In the way that you are –
Your eyes say a lot about you.
You kind and bold,
like a tree that would never bear anything.
Your fruit is sweet and lemon,
like, (lemon), jelly tots waiting to be eaten.
Your words say a lot about you.
Like a traveler who searches for love,
you mimic the words of other lovers.
You always awake waiting for an answer,
but solutions are the key to engagement.
You empowered, you’re empowered, you’re mean.
You’re mean on the inside, and out.
They say you’re evil, like the wizard
whose intentions might be cruel, might be destined.
You know the questions that are left for you to answer.
The nuns are alive –
The people are chocked – teargas-chocked.
The leaders are dead! Yes,…dead!
Rishan Singh was the recipient of the 2014 eThekwini Municipality Library Award. He is also the recipient of the Golden Key award for excellent academic accomplishments, awarded to him in 2008. His poetry has been well received locally as well as abroad, and is often praised for its irregularity, which is sometimes poetic, and never rhetoric. During the 2014 awards ceremony held by the KwaZulu-Natal Department of Leisure, Parks and Recreation, he was selected into the top 20 entries, and eventually made the top 5, which included South Africans of different socio-economic backgrounds. He received praise for his poetry on many occasions, and was a participant in the Sol Plaatje Poetry Award competition, sponsored by the European Union on 2 occasions. In the United States of America, his fiction writing appears in books, and is often lauded for its creativity, although not entirely poetic.