May 2014 ~ Flavour of the Day by SCHLINGZ

Wednesday, May 28, 2014

In Honour of a - PHENOMENAL WOMAN

Posted by Schlingz on 8:12 AM

by Maya Angelou

Pretty women wonder where my secret lies.
I’m not cute or built to suit a fashion model’s size
But when I start to tell them,
They think I’m telling lies.
I say,
It’s in the reach of my arms,
The span of my hips,
The stride of my step,
The curl of my lips.
I’m a woman
Phenomenally.
Phenomenal woman,
That’s me.

I walk into a room
Just as cool as you please,
And to a man,
The fellows stand or
Fall down on their knees.
Then they swarm around me,
A hive of honey bees.
I say,
It’s the fire in my eyes,
And the flash of my teeth,
The swing in my waist,
And the joy in my feet.
I’m a woman
Phenomenally.

Phenomenal woman,
That’s me.

Men themselves have wondered
What they see in me.
They try so much
But they can’t touch
My inner mystery.
When I try to show them,
They say they still can’t see.
I say,
It’s in the arch of my back,
The sun of my smile,
The ride of my breasts,
The grace of my style.
I’m a woman
Phenomenally.
Phenomenal woman,
That’s me.

Now you understand
Just why my head’s not bowed.
I don’t shout or jump about
Or have to talk real loud.
When you see me passing,
It ought to make you proud.
I say,
It’s in the click of my heels,
The bend of my hair,
the palm of my hand,
The need for my care.
’Cause I’m a woman
Phenomenally.
Phenomenal woman,
That’s me.

Maya Angelou, “Phenomenal Woman” from And Still I Rise

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Posted in maya angelou , phenomenal woman , poetry , woman

Tuesday, May 27, 2014

To-do List For Africa

Posted by Schlingz on 5:36 AM

by Lebogang Nova Masango

When you no longer hate who you are
And the circumstances that brought you here
Undress yourself
Reclaim your weathered body without fear
Stand naked at your Nile
And hold your reflection dear

Behold a brilliance

You, cracked riverbed
Rainforest
Desert
Monsoon
Savannah
Swamp
Almighty harmattan
Spectacle of sand dunes,

Are the wonder of the earth

Cleanse yourself

Bathe in still waters
And while contemplating your future
Flick the chip off your shoulder
Treat yourself to a make-over

Dress in all your splendour
Just like the days of old
Adorn yourself in the armour
Of oil, diamonds and gold

Destroy the robe of martyr
Once and for all
Deprive the stain of colonialism
Any relevance or meaning
Pack your throat full of a narrative
That truly believes in healing

Let it be your song

Sung through centuries
Decades
Eras
And echoed by possibility
Echoed by possibility
Echoed by possibility

See, the sun will forever speak highly of me
Take the sandstorm of my skin as testament
To the survival of Timbuktu Manuscripts
And the creations of Egyptian architects
Our blood carries the staying power of ancients

How solar rays cast exact shadows
Was our version of quarter-to-nine
So fuck “African timing”
We exist in a time before time
The sun is our culture

Take this to-do list as a lesson
And, once again, let love be our nature

Africa
I am begging with all of my browness
Unlearn the word “pirate”
When speaking of poor Somali people
Actively controlling the destiny of their seas
Against the ever-pillaging, long-arm of European greed
They are protectors

Unlearn the wrath of fire
The way hatred burns down shacks in Khayelitsha
Beats down bodies in Diepsloot and rapes in Alexandra
Leaves the devastation of desperation in its wake
Poor against poor and nothing is being done by the state
Never forget: Harambe

Unlearn your blemishes
Unlearn Idi Amin
Mobutu
Bashir
Mengistu

Unlearn civil war
Coups
Blood diamonds
Kleptocracies
Xenophobia
Genocide
Child soldiers
And casualties

Unlearn your ugly

Africa
My love for you is a broken mirror
Sits heavy in the cavity of my chest
Among dusty boxes full of Fela Kuti songs
And a history bloodied by regret
When I think of you
My heart knows no rest
It skips off track
But once a mirror is shattered there’s no way to put back
The pieces
And pieces of turmoil, disasters and diseases
A whole continent of people
Who have been overlooked by the mercy of Jesus
I’m going to need us to love ourselves
A whole lot louder
Even if the ‘first’ world can’t see us

Hold this love up high
Let the splinters of imperfection
Tell the story of you and I
And even if it cuts to tell the truth
Africa
I promise to stop throwing your name around
Like an old excuse

So, remember
When you no longer hate who you are
And the circumstances that brought you here

Undress yourself
Reclaim your weathered body without fear
Stand naked at your Nile
And hold your reflection dear

Bloodied but never broken
We
Are still
Here

This is the Suicide Note I Will Never Write

Posted by Schlingz on 5:20 AM

by Vangile Makwakwa

This is the suicide note I will never write
This is my choose life poem, my enough poem
Enough hollow dreams that drive me to solo
Conversations with broken versions of me
Enough learning what it feels like to carry everyone at dawn
But break in shadow
What does it mean to be unbreakable?
Who keeps your dreams alive if you are the keeper of dreams?
This is the suicide note I will never write,
I am a poet so I write poetry to find beauty
In life’s tragedies
To fly in the face of sorrow
Spit ice caps in the burning fires of hell
Mould deserts in the center of glaciers
Because to run life’s hardest marathons in a second
You have to teach yourself to swallow yesterdays
In order to digest the lessons of tomorrow
I am a poet so I write self addressed testimonials to my future self
To ignore the sirens that taunt me with the paradise found in eternal sleep
To stop myself from taking the scalpel to my hand
When I feel myself dancing on the edge of the world
And watching Armageddon
I write these testimonials for the day when the end of the world comes
And I am pinned to my bed by the invisible hand of fear
And there is no one there to hold me except poetry
I write to remember that sanity and insanity are identical twins
That life is simply breathing in and out and challenging everything you hold dear
Even a second can change the course of your destiny
I want to tell my future self to hold on
I want to kiss her and say:
Baby, life is a song so dance,
You are your father’s favorite dream
Your mother’s greatest wish
Beethoven’s unsung symphony
So dance
I want to tell the woman I will be
That she does not hold the monopoly on suffering
I want to tell her to
Step out into the light and fall in love with the sun
Divorce the dark and post a break up letter to the moon
Scream at the top of your lungs and remember that all you ever wanted
Was dirty dancing in Zanzibar,
Sunsets on Table Mountain,
Breakfast in Paris,
Lunch in Hong Kong
Dinner in Switzerland,
And love making in a pent house in New York City
With curtains wide open and eyes wild like fire
This is the suicide note I will never write
Because there was a time when all I thought was how beautiful
It was to be alive
And that was all I wrote as poetry
I took photographs at night
And even though they came out black
I turned them over and wrote the date
Just so I could remember that there was a time when something was so beautiful
I had to capture it
It is for these moments that I choose to write
To keep the dreams of a little girl alive
To remind myself why I continue to breathe
Why even though I am tone deaf I write music in my dreams
And use lyrical notes to find heaven in the abyss
Because it is the blessing of every poet
To make life sound like an epic romance
And to find beauty in pain

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About Vangile

Professional Speaker focused on the link between Emotional Intelligence & Financial Behavior. Author of Heart, Mind & Money: Using Emotional Intelligence for Financial Success. The book has been chosen as part of the Exclusive Book Homebrew Selection. Apart from writing and speaking she has an MBA and Finance Honors and an entrepreneurial background. She specialises in teaching others how to use their emotional intelligence to create wealth. She has been featured in various media including O Magazine South Africa.