en

12166

Logo lyrikline pure Logo lyrikline claim
  •  
  •  
  •  
  •  
  •  
all results
  • Contact
  • Partners
  • Donation
  • deutsch
  • english
  • français
  • slovenščina
  • العربية
  • русский
  • español
  • português
  • 中文
  • POETS
    • A-Z 
      • A
      • B
      • C
      • D
      • E
      • F
      • G
      • H
      • I
      • J
      • K
      • L
      • M
      • N
      • O
      • P
      • Q
      • R
      • S
      • T
      • U
      • V
      • W
      • X
      • Y
      • Z
    • by languages 
      • afrikaans
        albanian
        amharic
        arabic
        armenian
        basque
        belarusian
        bengali
        bosnian
        breton
        bulgarian
        burmese
        catalan
        chinese
        cree
        croatian
        czech
        danish
        dutch
        english
        estonian
        finnish
        french
        galician
        georgian
        german
        greek
        gujarati
        hebrew
        hindi
        hungarian
        icelandic
        indonesian
        irish
        italian
        japanese
        kalaallisut
        kannada
        korean
        kurdish
        latvian
        lithuanian
        macedonian
        malay
        malayalam
        maltese
        marathi
        nepali
        northern sami
        norwegian
        oriya
        persian
        polish
        portuguese
        punjabi
        rhaeto-romance
        romanian
        russian
        scottish gaelic
        serbian
        shona
        sindhi
        sinhala
        slovak
        slovenian
        southern sami
        spanish
        swahili
        swedish
        tamil
        telugu
        tswana
        turkish
        ukrainian
        urdu
        uzbek
        vietnamese
        welsh
        xhosa
        yiddish
    • by countries 
      • Albania
        Algeria
        Andorra
        Angola
        Argentina
        Armenia
        Australia
        Austria
        Bahrain
        Bangladesh
        Belarus
        Belgium
        Bolivia
        Bosnia and Herzegovina
        Botswana
        Brazil
        Bulgaria
        Burundi
        Cambodia
        Canada
        Chile
        China
        Colombia
        Congo - Kinshasa
        Costa Rica
        Croatia
        Cuba
        Cyprus
        Czech Republic
        Côte d’Ivoire
        Denmark
        Dominican Republic
        Egypt
        Estonia
        Ethiopia
        Finland
        France
        Georgia
        Germany
        Ghana
        Greece
        Greenland
        Guatemala
        Guinea-Bissau
        Haiti
        Honduras
        Hungary
        Iceland
        India
        Indonesia
        Iran
        Iraq
        Ireland
        Israel
        Italy
        Jamaica
        Japan
        Kenya
        Kuwait
        Latvia
        Lebanon
        Libya
        Lithuania
        Luxembourg
        Macedonia
        Malawi
        Malaysia
        Malta
        Martinique
        Mexico
        Moldova
        Montenegro
        Morocco
        Mozambique
        Myanmar [Burma]
        Netherlands
        New Zealand
        Nigeria
        Norway
        Oman
        Pakistan
        Palestinian Territories
        Paraguay
        Peru
        Poland
        Portugal
        Puerto Rico
        Romania
        Russia
        Saint Lucia
        Saudi Arabia
        Senegal
        Serbia
        Singapore
        Slovakia
        Slovenia
        South Africa
        South Korea
        Spain
        Sri Lanka
        Sweden
        Switzerland
        Syria
        São Tomé and Príncipe
        Taiwan
        Trinidad and Tobago
        Tunisia
        Turkey
        Ukraine
        United Arab Emirates
        United Kingdom
        United States
        Uruguay
        Uzbekistan
        Venezuela
        Vietnam
        Yemen
        Zambia
        Zimbabwe
  • POEMS
    • by languages 
      • afrikaans
        albanian
        amharic
        arabic
        arawak
        armenian
        basque
        belarusian
        bengali
        bosnian
        breton
        bulgarian
        burmese
        catalan
        chinese
        cree
        croatian
        czech
        danish
        dutch
        english
        estonian
        finnish
        french
        galician
        georgian
        german
        greek
        gujarati
        hebrew
        hindi
        hungarian
        icelandic
        indonesian
        irish
        italian
        japanese
        kalaallisut
        kannada
        korean
        kurdish
        latvian
        lithuanian
        lushai
        macedonian
        malay
        malayalam
        maltese
        maori
        marathi
        nepali
        northern sami
        norwegian
        oriya
        persian
