The Handicap That Is My Hand Poem by Kenneth Maswabi

Do not mind my broken English
It is the stuff of my impairment
Used to hold down the thorns of ego
Sometimes one has to give up a beautiful treasure trove
And be naked from the inside out
It is not that my mental capacities are overwhelmed
It is the opacity of my mental faculties
That hinder my efforts to drink from the well of English language
It is only possible for me to limp from one word to another
Held down by the weeds of vocabulary
Forgive me for my unholy speech
It is the conscious substance of my tongue
That erases every punctuation mark
Puncturing my well-manicured sentences
Disfiguring my figure of speech
Poetry chose this subject
Not based on any ill intentions
It is the back alley of human consciousness
That has a habit of pouring scorn
On every visible particle of light
Inside the darkness of the human psyche
We have bred a few venomous snakes
That are itching to have a bite
On the cold flesh of human impairments
It is the handicap that is my hand
To be unable to hold properly to the reins of the English language

©Kenneth Maswabi