Intro: Strange fruit letters to my un born

He is internally bleeding to death on the floor of cold holding cell from the injuries he received after a vicious phone book beating provoked by a long and strained racial conflicted relationship with a certain police officers which finally crossed the line, it had previously being mostly humours  banter and empty threats up until then a nonviolent battle that was started by the clash of opinions’, the police officers racial slurs and socio economic profiling versus his quick wit intelligence and un repentantly humorous emasculating tongue. His mind and spirit travel to the Ether to avoid his physical pain of dying slowly where he is confronted by “Azreil” angel of death to whom he makes a request knowing his last rites as a Christian.

 Ta asks to send his loved ones good bye letters in the form of dreams, unfortunately Azreil cannot grant this right so he transfers him to Saint Peter who handles such divines matter. Peter needs a justification for such a request and so Ta our victim tries to justify the request by saying “strange fruit is what brought me here, it’s what I am,  I just want to leave some normal fruit ?” and so he takes  us back to the start of his life in post-colonial Zimbabwe a time of so called integration, a time when inter racial relationships that we take for granted today were a taboo approached with caution and distrust, it was also a time when children were seen and not heard . A time before Facebook and twitter where people just did not say whatever they wanted without thinking of the ramifications of their words “what happened in the house stayed in the house”. A time when Children did not speak back to their parents or else they would face the wrath of a leather strap or worse . We are taken into a world of two young lovers and the “wolf pack” where their innocence struggles to breathe and is seemingly being stripped from them painfully  and slowly, he is African and he has lost his father young and struggles on the path to masculinity as well as the natural challenges of going through puberty and the complexities that arise from his home environment as his mother attempts to find the right way to raise them alone  as well as the complex process of  integration going  at school. Detta is white and she has also lost her mother to breast cancer, her guide to her femininity she faces the same challenges as he does accept that after her mother’s death her father has become emotionally vacant and withdrawn, they are drawn to each other’s brokenness seemingly unaware of each other’s race, very aware of I am a boy and you’re a girl and this strange feeling they have for each other. At only 12 years old they trying to deal with not only their past’s, puberty, and present but the issue of identity created by the new independent Zimbabwe and people constantly imposing their values and opinions on them that contradict the feelings they have for each other, and so they struggle with their parents “do as I say not as I do” attitudes. They hold onto each as they wade through the fog of change as they try and figure out what traditions to hold onto and leave what new things to embrace and leave while dealing with the fear of the walk into the unknown with the knowledge that time never moves backward. They face 3 realities how they see the world, how people in world see things and what’s really going on minus the bull shit in between. Along the journey they joined by the “wolf pack” a brotherhood of friends who confide in each to retain their sanity from their home lives, a family away from family.

Funny a times  and painfully honest  looking at issues people would rather sweep under the rug out of shame escapism or the simple fact  that to confront the issue would force them (the adults ) to take a very good look in the mirror.  The Strange fruit is simply the bi products of the situations they are forced to adapt to and evolve around and how it affects their adult lives in the latter years. They are the strange fruit and if you look in the mirror maybe just maybe you are to?

Ps: This book is not a biography but it is based on real life events, some I experienced myself and some passed on to me by counterpart’s family and friends.

i ask the look in my own eye's

They are the very people who would smother poetry the part of me which never wakes , for it always dreams , I had to tell them that , that which has a soul can not be killed at best condemned and that’s still my choice. I ask the sadness in my eyes “will somebody pray for me “(did I really want the answer?) Silence and solitude is where I am, caught in this world full of people (so anything is possible ), noise, tears, my favourite smiles oh yes crocodiles smiles. I turn and walk away from it, and back up where I was before alone, (haha ironic), but I am used to it that. Try and consul my self smiling different smiles in the mirror, the childish vanity, I smile with lips could never understand or see, but maybe god see?, nah he always see … … may be those who love like me ? I begin to feel sad and I don’t know why and I don’t want to..?.. I cant breathe, its gonna be alright? ….Right? (The echoes empty halls).

