Poems by Charles Lipanda Matenga

Επιμέλεια: Εύα Πετροπούλου Λιανού

My biography: Charles Lipanda Matenga is a published poet, writer, author of Our Voice is Our Catalyst Anthology with Salvador CapBic and performer in Slam Poetry
from Our talents, our advocacy festival, Tumaini Festival and Zomba City Festival and he is the first poet to perform United Nations Day commemoration 31 October 2023 and National Youth Policy Launch 2023-2028 in Malawi.
He was born on 2nd July 2005 in DRCongo . He never saw his father as a result he
was raised by a single mom, called Sada Magdaleine who also later died when he
just turned five years old. The author has been living in a tremendous life in which
he once wrote in his poem, Angel Of Bread, “for the death is the only storehouse of
struggles”, he also opted to commit suicide due to starvation that overwhelmed him
in Dzaleka Refugee Camp, Malawi where he is a refugee. The Congolese poet is also
optimistic. He proves this mostly in his poetry where he writes about hope, dream
and future. He is one of the founders and the president of African Youth Artistic
Poetry – AYAP where children and youth are trained for poetry and one of the
organizers of Our talents, our advocacy festival which takes place in Dzaleka
Refugee Camp at UBUNTU, Dowa Malawi. Charles is a great poet… despite his circumstances… poetry is his savior, his JOY! This tightens my heart! Tears to my eyes! As I know full well ‘poetry’ is psychotherapy for the soul. Charles is currently, in his refugee home, with his co-author, Ruth Takodwa, working on an anthology of his poetry, titled, ‘Being a Refugee Wasn’t a Choice’… The author is actually open for every
opportunity that will come across him so that he can achieve his dream and help
young poets do the same too as well as other talented children.

Yours faithfully
Charles Lipanda

Angel Of Bread

Angel of bread
Come and feed me
Ever lasting bread
For my body has no meat
Instead only bones

I’ve become fleshy
My cheeks shrink
Like a deflated balloon
I am blown by wind
For I am weighing grams

How long shall I suffer
To die alive
And burry myself
In the grave
For the death is the only
Storehouse of struggles

Was I born to shed tears of sorrow
As I remember the memory
Of my mother
Who would care
About the gripes?

Will this ever end?
I am tired of living
For my life is a vent of toxic gases
How long will these years of starvation
Be pouring in my house?

If you hear me dying tonight
Don’t blame angels
But the world
For evils have become backs to lean on

In the mid of the night
I told myself
That my life will change
For nobody cares about us
But us!

Waves Of The Sea

I am a poet with no pen and paper
Words ripple on lips like soft wind
Valiant voice rustles in me to speak
For the orphans whose blood flows
With the viscosity of the fluids

Our flag is dying for we failed
To protect our mother Congo
We brought war instead of peace
When will you stop grinding and crushing us?
We are spices in the mortar
How long will these bloodsheds be streaming in the tunnel?
We’re refugees with no shelters

The rhythm of hymn is sung by our souls
For the guns have killed us in the wildrefuge
When will these battered years end?
A wave of nostalgia ringing
Reflecting and appealing
When our dead parents were alive
Who would sleep on mat with no net?

Cacia trees were vibrating to the beat of guns
We’re vestiges of victims
And being pushed away like pebbles in the river
Walking in the penumbra
As stars dancing in auroras

We’re transients
Poetry is aesthetic home
She protects us even during insomniac monsoon
We live in hyacinth
For it is where my father was reincarnated

I smell the scent of air
In the petunia of graves
For our bodies are rutted
When we all ululated
For being penurious
On the waves of the sea

Smokes on Screen

Words heal
Words kill
Spoken, said or told
Still make you cold
For their freezing point

Faces talk too much than mouth can walk
Standing afar
Waiting for someone you’ve never seen before
Chilling hot wind pressing your body
Dead air swirling in living lake

People can call you guilty
For being more insecured than the starved
Is your skin color scaring them?
Or just your lively presence in their golden castle?
Their eyes rolling down
Like Tsunamis waving waters
Terrifying you to the breaking of the arteries in brain
As drifting and cracking of questions in your mind, driving you insane

Life is the smoke on screens
Blurred from seeing what is inside
Keep on taking risks
Till your legs swell and ooze
Slipping and piercing into the folded box
For it’s the closed flower
Waiting for it to open

Life is the dust particles on the mirror
Shaded by the attraction of multiplication in mutation
Image is blurted only if you tussle your tackles in wrestles
Don’t say your plans before your achievements
Or else the beast will effectively ruin your trajectory

N-ever hold back
E-ven if you’re irritated or black
V-oice can be twang, tutting
E-rupting thoughts flooding in your head
R-endering you to a better life

H-old tightly onto your dreams
O-pen your heart and soul to the steams
L-ive as there is no tomorrow
D-ie from horror to shocked marrow in narrow

B-reathe without stopping
A-s you’re feeling as if you’re out of control
C-rooked words twisting in laughter
K-neeling in eyes of lies

Blood and guts overlaying and overlapping
Ghost stories spreading as fast as the rays of the sun
Close your eyes
What do you see?
Listen to your heart
What does it tell?
Touch your soul
How does it feel?

Blood and thunderstorms smashing and faulting
Ceasing Mt Babylon down
For the heaven is near
But smokes on the screen are seen sinless

If Not Now, When?

Next time is the house undecorated yet blindly painted
It’s the dim bulb that fails to lighten inches of the page
It’s the tongue with dead cells filled with mild taste
Next time sleeps too loud in silent waves

Fears are the blocks of your progress
Hindering you from chasing your mirage
That lies in the midst of the mire
You’re indefatigable and indomitable
Don’t swiftly hold Indrawn breath
Keep sinking and drowning to catch it

Don’t wait for tomorrow
For your victory is now
Make it as indentation in history
Success blooms, bleeping as beeping
As long as indispensable courage pours on it
Mirthful results stretch through folding stoned walls
If you’re dedicatedly aiming higher

Studying aimlessly is like muttering indistinct words
It’s a blight on your life
For you’re indolent
It’s the indelible blemished blisters on the brain
Bloated with indictment and indenture
Spilling indelicate indemnity
For it’s indefensible indignity

Indulging in destruction of education
Yet others are persistent in motivation
It’s the disturbance of little intelligence you have from depredation
Being blown like blimp dove above to deposition
Miming and mimicking, that’s not inspiration

Failure wilts as old and dry as flowers
If you no longer do things at whim
Consistency is the weapon of achievement
Denaturing infamy with insistence
Resistance still not lead to nuisance
For you have discovered that
No more other time than now
But now

Mary told Jesus
It’s still too early to teach
It’s still too early to preach
But Jesus asked “if not now, when?”

My voice is blazoned across your blatant ears
Bliping as flashing light on the sky screen
Displaying bleak prospect
Yet you’ll still hear bleat in my absence
And forget what I said in the presence
Don’t be bleary-eyed blathering indiscreet

My words are bling
Like blinking, my life is
Disparage me not
For I’m not in insanity
Though I’m sounding like Polyphonic

I am the living