Charles Lipanda Matenga is a published poet, writer, author of Our Voice is Our Catalyst Anthology with Salvador CapBic and performer in Slam Poetry from Our talents, our advocacy festival, Tumaini Festival and Zomba City Festival and he is the first poet to perform United Nations Day commemoration 31 October 2023 and National Youth Policy Launch 2023-2028 in Malawi.
He was born on 2nd July 2005 in DRCongo . He never saw his father as a result he
was raised by a single mom, called Sada Magdaleine who also later died when he
just turned five years old. The author has been living in a tremendous life in which
he once wrote in his poem, Angel Of Bread, “for the death is the only storehouse of
struggles”, he also opted to commit suicide due to starvation that overwhelmed him
in Dzaleka Refugee Camp, Malawi where he is a refugee. The Congolese poet is also
optimistic. He proves this mostly in his poetry where he writes about hope, dream
and future. He is one of the founders and the president of African Youth Artistic
Poetry – AYAP where children and youth are trained for poetry and one of the
organizers of Our talents, our advocacy festival which takes place in Dzaleka
Refugee Camp at UBUNTU, Dowa Malawi. Charles is a great poet… despite his circumstances… poetry is his savior, his JOY! This tightens my heart! Tears to my eyes! As I know full well ‘poetry’ is psychotherapy for the soul. Charles is currently, in his refugee home, with his co-author, Ruth Takodwa, working on an anthology of his poetry, titled, ‘Being a Refugee Wasn’t a Choice’… The author is actually open for every opportunity that will come across him so that he can achieve his dream and help
young poets do the same too as well as other talented children.
SMOKES ON SCREEN
Words heal
Words kill
Spoken, said or told
Still make you cold
For their freezing point
Faces talk too much than mouth can walk
Standing afar
Waiting for someone you’ve never seen before
Chilling hot wind pressing your body
Dead air swirling in living lake
People can call you guilty
For being more insecured than the starved
Is your skin color scaring them?
Or just your lively presence in their golden castle?
Their eyes rolling down
Like Tsunamis waving waters
Terrifying you to the breaking of the arteries in brain
As drifting and cracking of questions in your mind, driving you insane
Life is the smoke on screens
Blurred from seeing what is inside
Keep on taking risks
Till your legs swell and ooze
Slipping and piercing into the folded box
For it’s the closed flower
Waiting for it to open
Life is the dust particles on the mirror
Shaded by the attraction of multiplication in mutation
Image is blurted only if you tussle your tackles in wrestles
Don’t say your plans before your achievements
Or else the beast will effectively ruin your trajectory
N-ever hold back
E-ven if you’re irritated or black
V-oice can be twang, tutting
E-rupting thoughts flooding in your head
R-endering you to a better life
H-old tightly onto your dreams
O-pen your heart and soul to the steams
L-ive as there is no tomorrow
D-ie from horror to shocked marrow in narrow
B-reathe without stopping
A-s you’re feeling as if you’re out of control
C-rooked words twisting in laughter
K-neeling in eyes of lies
Blood and guts overlaying and overlapping
Ghost stories spreading as fast as the rays of the sun
Close your eyes
What do you see?
Listen to your heart
What does it tell?
Touch your soul
How does it feel?
Blood and thunderstorms smashing and faulting
Ceasing Mt Babylon down
For the heaven is near
But smokes on the screen are seen sinless.
Prepared Angela Kosta writer, poet, essayist, literary critic, editor, translator, journalist