Anybody, even if its not true tell me so… as I sniff my tears away I realize how I miss the faith of being a child that made everything alright , some times I forget to smile, ….. ummm ummmm trying to live life body and soul , looking back at the ruins of war we call our past, shake my head and smile , wondering I survived ? I listen as I watch my body and my soul separate (madness’s slumber ) “then I think to myself what a wonderful world” what made Sachmo say such a thing when he sang , was he crying or smiling, talking?.. .. oh yeah he was singing……..wasn’t he? Sad by my self was I even listening they say the good die young so the mystery of my continuous existence way solved, it crazy in my smiles and tears, …. As if they mattered, my picture of love? Don’t really have one? Picture of love that is so what do I tell my soul if I don’t get see my dreams. (So much pain at such a thought, I close my eyes if only to remember I can not fear the darkness know) I know, I was blind? hmmmm will I believe me? Doesn’t matter what you tell me, as I bear the pain of their conceptuality of me in other words breathing and perception, I would be smiling like an idiot smiling , why rogue …….why do you smile with that sadness in your eyes. Some things will never change.

Agape

god

Snippet- "strange fruit" -chapter letters to my unborn

To my unborn


The Sound of a scribbling pen

After my father passed away it would be the last time in my life that my mother would physically pick me up from the ground if ever I fell down unless it was a life threatening injury, those years were hard for me because I was young and didn’t fully understand but don’t get it wrong she did this out love, there was a hidden wisdom she knew a secret that in the absence of a man I would have to learn very early in life how to pick myself up and keep going, I would have to learn to be my own cheer leader and motivator and I would have to teach my mind to go ahead my soul to provide the energy and my body to follow, my grind would have to be more potent more relentless and to this day I thank her for it. I look at my generation and my counter parts and many men have fallen over and they have stayed there waiting for someone to come and pick them up, they have become baby hooeys’ boys in men’s bodies and sadly I have to let them know no one’s coming to pick you up so get up or go home this is just life. It’s tragic that we now live in society where the men gossip and complain more than the women do, it’s tragic that these very men can be out worked and out endured by the women they aim to dominate when they should be partnering up, and now that I know that you are coming into this world my unborn from eternity into time, I don’t know if you’re a boy or girl but if you are a prince forgive me now, for after you turn age of 7 I will do as my mother did to me because I love you and I want you to be strong and not to get lost on the path of masculinity and I don’t want to make you a cripple in a cruel world,you can cry but you are going to get up on your own. I will pick you up with my words but not with my hands, and if you’re a princess daddy will always be there to pick up when you need me just call.

Allow me to introduce myself I am your father but you can call me Da and you, well you’re not born yet, whether you’re a boy or girl your name will be Anesu which in Shona means “god with us”. I hope and pray to God to live and grow old and grey with you as I have asked to do with your mother ,to guide and watch you become everything you can be but alas the times we live in are crazy and my own heart speaks against me, they say if you have faith then you shouldn’t have fear but I do have one fear that is the sins of the father will visit the son and so I have chosen to write these letters to you so that if anything should happen to me at least I leave you a blue print and in some strange way we have this relationship and you would have less questions as you grow older. I need you to know that I thought about you and loved you before I even met your mother (laughing) you were the subject of many a conversation between me and this guy called Jesus, often I would watch the sun fall wondering where you were. So know that when you are born you are more than enough and everything you do after you breathe well that is just a blessing even the mistakes there just a chance for you to learn you have nothing to prove to anybody accept yourself just know that you are loved. If I have any choice in the matter and I do, I hope to love you both the soft and gentle as well as with the tough love which only time will explain to you because at the time you will think I am unfare as I did with those before me, that tough loves a hard one because you will most probably at the time think I am crazy but when you will get it when your older I hope you understand.

