Night Birds by Tatenda William Mhlanga

Night draws closer with end day

Where they take over in hunt of prey

Night birds-exhausted they fly not

Parroting, they cry not

Smile a lot, squeaking,

Chattering, glittering

When the lights are more than dim-dark

When we the dogs that bark

Behind bars, try our luck

Not with our catapults loose

Misled is our target we miss,

In agony, them gliding, we can’t resist

Starring, like queens, but we as kings

Of unmeasured wit, defiant

Amused not of their deviance

To wander while others pray, misled

Skinny, blindfolded and lost

For hunger not to satisfy

Rotten flesh, disabled to gratify

Integrity-sweltering, for night birds of prey?

We long for fleshy birds of day.

FRIEND OR FOE by Witness Hamudi

Ignore the turning of a friend to a foe,

When you’re being proven a fool,

Their laughter when you fall off a stool,

Their frowning when you soundly chew

Or the loneliness you go through,

When you enroll in a new school

But ignore not when a foe turns a friend;

It may be true or utter pretense.

Ignore not the repentance

It may be to bind or slacken your acquaintance.

All other things you may ignore,

But not when you make a friend out of a foe.