Choosing Baby's Middle Name

and there it was

right there in your smile

it was time for halternecks

a your moist pink toothless 
shiney new as dew a kissed dawn
you hold my gaze, you drink me in

my eyes and soul brims
from the womb contraction you bring
with this one thing, this act from instinct
from a glorious season within

right there
warm and unadulterated 

"Summer."

Zena Edwards©

MY LIFE IN GIGS AND PROJECTS

I am a very active artist who loves her job. 

I lick my fingers and swoon after dipping them into a variety of pies. For more information about what I do aside from the musings on this blog, take a look at my other ventures. for life as an artist in this climate is varied and more multifaceted than even I could imagine. Keep up to up to date at

goodnewzee.wordpress.com

Busi Mhlongo is one of the most powerful women I have met. She was a giant on stage. In 2000, very early in my poetry writing career, I was lucky enough to be asked to contribute a poem her internationally acclaimed album Urbanzulu.
 The Track itself is epic and seemed to call for and epic poem - on that was declamatory and rousing.

  




Poem by Zena Edwards©  
There are problems in every home: Oh my people!
Family! 
Family was the core of the heart's security and sense of belonging. 

Can you now look to your neighbour for help 
When the family pillar begins to chip and crumble? No! 
They too wear a mask of strained false contentment 
But cry for solutions to family troubles. 

Tweet Poem - #smug

So what u want with me now? I ask Insomnia.
Nuffin. Jus to watch u twitch & fidget, 
Muck about on the internet & call it "research." 
#smug

Written by Zena Edwards©

The Perpetual Winter

Where do I begin?
Where do I place the pin
As the starting point to express
This state of paralysis?
Ice crystals wedged between
each each frightened vertebrae
I am inflexible. Today.

They marched for Trayvon.
We marched for Smiley.
The wind blew around our ears
Outside the yard.

They marched for Amina
We marched for Cherry
The water froze under
Our feet. We wore grippers.

Coughed up an ocean of Middle Passage sea salt
to melt the season
But the wind blew colder
So the thaw needed to be bolder
So we read Huey P, Malcom X, Hurston, Stokley
Whose hot words burst the river bank

Then the winter closed ranks
Horizontal sleet cuts
Marking trees across new backs
In the bellies of police vans
And out on the open road
The new frontier, the explicit cold


Written by Zena Edwards©

Tweet Poems - # PeaceIn OurTime

Wen sanity weeps 

like a slick succession of roaches 

slippin thru a rip in humanitys skin, 

Great Minds coagulate round the wound of unreason

2 blot the bleeding with Diplomacy 

b4 She was kidnapped & gagged 

& could use both hands 2 stem the flow,

b4 politics tied 1 behind her back

& told her 2 row 2 the grassy bank of freedom 

knowing her boat wud only go in circles,
barnacles of conflict crusting its hull.

As the ripples distort the mirror
broken refractions of light
fall like pieces of a confused puzzle.
Come the Great Minds 2 still the water  

to mend the vista of magic
to exhale words in the order of reparation
to shepherd the chaos to calm
to halt the tumult 4 a moment's respite

to ensure we do not fear the well of silences to come

#peaceinourtime

Written by Zena Edwards©

tweet poems - #goodquestion

There's room. Snuggle up, sed imagination. 
They sed this womb can hold more than Life. 
What's more than Life? asked the child. 
#Goodquestion

tweet poems - #OutofRehab

It promised 2b spectacular! 

All fireworks, tinsel 
Bright coloured streamers

Each nervy step on2 the stage: 
an #openingnight everyday

Zena Edwards© March 2012 
 

Truth Hertz

Truth!
I call upon Truth
Let your Self be known.

Truth!
Do not hold your hungry tongue.

Truth, bear Witness
Offspring of Justice
Fathered by what is
Mothered by that which will always be.

Truth, principled whisperer of potent prayers
Pregnant as an overdue season
guaranteed to have its ripening.

Truth, monstrous ocean vexed by toxic lies,
Sucking lightening from the sky
In a clash, a mighty war
for the souls of humanity.

Truth! You are summoned
To shatter me with your song
Expose the right from wrong.

Blaring as your scream may be,
Ravage me.
Glaring beast, do your worst!

You might rip the lids from my eyes
Shred my lips so I cannot deny
Burst my ear drum, tear at my skin
Strip me to my bone, but
It
      is
           Time.
All illusions must be razed to the ground

I open my heart.
I let you in.

I stand firm 
in the roar of your electric wind.

Written by Zena Edwards©. March 3rd, 2012

Fly

Life told me to run on the elixir of the wind
Don’t look back. Everyone will be fine.
Stay on my toes. Keep my arms pumping.
Keep giving the heart new blood.

I told Life but I cannot see the ground now.
It said you do not need to.
You have no business with it this day.
This one is for imagining.

Zena Edwards© 2012

tweet poems - #temptation

The suck the pull the lure the open door
ajar enuff 4 muffled sound & dim lite 2 spill.
The gaping need 2 kno must b fulfilled
#temptation


Zena Edwards© 2012 

tweet poems - #unsolvedmurder

He listens 2 th grass grow, 
bugs legs tangle in their blades, 
worms munch @ decibels. 
He waits 4 a quiet tht wont eva come
#unsolvedmurder

Zena Edwards© 2012