One of the reasons why I write to you now is simply because my father died when I was 7 years old. He was a good man for all that I know and I can remember... when he died something happened to me I am not sure what it was exactly, but what but I do remember I was a very lost little boy in the dark trying to fill a void it is here I learnt to cry like an adult with a false sense of dignity and not like a child with all emotion and hurt such as to take my soul to laundry mat as god had designed tears for, I learnt one of the great lies of being an adult while I still 7,how to be a true thespian to look normal and well groomed on the surface while my soul was in torment walking the on coals of hell searching for significance and self-worth, when you arrive in this world and live long enough there are things that you will go through that words will fail to describe some of them good and some of them well you will figure it out , these moments will be yours and yours alone, these moments will be the places where people fail to understand you and often you will be aware that you walk with god and god alone all your life... and my father passing was one of them for me. Anyway the problem is that I knew him (my father)as a child would know his father, pretty much as a super hero with a cape and spandex an immortal who could do anything and the only other true father I knew was God and I assure that has being a very complicated relationship for lack of relationship, Who in himself is perfection? The dilemma for me came as I grew older, there was not only a need for guidance but a need to understanding my frailties and shortcomings as well as my strengths and gifts, my quirkiness, the heart inside of my chest that seemed schizophrenic one day it wants to lay down and die and the next moment it was defiant fiery it would lift its middle finger at life and says bring it on. One of the hardest things to achieve and master in life and I can warn you about it now is balance I know because I am still a student of balance as I write to you, it is something I still struggle with today and I am sure I will until I am called home by the lord, the loss of my father also caused me to grow at a rate faster than my counter parts again with little guidance I found the scales tipped and I stumbled feeling my way through life never truly knowing whether I was right or wrong ( alight sigh) all I needed was a nod or pat on the back a little affirmation. In it all I soon figured out I had soul that didn’t compromise , a mind that rarely slept and heart that was driven and hardened with callus on the outside but very tender inside ,for most of my life I pretty much walked alone even thou I wasn’t.. I think I am doing better now but along the way I made a lot of mistakes ... and I assure this world is very unforgiving and I had to learn that one’s mistakes do not define who you are, and I had to learn how to forgive myself because if you don’t you become a cripple and a puppet for Satan.

I really hope you get to know me as a man, as Mandela once said “in my strengths and great victories as well as all my weakness and failures.” You need to see me 360 degrees in all my seasons somehow it will help you understand yourself better what I call our complexities, I hope to be a book of knowledge for you as those who were before me were to me my parents ,your grandparents . My swagga is imprinted in your veins it’s just gonna come out you it might even be surprised hopefully in a good way(laughing) but there a lot things I will teach you intentionally like words this world doesn’t use any more like “integrity honour loyalty self-worth self-sacrifice family purpose long suffering to mention a few” having said that I am a man so from observing me you are going to learn what to do and what not to do because I have flaws I can admit that openly, you see how you have me teaching already because real men and we are a dying breed we can admit when we are wrong actually it’s a strength the part of you we will work on its called developing character, and hopefully you are a faster learner than I was because I was hard headed and have the scars to prove it. Secondly the ability to admit you were wrong with an open mind and sincere heart allows the capacity to learn faster than those around you. I don’t know why it’s so heavy on my heart but I feel I have to pound this into your head your coming into world where everyone got a get rich or die trying mentality baby if you can put a monetary value on its not worth shit. You can’t buy love and you can’t buy time you can’t buy purpose , you can’t buy satisfaction all the free things of god cost that something that isn’t money, I remember when I was growing up I had friend who was extremely rich and he could understand the satisfaction I got as boy becoming a man doing certain manual jobs and he used to make fun of me but I also remember how sad he was and how jealous he would get when my mother would look at a simple thing like the lawn being cut and say good job and say the “man of house”. My point is this doesn’t be deceived if you can put a monetary value on anything truly valuable. I am keep pounding it into your head so you aight for now. Before I end my entry for the day I need to address two genetic tendencies you might have to address as you get older which might make your life complex. I am strong believer in embracing your uniqueness, so the first issue is I have what they call an acquired sense of humour and I am allergic to stupid people this particular condition cannot be cured, but you can hide it by not saying anything at all and laughing in your head, but I must warn you might find yourself feeling the urge to say something or simply slap the taste out of fool. It’s natural try your best to walk away , your mother will not approve but if the urge over takes you hit them in throat or groin, number 2 you better pray you inherited my speed to run (laughing) okay we got that one out the way . The second issues is more serious it’s on your mother side I didn’t know what I was marrying into I am just put it out there but I still love her… most of the time, if you find yourself having a urge to serial ass slapping grabbing tendencies especially post puberty it’s her, I am serious when I met your mother my ass looked like half a basketball now I got ass dimples and it’s not from working out (laughing). If you are having this issue as you get older don’t seek therapy it won’t work, don’t talk to me talk to your mother I am still trying to cure her but it has its moments. That’s me for the day I don’t want to flood your mind I hit you up some more tomorrow and remember daddy loves you

