Aloisa by Kristina Rungano

TABLE OF CONTENTS Tired At Last ............................................................................................................................................ 3 Will You Answer Me Now? ..................................................................................................................... 3 The choice was mine ............................................................................................................................... 3 Endless pardoneZ-moiS ........................................................................................................................... 4 Too many memories ............................................................................................................................... 4 The poisoned goblet now ........................................................................................................................ 4 Aloisa (i) .................................................................................................................................................... 5 The whoosh of Aloisa’s hand .................................................................................................................... 5 Aloisa (ii) ................................................................................................................................................... 5 Aloisa (iii) .................................................................................................................................................. 6 Aloisa (iv) .................................................................................................................................................. 6 Aloisa (v) ................................................................................................................................................... 6 Aloisa (vi) .................................................................................................................................................. 7 Aloisa (vii) ................................................................................................................................................. 9 Peaceful fire.............................................................................................................................................. 9 The price of thy respect ........................................................................................................................ 10 The morning after the previous night ................................................................................................... 11 To the one I love ................................................................................................................................... 11 My final sacrament…

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By Aloisa ......................................................................................................... 12

© Kristina Rungano (1988)

Tired At Last Strange, It’s always cold And the recriminations I cannot yet unfold. I was a chameleon Whose heart took on a million shades a turn. Seem to falter in my step Before I take to algebraic terms To ease my haunted past.

Will You Answer Me Now? This nub continues to swell And bubbles with the vibrations of your voice. Refrain your whisper It draws anger From so much hurt I owe you still. And now the lies have bubbled through It’s the honesty that we miss most of all. No longer a man, You A sorry slip of a dribbling pixie Crying softly in the darkness. This itchy cough causing waves within my chest No longer just pain.

The Choice Was Mine I lumberjack Love neither wife nor whore See myself A consecrated urchin smiling over my father’s tomb. My sense of humour Deems I am neither amused Nor gratify my wounded speech To calculate my manhood by my crooked eye. Forgiveness, no I seek reprieve To avoid the happening of my fate Report failure. No more The moon fades And my laughter most all Oh to long for warmth and happiness In those good old days Before the choice was mine. © Kristina Rungano

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Endless pardoneZ-moiS Dark sombre day And the laughing eyes of a traitor stranger The lies we whispered then And the endless good sorries The two of us Sitting on a boat That dared not disturb the ebbing flame. Of our tomorrow We fear no more Than the bare mind of an unmanned womb Fanatics of love, We feign joy. Mouse of changeling images How can I help you find your voice When you are the gout beneath my wind Our thirsted waters still scald the other, To wallow now In the endless jamboree That once replaced The happy glow inside your eye.

Too many memories Yeah, I am me Hear the swaying of my stomach. How can I forget The wallowing of the wind Amongst the disintegrated clouds On a purple evening That marked the forgotten passion of my end. And now my tainted shadow Saved by the wit of a journalist’s trump card. And silence, foreboding Goddess; Hear my memories of purity. Salt please Soak my livid soul.

The poisoned goblet now I haven’t once my heart asunder Carefully eye the poisoned goblet Deep within the voice of reason To once No more forget me nots But bids that sweet latitude from which she must Make post haste away – before Aloisa speaks. Page 4

© Kristina Rungano (1988)

Aloisa (i) Sometimes in my mind’s journeys I visit the places we once walked When it seemed There were things that meant more to us than life Like rocks And trees And clouds And soft streams And grass We were most of all captured by some timeless pace Gently unfolding each other’s dreams. One heart beat, the other answered. Oh sweet Aloisa and his Gilberta. Now Hears me no more I but a solitary tress Sun kissed by rain And the memory of another’s love.

The whoosh of Aloisa’s hand I was born to aspire for greatness But to always, I’d settle for you. Sweet memory of my Aloisa When she was a cloud Swaying gently above a terracotta glade. I still recall that very place When suddenly all my aspirations had come to nought.

Aloisa (ii) One door shuts Another follows These two particles of some idiosyncratic farce Forever sit on separate clouds Shrouded by mist And the distant cooing of a trapped bird Sings its dusk song at noon And the voice of a shattered soul We’ve each of us persecuted in our separate ways And this soothsay If ever there is to be written the truth This our legacy it is true We dare not face the sun now.

© Kristina Rungano

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Aloisa (iii) Two raindrops on some old dilapidated ceiling One complements the other The other shines a light And finds itself face first In this painful notion of how Until the day he die He’d be a complement of my warm breath.

Aloisa (iv) As your wretched manhood enters mine I feel nothing but pain And this drowning feeling That once again I’ve let you down. See Aloisa He gently unfold one eyelid And so succumbs to his own repose.

Aloisa (v) As dawn creeps in We see at last what we’ve become Two wretched souls with nothing left to say. And so our silent copulation To which we both now know Some other guy will some day say Will you take me And be my lawfully wedded joy. Dawn creeps in I ask at last, that once again The unadulterated beauty of your naked form My most sweet Aloisa of them all. To always remember you thus Like the bubbling of a tree clad lake. Slowly meanders next to mine. And the warm embrace of your loveless arms. Promise me one thing more You shall forever be wretched too.

