EMMANUEL RWOTNGEYO ABWOLA

 He: ‎I loved you long before my mouth found courage for your name, ‎Before your laughter turned the ordinary air to flame. ‎You move like midnight teaching stars how they should shine, ‎And every room betrays itself whenever you are inside. ‎Tell me to leave  ‎I swear the wind itself would disobey, ‎For even silence leans toward you when you walk away. ‎ ‎She: ‎Do not mistake my trembling for surrender to your art, ‎I have seen kingdoms built by men with beautiful hearts. ‎Your words are velvet knives; they kiss before they bleed, ‎And women fall like autumn leaves wherever you may breathe. ‎Yet cruel is my resistance, for my guarded soul still knows: ‎A flower can fear the fire… and still turn toward its glow. ‎ ‎He: ‎I carry your name the way oceans carry the moon  ‎Pulled without reason, restless beneath ruin. ‎Your eyes are dangerous scriptures no wise man survives, ‎Yet I return to read them as though ruin were divine. ‎Say you do not love me, still my soul will und...

 ‎It’s strange how some stories refuse to end properly ‎they pause, they drift, they wait in quiet places. ‎Ours did that… somewhere between then and now, ‎between who we were and who we pretend to be. ‎And when I saw you again, nothing announced itself ‎no grand moment, no revelation ‎just a subtle shift, ‎like something unfinished recognizing its other half in passing. ‎ ‎We talked the way people do when they avoid the truth well ‎soft laughter, borrowed futures, careless “what ifs.” ‎But beneath it, something kept leaning closer, ‎something neither of us named. ‎You asked questions that brushed too near the surface, ‎and I answered like someone protecting a secret ‎that has already been discovered, ‎just never spoken aloud. ‎ ‎Now I understand ‎not everything meant to be felt is meant to be held. ‎Some things exist best in that fragile distance ‎where nothing is promised, yet nothing fully fades. ‎And maybe that’s what this is… ‎not love declared, not love denied ‎just something...

  ‎Rhythm of Resilience ‎ ‎The drums of Africa do not tire. ‎They beat beneath the baobab, ‎they echo through the graves of warriors, ‎they whisper through the Nile, ‎and thunder in the Congo’s green lungs. ‎ ‎Our story was not written in silk, ‎nor sung in glass palaces ‎it was carved in stone, ‎in scars, ‎in the sweat of mothers who bore nations ‎on their bending backs. ‎ ‎The world wars raged ‎sons of Africa marched across seas not theirs, ‎to bleed on foreign soils, ‎their bones scattered in fields of Europe, ‎their courage unrecorded in imperial ledgers. ‎Yet, they returned with fire in their eyes, ‎for they had seen kingdoms crumble, ‎and knew that chains too could be broken. ‎ ‎And so the tide rose ‎Kwame Nkrumah, ‎with a dream vast as the Atlantic, ‎shouted: Seek ye first the political kingdom! ‎Milton Obote, ‎steady as the Ugandan hills, ‎stirred his people to stand. ‎Jomo Kenyatta’s fists ‎were mountains unshaken. ‎Patrice Lumumba’s voice ‎a lion’s roar torn too soon. ‎Ju...

  ‎Ancestral Echoes ‎ ‎(Chapter One of African Hymns) ‎ ‎The drum remembers, ‎even when silence lays heavy on the soil. ‎Its skin is stitched with centuries, ‎its rhythm a memory of footsteps ‎that once marched barefoot ‎through kingdoms carved from iron and song. ‎ ‎I hear the whispers of griots, ‎their voices cracked with age yet eternal, ‎telling us: Africa is not a wound to be dressed in pity, ‎she is a scar turned into scripture, ‎a mother whose lullabies ‎still echo through the marrow of our bones. ‎ ‎The baobab stretches its arms skyward ‎roots sunk deep in red soil, ‎branches open like an elder’s embrace. ‎It teaches us: ‎to stand tall, ‎one must bow first to the ground that bore them. ‎ ‎And so I bow ‎to Nubian sands, ‎to Buganda’s drums, ‎to Timbuktu’s libraries where ink was a river, ‎to the nameless warriors whose names ‎still live in the tongues of children ‎shaping alphabets with their laughter. ‎ ‎But hea...

An Acholi! Kom Acholi! Gin Acholi, bedo Acholi! I am the drumbeat before dawn a whisper between stars and soil, where ancestors walk barefoot through the silence of millet fields, and lightning speaks in the tongue of gods. An Acholi! Kom Acholi! Gin Acholi, bedo Acholi! I am the child of Rwot, born not from blood alone, but from Wang Oo; the fire of story, where truth and proverb kiss in the smoke. I do not just live.I echo. I do not just speak.I inherit. Pe an dano keken.An Acholi! Pe an lalweny keken.An Acholi! Call me Ladit’s pride, call me twon coo wod luo, for I carry the ache of war, and the wine of survival in the same gourd. My name is a war song turned lullaby a sharp spear that now plants cassava. My tongue can summon the rain, or silence a storm. An Acholi! An latin lyec Kom Acholi! I have danced with scars on my shoulders, to Bwola; the dance of kings, where circles are not just shapes but eternal covenants of community, of return. I speak in metaphors my enemies cannot t...

 ‌ Theme: A place I call home ‌Category: Poetry  THE SONG WITH LIMBS by Sekabira Owen   There is, for me, no home  No place, not one of known foam  There is no bed, not even a tree  Under which I can be truly free.   There is but a song,  Not just a tune, but a call so strong.  The song that nursed my ears at my mother's breast.  When mother left, this song was all I could trust.  Slowly, it's feet walked me from my despair  Shutting the door of pain behind me  In it's open arms I was caressed, my mind annexed  This song, whose words are inscribed to my soul,  held my hand all through,  even as I faced my most terrifying foe.  So there is, for me, no place  There's only a song  but when played  I'm carried away to the place I find peace  The song with limbs,  is my only home. Mike Owens Quinton