Mankhokwe...

We are in the third row. The three of us. We have marched in while there are spaces, gaping and wide, but have opted for the third one. There is the first one, vacant. The second one, vacant. The fourth one, sparsely populated. But it is the third one we have chosen. Before us the stage is set. The inaugural edition of The Land of Poets Festival is in progress. We have come in late. We have found the programme already underway. However, I am sure, we have not missed a lot. Two men are called on stage after we have settled properly. Only one has a label attached to him. They call him Mr. Malawi. The other one is just Mr. Malawi’s friend. They have an act to perform. Theirs is not poetry. Just some strands of art. Mr. Malawi is the short one. The one who has high heeled shoes to obviously compensate for the gift God did not trust him with: height. He is the one who speaks in a replica of the former head of state, late Bingu wa Mutharika. The way his voice pours o...

Alex was not the boy who lived next door, no! At first, he used to live across the small street that separated our households. Then, he was the boy, actually the best friend, who lived a plot away – after some years. Alex was the one whom I played with. He was the one whom when he joined me at Zingwangwa Secondary School, a year below me, made me excited as I introduced him to the snippets of Secondary school life. We were close the very first days in Secondary School, the time he was just getting acquainted to the environment of putting on a pair of trousers at school and not some grey shorts of Chimwankhunda Primary School. People lied about me and Alex. They said we were brothers. The truth, however, started emerging as we went on with our educational path that we were not brothers, not only by divine providence but also choices. As Alex polarized himself to the sciences, I found my solace in the humanities. There, our paths diverged and we put to rest al...

There was something about Marianne that human things do not have in real life. In books and creative writing sessions, people with the gracious smile of her exist as created by fanciful writers and wild poets. Within the blankets of a poetry book, you can find a sensual cheerfulness in personas of her nature. Beyond that, the only place you find them in real life is nowhere but Marianne. Marianne was not Leticia, the girl next door. Unlike the girl who had let me feel what lips tasted like, Marianne was full of honour and grace such that in her laughter all that one felt was a gentle censure. It was not loud. It was meek. One could hear the bleating of a lamb about to be sacrificed in it. Leticia was loud, not on anything but laughter. Her laughter was what attracted me to her in the early days. I surely know little of what I found interesting in it. Today, hearing it again, I would close my ears. However, she is dead and I will never hear it again. Not in this life...