The scribbling stops

About strange fruit

About

For me strange fruit is not about racism but rather a plethora of issues in society we would rather sweep under the rug be it out of shame escapism or ignorance and we grow up with it, we fall from the vine and we finely pick it up and look in the mirror and you would be surprised who is a strange fruit. I tackle issues like fatherlessness, drugs, body image of course racial profiling both ways, stereo types to abuse of child-women- men etc. I face off with dark side which twins the light of humanity what I like our call our complexities as human beings, I am not a psychologist but society seems to be suffering from an extremely high levels of escapism and moral bankruptcy if not a full out recession in context of morals and love, and we would rather not face the truth but float by in a dreamy and drugged up state until individuals are awoken on personal levels by the pains of the vicissitude’s of life hence so much mental illness of late. This book is not designed to change lives you’re the master of your own mind so only you can do the change thing if you want to, they call it freedom of choice or individuality use it. To me society is the tree and these issues we do not address are the strange fruit we see in our children in our homes on our streets in the nations in and in the world and for those who can be honest in the mirror . Okay let’s get to the grits of it…

For those who do not know “Strange fruit” was originally a song made famous by Billy Holiday and Nina Simone about the brutal killing of slaves in the south of the Americas and after they were killed they were hung on popular tree’s to instil fear in other slaves and serve an as example . Two reasons why I choose it as the title for the book, the first was when i looked into the mirror at the age 30 with my shirt off and could see all these scars which I never when I left Zimbabwe if I was the tree the scars where the strange fruit from racial conflicts I would rather of walked away from but sometimes you have to fight the beast one cannot always hide behind passiveness and the hope of change. Secondly I looked at society and all the crazy killings going on in the world beautiful youg girl’s filled insecurity, grown men who still act like boys and thought to my self

“Satan’s putting in Extra time and we are the ones eating this strange fruit and we end up being the strange fruit”..

Now before I go any further I want to clarify something black men during slavery where not the first people to be lynched, I can see some of your eyes widen “what ?” … “so who was it?”

Many will argue this fact I am just here to enlighten the first people to lynched by white men where white women during the mid-evil times through witch hunts as a control mechanism out of the fear. Women who choose to act independently of men and refused to conform to the social norms of the times where accused of being a witch and then tortured raped and public hangings and burnings enforced by the clergy and mobs of ignorant men and scared women, any woman who acted out of the norm could be accused of being witch having said that I wasn’t there but we do know from history many innocent women were tortured hung and burnt alive during this period, but I do know at the same time in Africa women were queens warriors(Amazonians)and advisors to chiefs and kings a historic fact of course Africa wasn’t perfect ,yes we had some tribes doing messed up stuff but for most of our history women in Africa where highly revered until colonization when our men adapted western stances and ideology, when slaves came across the ocean the mechanism of fear control and torture used to make women confess they were witches was then extended to slaves to break their minds and plant the seed of inferiority hence forth lynching as was originally done to women in the mid evil age. Know in life as far as I am concerned and observed there are three sets of treatment for human beings and please forgive my example. You might not agree but the honesty in your own heart you can not deny.

If a young white man was seen walking/staggering down the road and he is drunk he was/is having a good time. If a black male is seen staggering down the road he is a threat or one of those people and if a woman is seen staggering drunk down the road she is a dirty slut bitch or a whore, asking for it. It is based on the observation of this tier that I wrote this book with the highest level of impartiality life experience will allow me to have, having being raised by a women I saw their plight in a society blindly led by men’s ego’s and I admired these women’s strength how they endured circumstance and I bared witness to their brokenness and how resilient they were I am not an authority on women but I am an authority on pain, process, scars and we share them (scars that is ) over the years, and I myself for those of you who haven’t guessed am African so with a certain level of authority I can speak on the subject of being black in the western world and what I o

bserve from this side of the eye ball history is written by those who win war so this story I share is untold despite what they say it seems we are still fighting for the right to be I and I or as say my true self. I have a soft spot for women I have hunger for truth and I have very low tolerance for racism black or white anybody in this case and I am innately allergic to stupid people. If you dare come walk with me.

