I’ve been running, running and running away from the thorns of life
Charles Lipanda Matenga, a young poet and writer, who was born in DR Congo, raised orphan and spent life in a refugee camp, shares his poetry
Charles Lipanda Matenga, was born and raised orphan at Rwenena Village, Uvira, Sud-Kivu, DR Congo in 2005. Charles Lipanda Mahigwe is President of African Youth Artistic Poetry-AYAP.
LIFE HAS GOT THORNS
I’ve been running, running and running away from the thorns of life
Since I was three
Hoping that these thorns will dry and fall
But the more I grow, the more they become fleshy
They are piercing into my skin and eating up my remaining blood cells
Leaving me like trees in Sahara desert
I’m a building with no foundation
That can melt down like waxy in fire
I’m a tree with no roots but only structures held onto the sand
Which can be easily eroded by zephyr and showers
I’m the infertile soil from which nothing grows
I’m the smoke swirling separately
But I can’t be caught
Shall this life lose her thorns?
For it wasn’t my wish to drink this cup of bitterness
I also needed care from my roots
Feeding me from my childhood
Was I born to live in orphan-hood?
Where education is the pearl
It cost me legs and hands for my breath couldn’t endure me in deep waters
Where clothes are like gold to find
Sleeping on the ground without even covering blankets
Has become my routine
Why chopping our stems down with your western pang knives
Spreading yourselves as many as weeds in our fields
We’re tired of these bloodsheds floating as runoff flowing on the valleys
What kind of greedy are you?
Exploiting our lands
And leaving us orphans and our mothers widowers
Life has got thorns
That hurt our hearts
Making our souls mourn
With every tide of the Lake Tanganyika
Under “you write what you live”
This is the voice of the African children
***
DOLDRUMS
On a day of love and sorrow
I am still and quiet
Like a silent sea
I am loved and left
In a silent night
I dream of you
My eyes see unseen view
Of our wonderland
Butterflies on blue berries
Hoping at attaching
Black birds flying freely
In our imaginary empire
I am lying beside you
Trying to pat your soften body
On a steep surface of land
Yet I only find myself holding
And smashing silt and sand
I imagine being with you here
We would play and dive in this sea
Following these ocean currents
As they cause waves of water
Flowing silently as profound deaf
But you have left me in a condition
Of eutrophication
Unable to breath due to suffocation
I am dying alive
For no way to survive
You didn’t come to stay
But to leave
You taught me to love
Yet you were chemistry
Knowledge of applications
Of love and pain
Whose solution is stress!
I spread my wings
And fly there high
In the Doldrums
Where air is dry
Where life is cool without you
And not tougher with you
There, I’ll be reborn
And learn not to make any one torn
Though her face seems to be worn
I’ll love her forever and never allow
Myself to be gone
I’ll bear with her
In both bad and good moments
Till we rise our own flag of love
On this precious state
And make it stiffer than
Romeo and Juliette
I’ll build hope on her
For our love to shine brighter
Than stars and moon
***
STOICHIOMETRY
I am a scientist
Conserving the law of matter
I can crunch moles
When given poem’s mass
How many particles make one poem?
Or shall I conduct an experiment
To investigate what causes ideas
To escape into the atmosphere?
Jot down the first line that stings you
Or wait for a variable to be controlled
It is not magic that produces people poets
Vision is a catalyst
That speeds up the photosynthesis
Of cluttered words through photolysis
Into palpable piece.
Ambition is a library whose art
Paints meaning of success
Using serrated words
Splashing and spluttering in a river of books
Like virgin papers rustling in hands.
Mission is a set goal
That’s compiled of the ticking of watch
Never leave a poem to be finished later
Or else you will cringe from it
As your face crinkling in disgust.
Poetic solution sizzling in laboratory
Applying chemistry
Can manufacture poetry
Under stoichiometry
Also read: Home is everywhere – Charles Lipanda Matenga
_______________
Prepared by 