        polish
        portuguese
        punjabi
        rhaeto-romance
        romanian
        romany
        russian
        scottish gaelic
        serbian
        shona
        sindhi
        sinhala
        slovak
        slovenian
        sorbian language
        southern sami
        spanish
        swahili
        swedish
        tamil
        telugu
        tswana
        tumbuka
        turkish
        ukrainian
        urdu
        uzbek
        vietnamese
        welsh
        western frisian
        xhosa
        yiddish
    • in translation 
      • abkhazian
        afar
        afrikaans
        albanian
        arabic
        araucanian
        armenian
        assamese
        basque
        belarusian
        bengali
        berber
        bosnian
        breton
        bulgarian
        buriat
        catalan
        chechen
        chinese
        chuvash
        corsican
        croatian
        czech
        danish
        duala
        dutch
        english
        esperanto
        estonian
        finnish
        french
        galician
        georgian
        german
        greek
        gujarati
        haitian
        hebrew
        hindi
        hungarian
        icelandic
        indonesian
        irish
        italian
        japanese
        kalmyk
        kannada
        kashmiri
        kazakh
        kirghiz
        korean
        kumyk
        kurdish
        latin
        latvian
        lezghian
        lithuanian
        lushai
        macedonian
        malay
        malayalam
        maltese
        marathi
        mayan language
        mongolian
        nepali
        norwegian
        occitan
        oriya
        persian
        polish
        portuguese
        rhaeto-romance
        romanian
        romany
        russian
        sanskrit
        sardinian
        scots
        scottish gaelic
        serbian
        shona
        sindhi
        sinhala
        slovak
        slovenian
        sorbian language
        southern sami
        spanish
        swahili
        swedish
        swiss german
        tajik
        tamil
        tatar
        telugu
        tetum
        turkish
        udmurt
        ukrainian
        urdu
        uzbek
        vietnamese
        welsh
        yakut
    • genres & aspects
      • experimental poetry
      • concrete poetry
      • sound poetry
      • visual poetry
      • poetry projects
      • series & cycles
      • poetry for children
      • humorous poetry
      • narrative poetry
      • poems on poetics
      • Ecopoetry / Nature writing
      • political poetry
      • erotic poetry
      • dialect
      • performance
      • with music / sound
      • spoken word / Rap
      • translingual / hybrid / Pidgin
    • poetic forms & terms
      • ode
      • haiku / tanka
      • collage / montage
      • Dinggedicht
      • prose poem
      • rhymed stanza
      • renshi
      • sestina
      • sonnet
      • terza rima
      • villanelle
      • ghazal
      • ballad
    • issues
      • society
        • identity (collective)
        • traditions
        • homeland
        • cities & urban life
        • history
        • politics
        • war
        • exile
        • economy
        • social critique / cultural criticism
      • life & relationship
        • family
          • birth
          • child
          • mother
          • father
        • infancy & youth
        • age
        • memory
        • identity (personal)
        • gender & sexuality
          • woman
          • man
          • sex & eroticism
          • homosexuality
        • friendship
        • love
        • marriage
        • relationship conflict
        • work
        • illness
        • body
        • violence
        • loss & separation
        • death & grief
        • funeral
        • religion & sprituality
        • Dream
        • travel
        • time
        • eating & drinking
        • alcohol & drugs
      • culture & science
        • architecture & design
        • poetry & poets
        • art & painting
        • literature & reading
        • fairy-tales & legends
        • medicine & science
        • music
        • mythology
        • philosophy
        • photography & film
        • popular culture
        • language
        • theater & dance
        • writing (poetry)
      • nature
        • spring
        • summer
        • fall
        • winter
        • landscape
        • water
        • animals
        • plants
    • Rhythmic Patterns
      • Parlando
      • Cadence
      • Variable Foot
      • Sprung Rhythm
      • Syncopations
      • Rubato
      • Permutations
      • Gestic rhythm (= Stressed Enjambements)
      • Cut-ups
      • Ellipses
      • Syllabic decompositions
      • Lettristic Decomposition
  • NEW
    • Poems
    • Poets
    • Translations
Login
  •  