My ( heart brother)

My trustiest thoughts are found in the parts of my mind i dare to, but i am not scared to explore
My true beauty is held by the callus’s of my soul from a life lived hard.. no regrets .. so we think?
My originality is found in the things i am still discovering and shocked about myself
My truest pain is a secret only god knows .. as it should be?




My revelation is when i want to fly but i am not sure which is Broken my wings, my heart or my mind but somehow i am in the sky . Then I realise he is holding me up again hahah (father)
My fullness is when there is nothing left , and this state of being doesn’t cause me fear.
My truest source of pride is my mother smile my families touch.

My greatest challenge.. is simple obedience when god speaks and tells me to move .
My truest movement has always being in my first step and my last breathe..
My truest sin is the same as my strength.. Lack of and the presence of faith ...
My greatest annoyance is this thing called courage.. And what it demands of me
My truest desire ummmm ? Is to learn how to love ...(i am serious)
My heart .. Can only be given to those who can accept without understanding
My truest need for rehab is silly accepting that i am not in control.. And staying in that mind state..
My truest dream is to one day be good father ..... that’s all everything else seems obscure ...
That’s me and my .. so what about you ....

Dedicated to those who take time to learn about themselves


Gerald Tapfuma Munengami aka “child”

This part of me

I have bumped into this part of me again , which I felt was dormant or dead...
This part of me seeks perfection and peace knowing i will never see nor achieve them in this world
This part of me wants to rise to great heights knowing we could fall, because we have done so before .
I want to lay down and rest but it insist on getting up and trying again
(madness i tell you haha )
Although inside we are more than one .....in this world this part of me makes me walk alone ..
This part of me dates me in silence ,the absence of people ..yet the presence of god..
Where my souls speaks to my mind, and the mind is true to the heart
I am yet to decide whether I like it or hate, but it is a part of me ... unfortunately it hurts

We sit in silence, and converse with no words
We laugh with no breathe, and shine with alight not of our own
You remind me of words , the world has forgotten
Honour courage selflessness ... umm (moment of thought) the list goes on
The forgotten words make me smile because of who they are, and the surge of pain
Deep in the soul .. to see them hanging lost in time like strange fruit
The shadow pawn that painted the crow black
The storm that raged (laugh of madness) and they didn’t see a drop
The softest place on earth for me to exist , the complexity of god because you are a rock
In stagnant motion we walk on in un cried tears , and time becomes our currency

We play chess as we debate the purpose of tears
They seem to be a waste of time .. but they tend to cleanse the soul over the years
The wars are personal ones ...victories loses, the wars that go on unnoticed in between my ears
Inspiration sits and ponders on my forehead contemplating the write moment
Fear waits for soul to look away so it can creep closer to my heart
Courage faith and indecision locked in immortal combat
My soul looks at its twin which would be my infinite ... ... communion
They laugh with no breath .. they cry with tears .. and they live with all life .. this part of me
Turns around to walk away ... strange because you know we will always be one

This poem is yours

We seem to have met in a place where the sins of the father visit the child
They say they stole innocents from us... i think maybe it was ignorance ?
We where children and in his hands hence still innocent
They say my jagged edge is ugly, her smoothness to raw
We hug like family un ashamed, we dance like lovers unscripted theatre
We sing like immortals, greater like spirits heads down before god praising
(to you) your voice is like being that boat steeping out onto water in faith and belief
Your brokenness is trying to stop my own heart bleeding
only to those who understand , i rip my own rib out to let the wind free
for the wind has free soul only tamed by god himself
and the wind stands before me ... and i stand before her a storm
we have shape or form ... we exist ... time and space
i look back to see my sins chasing me ... before us is glory
i look down into the sacrifice of life swet blood and tears.
i look at her ... hahha and see secrets i can’t even tell her for they are mine and mine alone
so we stop remembering , we exist in a world they seem to have forgotten
We dream, we love we make mistakes, we have learnt to forgive
And praise in our foolishness
And she stands before me, the wind and self laugh in the midst of storm
and there is L