The Cage
On the cusp of reformation
By the brink of understanding
Near the edges of the dawn
Through the doors of transforming
the reality that holds us
in our cages of identity
with a chance of confronting
the ones that we were meant to be
By the tip of the wing
That would carry us to recognize
Unities of which we sing
But ignore before our eyes
while extending our hope
to the surface of a fingertip
with one moment left to touch
or forever let it slip
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poem by Frank Bana
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A distillation...
Our poem is a distillation
wrung from common and raw elements
unhusked grains of experience
drops for the journey's flask
caught from barely accessible slopes
of a deep desert well
sweet syrups tapped
from the surface of a long-lived tree
risen darkly from the hidden roots
poetry a hard-won slight reward
preserved, patrolled and guarded
once captured, always held
these works are power for their defenders
like a proof of science
which cannot be unfounded
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poem by Frank Bana
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Inauguration Platform Song
Rebuild the railways!
See those bullet trains
Superheroes in the night
Scattering the leaves and dust
Speeding like arrows to the coast
Rebuild the railways!
Bring high-fliers to the land
Speculators down to earth
Investors make a killing
Passengers can surf
Across the virtual plains
Rebuild the railways!
Magnetic rails to rising sun
National spirit of Whitman
In the post-industrial age
Obama's legacy to come
Speeding through our freighted days
Don't be slow, super-conductors
Get on board, fire up the train
It's time to dump the fossil fuel
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poem by Frank Bana
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Mirage
Dust circles in motion
Heat dance on my shoes
Haunted by search and memory
Taunted by Kalahari day
Thirsty clouds break through the skies
Cricket armies start to hum
Pula e tla leng?
When will the rains come?
From the skies no word arrives
No echoes from the koppies
Only canopy of blue
That covers both the truth and dust
That would envelop me in lies.
A brief caress of breeze
On dry leaves of Acacia
But no relief for me
Perpetual on the desert ridge
Which overlooks but cannot reach
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poem by Frank Bana
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You find yourself loved...
You find yourself loved
As seen by other eyes
It may be an acceptable surprise
A discovery of life
To be admired, an object of longing
Can be very tiresome
A criminal act, or worse –
Who needs to be loved that way
If that’s all there is?
And to be “appreciated”
As in the frame of some painting
With your soul in some gallery
With admission far from free
Is not to be respected
In what is worthy of respect
In what you consider vital
For the reasons you choose
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poem by Frank Bana
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This is Your World (an American dream)
Don't curse the absence of snow on the slopes
This is the world that grew as you wanted
Nor pine for the sons and daughters you've lost
Your's is the army for which they enlisted
Yes, this is the world you voted for
The future to which you relinquished control
Don't cry for the youth, their innocence lost
This is corruption your cable bill cost
Don't wail for the absence of blue-collar work
Destroyed by the goods you bought home from Wal-Mart
Yes, this is the world you sat back to see
Unfold on your shiny new flat-screen TV
The world that you saw mutate every day
Drifting out of your reach, as you left for work
Blowing clean out of your way
The dry leaves onto the street.
poem by Frank Bana
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Sky
It was 16 degrees below freezing today.
The sky was blue, bright and vast.
I looked more closely at the sky
And it was suffused by sunlight, the same bright sunlight
That you are bathed in.
There was a corner of the sky that was grey and empty
Where you usually are.
I resolved to look more deeply, more intensely
At this vacant part of the majestic sky.
The deeper I concentrated, the more you emerged
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poem by Frank Bana
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Let us unify
Let us unify in search and experience
Let us not be fragmented by the fragmentation of experience
In our modern century
Let us recall a union of solidarity
On which we base our seeking for truth
On the explosive, shifting ground
Of our modern century
Let us form alliances across the categories
Of class and race and gender
That an oppressive system of profit
Imposes and aims to make essential
Let our understanding encompass
The morbid symptoms that arise in our fellows
Resulting from the time the old order
Takes to die
Let our love be a force for radicalism
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poem by Frank Bana
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The Heart of Things
There must be a man somewhere
Who sees into the heart of things.
Ventricles clogged by secret lust
For violence, bitter juice, revenge
Lost hope in passage, aspiration,
Breath, the dreams of dull routines
Drops of cherry-coloured tears
In channels run, immortal fears
That rear unbidden, clog and check
And strangle life remaining
Elevated, rising steam
From burning embers of the fight
Bright visions of eternity
In yearning for immunity
The heart lies void, resentful in the night
Its longing an imperative
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poem by Frank Bana
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Fishes
I do not really know
If the little fish are hungry
Even for goldfish, they are inarticulate
And their silence so disturbs me
I am ignorant of the stories
Of the fishes on my plate
Were they raised up in Poseidon nets
Or dragged out by their lower lips
To this lifeless destination
Did worms burrow
Pathways through their faces
As they gasped their last
In chemical disarray
How can I trust the souls of fish
Whose eyes I cannot see
I need to determine why
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poem by Frank Bana
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