… 1987

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© Kristina Rungano (1988)

Aloisa (vi) The ghost of my haunted visage Mother came back last year Hush hush, mother speaks in darker tones. She is the breeze brushing past the sun Speak mother And before the noon When the moon has stopped its swaying. I am a queen Cool under the fire of our laughter For you my past Long surrendered to the dawn. I am a Goddess-like butterfly Distant, Silent in its magnificent mood Disturbed only by my inner peace. I am Aloisa Infatuated by the sound of a rock Or a cloud And the morning Shedding its innocence beneath a stream. I am the glow of dusk Aloisa Crucified by my father’s memory. The haphazard movement of your darning yarn A storm erupts where I hang beneath the gallows Recalls the forgotten feelings of my culture Betrayed by the spirit of my consciousness. From gwata kwata and nhopi I emerged My wife A lever do I seek Grows ragged. My memories of her laughter beneath the mealie plantations. So many feelings for my past. I speak for Aloisa A gull that has lost its wings And when he took a waive She should have him a lover. Save Aloisa for the Gods. He is the wind charging against his inner self

© Kristina Rungano

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He is thunderbolt locked away by his own fear He is round-bodied because his heart is slack. What is hell without its Hades Mislead by his outlook Until he was resurrected To stand at the summit Where he now casts his one baleful eye. He is the fire singing across the ocean Soft, Hardly audible. Particles of my soul lie beneath his condescending aura As I sovereign no more Lie helpless within the quiver of his fingers. Save Aloisa, he is a bastard No, not by his mother She lost her dignity by no less than a king. He is the laughter Menacing beyond consciousness. Aloisa lost his eye His taste buds soured. Save Aloisa The flower he now wears, he will infest his belly. The ornament beneath his brow is all that bares his name Surrendered to him by a plastic surgeon. So the sun hobbles in his fore. Save Aloisa The glazed look The forgotten memories of love. No more warmth, I betray, Too many feelings.

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© Kristina Rungano (1988)

Aloisa (vii) How can we explain With but half a dream between us both And the memory of where you now reside Singing love songs to some other dame Whose other dream resides In some other place. Travellers all on some wretched ship With our half baked memories And lonely remembrances For the other half Stolen by some mistook chance Of half baked dreams And hopes all shattered. So finely tuned Between a splinter and the lonely retrospection Never once did we forget, how The sweetest dreams reside Just before the haphazard jumble of being thus awaked.

… 1988

Peaceful fire So this is it This is hell Where someone took my precious And whilst she followed that her course The moon seered through The dilapidated heart of an old man’s shoes. Moon, silently watchful Awakes The memory of some glass spilling over beneath a tap, when You were the dance floor of my encumbrance. Take me moon where you are bound. Where I follow there is no end Watch my hallowing beams of laughter Tainted soul never so serene. It’s hell just sitting here under spitfire. Once cold Grow warm to my belated awakening Keep me now, where you are safest.

© Kristina Rungano

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The price of thy respect A rose casts its prickly shadow Against a snowflake Protected by some other sound From which she stood accused. It was that one careless mention Of how she’d have her dreams To a society Whose whimsical notion is so entrenched. She must turn to death. She says Someone, please It is not easy to be owned. Father forgive him He has taken my pride But don’t you see? It is nobody’s business. ----------------------She once more sits Poised On the thin edge of now Walks the tightrope Clinging to the last dregs of hope Attempts once more to sever the knot As her step grows dry See, A relentless woman afraid to be kind. And with each night Her memories Of how they could never take each other beyond physical distress. Once again, she sleeps To wake in most unfamed jeopardy Where somewhere, she sacrificed his pride So well advised of the hammering that blows his mind Of torn souls and wild speeches That only yesterday, she made. They’ve all accused him A bloodless conspirator. But she She neither hate what rests Beyond her heart’s conception.

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© Kristina Rungano (1988)

The morning after the previous night She once again awakes Loved by none but that of woe Recalls the perfection of a love, she once beheld Ravaged and betrayed. Her face Smiling over his thwarted pride She tramples on. From innocence to whoredom She’d soon be led. Once looked on life through love’s outlook. Child no more Murderer turned to self-annihilation. Checked by some angelic smile She grovels in the lies he wound. So simple his case Turned relief. God dog liar And bloodless agony. She once again recalls, The tale of a man haunted by his desires. And that of a woman Two women. Shouts I die now not for love It does not exist. It is this me you have made I loathe.

To the one I love If you ask me I will come All you have to do is to ask. If you ask me I will follow Until the end of time. I have tried a million times to change my love But I now remember who you are If you ask me I will come. So long my love Until the end of time. © Kristina Rungano

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My final sacrament…

By Aloisa

Look I’ve aged The wrinkle on my inner side Bestows upon my visage The grave laughter of a man of wealth. I was Apollo Who outshone the moon I, Aloisa Too late inspire a sense of touch In hell there are no carpet sales. What poor soul treads my threadbare floor This my best friend A walking stick, sees me to the end. Who knows Perhaps I’ll buy my way past death; They’ll bury my intestines in cold store Yeah, that’s me I’ll be their national monument. In this zoo Stop my laughter; Why I, Aloisa I speak only of what you have made me A Godless man Given to chauvinistic styles. Gilberta how quickly you soon forgave. I long for the ruthlessness of your divine friendship. It was this permissive society And the incessant lessons I learnt Of how there was no dignity in being poor. Look I’ve tread naked my gutless past Hear my voice Poor Aloisa Rejected by his one true friend when she forgave. He returns to his bejewelled self-made hovel Where in his last breath He nurses the gun wound in his back. Please, my precious concubine Awaken the other barrel Lest we can see the other shade Oh, how I long for the brutal honesty of your sweet voice. I stop.

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© Kristina Rungano (1988)