Linda Gabriel

They were Silent

  • 1 Mad Slam but not war
  • 2 RWANGU RUFU
  • 3 I COULD HAVE MARRIED YOU MALAWI
  • 4 Would you wake up to go vote?
  • 5 They were Silent
  • 6 TSAMBA
  • 7 Mai Tino
  • 8 My First Housemate | Translations: tr
  • 9 SINS OF OUR MOTHERS
Language: english
  • play
  • pause
Update Required To play the media you will need to either update your browser to a recent version or update your Flash plugin.

They were Silent

They were all silent
How could they have not talked about their death?
The radio, newspapers even the TV did not see this as news worthy

There were silent
No one talked on how their home was turned into a ghost house
All one could hear at night were squeaking tea cups and broken pots
That illuminated gray ashes in the skies
It sounded as if some people were always doing dishes in the night
Am told that the night it happened they were caught doing dishes

They were silent
As they watched this cold house
In what used to be their bedroom were broken mirrors
If you tried to look yourself in them you would meet their 4 eyes staring right into yours
And voices came in rushed whispers from their favorite red ties narrating how they were murdered
They scarfs they wore on that day had turned into a fiery red and yellow
On winter nights the scarfs would glow lightening up the whole house

In the living room the music never stopped
The radio channels kept on changing
As if some kid was tempering with the remote4
From a distance one could hear the laughter of a dancer

They were silence because they knew the truth
Their shadows could be seen hanging clothes on the washing line
Separating dark from light colors
At noon they would been seen taking them off and folding them neatly into the laundry basket
If a trespasser was close they could hear them humming to Bob Marley’s ‘Stir Up’

These two lovers
Were made to piss on them selves
These two lovers were skinned alive
20 toes, 20 fingers we cut off one by one in slow motion
Their teeth were plucked out by chisels
Their corks were cut off, to disgrace them
Their bottoms were set on fire on gasoline
Their tummies were butchered open
For their insides to hang outside and be poked at
They were left hanging from the ceiling of the house they had shared in secrecy for a number of years
They were left to die facing each other
So that each could witness their partner’s last breathe

If these two lovers were your brothers, uncles, cousins or close friends
Would you have allowed a mob to murder them?
Would you have watched them die?
Simply because they loved each other

© Linda Gabriel
Audio production: Literaturwerkstatt Berlin 2014

Translations:

previous poem
   (Would you wake up to...)
5 / 9
next poem
(TSAMBA)   
listen to all poems

Linda Gabriel

photo © private
* 02.09.1985, Chegutu, Zimbabwe
lives in: Johannesburg, South Africa

Linda Gabriel, born in 1985, is one of the crop of exciting female performance poets to emerge out of Zimbabwe. Bilingual, her linguistic versatility is forged into brilliant poems written in either English or Shona, depending on which language effectively expresses what issue. She is a powerful orator who has been hooked on performance poetry since high school in 2001 and has since participated in major literary events in Zimbabwe, the rest of southern Africa and Europe. Mostly her work celebrates womanhood and its challenges. She uses the stage to tell untold stories and address taboo matters.

 photo © private

Remember poem / Add to List

all public lists

Poem already on my list

If you want to remember or list a poem, become a community member.

Login/Register now
more poets from Zimbabwe more poems in english Translations into english

Random poem

PUSH!

gedicht page complete: (0,201s)
  • About
  • Links
  • Blog
  • Newsletter
  • Produced by
  • privacy
lyrikline is created by Literaturwerkstatt Berlin in cooperation with its international network of lyrikline partners