Poem
Kayo Chingonyi
calling a spade a spade
calling a spade a spade
calling a spade a spade
You sly devil. Lounging in a Pinter scriptor pitched from a transit van’s, rolled-down, window;
my shadow on this unlit road, though you’ve been
smuggled from polite conversation. So when
a friend of a friend has you poised on his lips
you are not what he means, no call for balled fist,
since he’s only signifyin(g) on the sign;
making wine from the bad blood of history.
Think of how you came into my life that day,
of leaves strewn as I had never seen them strewn,
knocking me about the head with your dark hands.
© 2011, Kayo Chingonyi
Published with kind permission of the author.
Kayo Chingonyi
(Zambia, 1987)
With powerful nuance and great emotional depth, Kayo Chingonyi’s poems are informed by an enthusiasm for music as well as literature. A fellow of The Complete Works programme for diversity and quality in British Poetry, he was awarded the Geoffrey Dearmer Prize in 2012, was the Associate Poet at the Institute of Contemporary Arts from Autumn 2015 to Spring 2016 and has held many residencies inc...
Poems
Poems of Kayo Chingonyi
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calling a spade a spade
You sly devil. Lounging in a Pinter scriptor pitched from a transit van’s, rolled-down, window;
my shadow on this unlit road, though you’ve been
smuggled from polite conversation. So when
a friend of a friend has you poised on his lips
you are not what he means, no call for balled fist,
since he’s only signifyin(g) on the sign;
making wine from the bad blood of history.
Think of how you came into my life that day,
of leaves strewn as I had never seen them strewn,
knocking me about the head with your dark hands.
calling a spade a spade
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