecting each other obliquely
as in cracked mirrors . . .
beheld in your luminous spirit
their own reflection
transfigured as in a shining stream,
and loved you for what they are not.
You are less an image in my mind
than a luster
I see you in gleams
pale as star-light on a gray wall . . .
evanescent as the reflection of a white swan
shimmering in broken water.    

    If I were hanged on the highest hill,
Mother o’ mine, O mother o’ mine!
I know whose love would follow me still,
Mother o’ mine, O mother o’ mine!
If I were drowned in the deepest sea,
Mother o’ mine, O mother o’ mine!
I know whose tears would come down to me,
Mother o’ mine, O mother o’ mine!
If I were damned of body and soul,
I know whose prayers would make me whole,
Mother o’ mine, O mother o’ mine!    

  God made a wonderful mother,
A mother who never grows old;
He made her smile of the sunshine,
And He molded her heart of pure gold;
In her eyes He placed bright shining stars,
In her cheeks fair roses you see;
God made a wonderful mother,
And He gave that dear mother to me.     

    The water of her womb, your first home
The body she pulled apart to welcome you to the world.
The spirit in you she helped grow with all she knew.
The heart that she gave you when yours fell apart.
You are her soft miracle.
So she gave you her eyes to see the best in the worst.
You carry your mother in your eyes.
Make her proud of all she watches you do.   

  I live alone, like pith in a tree,
My teeth rattle, like musical instruments.
In one ear a spider spins its web of eyes,
In the other a cricket chirps all night,
This is the end,
Which art, that proves my glory has brought me.
I would die for Poetry.     

  Turn an earth clod
Peel a shaley rock
In fondness molest a curly worm
Whose familiar is everywhere
Kneel
And the curly worm sentient now
Will light the word that tells the poet what a poem is.      

  Birthed into a world with angry intentions
By humble people
-stomped almost to death by
Stifling,
Suffocating,
Defacatingly smelly hate!
Raw shitty deal
That all of us get
While
The voracious appetite of society eats us alive
And shits us out.      

 A Beautiful Mind is a Terrible Thing to Waste

A beautiful mind is a terrible thing to waste
Beauty is the only thing worth sacrificing.
Trying to save both mind and façade
Causes the bearer to never truly see themselves.    

  I’m all alone in this world, she said,
Ain’t got nobody to share my bed,
Ain’t got nobody to hold my hand-
The truth of the matter’s
I ain’t got no man.
Big Boy opened his mouth and said,
Trouble with you is
You ain’t got no head!
If you had a head and used your mind
You could have me with you
All the time.
She answered, Babe, what must I do?
He said, Share your bed-
And your money, too.