Ugly Woman Poem by Thabani Khumalo

I try to consider the dark meaning
behind all the work of the human senses
and the different perceptics thereof,
as we continue upon this flying planet of being
and I wonder if what we see is all about human ability.

I mounted a scary height alone for forty days and forty nights;
I bore the pain of mortality upon my frigid soul,
I met with death and kissed her slowly between the poisonous lips -
I drew her toxic breath into my lungs and felt its warmth within me
and she asked me to pay her a visit every once in a while
to which I consented in a grin wide and bright.

I have a scheduled rendezvous with the greedy goddess of demise
and we will seek each other's company every once in a while.
To her I will confess all the truths that my heart consists of
because she was true to me when we met on the first tryst.

I skirted a scary height alone for forty days and forty nights,
I descended thereon with a beaming tablet of stone
from which I had been inspired to write the many truths of my life:
Among all things, I severely detest the following -
I hate the cyclone and the stormy rain;
I hate the earthquake and the lava flow;
I hate the serpent and the scary creatures that crawl
upon the land and swim under water like the hippopotamus and the crocodile;
but above all that I loathe is an ugly woman.