To Till These Barren Grounds

By Liteboho Seotlo

Embrace the beauty of gain in persistance and endurance, and develop a resilient heart through this collection.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Liteboho Seotlo
• Release date: May 31, 2024
• ISBN: 9798224838806

Liteboho Seotlo

Liteboho holds LLB from the National University of Lesotho. He is a prolific writer and a celebrated author especially in Lesotho

Book preview

Prologue

As you mount this chariot

Mold its art and preserve its semantics

Don’t try to be smart

Begin with courtesy

And conclude in fury

Maneuver in their midst

And hide your very own silhouette

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Don’t try to be smart

Sarcasm is sharp, don’t fight

Be genuine, they will fancy you

Even in a city you wouldn’t like

Just stop by

But don’t be a clown

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Your ups and downs don’t hide

Why you write, don’t be shy

You can kiss those you like

But on the foreheads

Act a gentleman

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And when I found myself next to you

And pictures in your mind

Know! It’s not always art

Mostly emotions in my heart

It’s no intelligence of a language

Just a passage of untold stories

Maybe a desirable linguistic

But mostly

Tales of when we tilled the barren grounds

PART 1

This is one of the first poems, the only poem I wrote to a girl, and probably the first I ever wrote.

She asked me, what do you like doing and I replied, I write poems

(I don’t remember having written any poem)

She replied, Write me something.

And this is what I wrote, in a second’s time;

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You are

You are the flower that keeps me breathing

In the midst of adversities you hold my breath

In deserts and storms you keep me going

You are the reason I am living

With your fragrance,

Showered to me, you bring a new day

A day of comfort, peace and tranquility

Because you are the flower that keeps me breathing!

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FOR EMMA ROSE, Some nice girl I met on Facebook around 2013, who inspired my first poem.

To begin with

Whom are you wrestling

Who informs you when you are winning?

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Whom are you impressing

Who teaches you moves in modeling?

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Whom are you desiring

Who mocks your somewhat pigment?

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To begin with

Why marry a white girl when you are a billionaire

Who would never want such blackness in your bottoms?

Rehab and relapse

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You don’t see me tearing apart

When my signals are sensing danger

All these chances are my second guesses

And my workings are falling behind

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What a perfect world is

You took us in and built us apart

Down there

When I was down

You built us wrong and fabricated salvation

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How you swallowed me and laughed

And never knew how I would be tough

How I (sometimes) wish I could alleviate

When I am stigmatized and hell bound

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And all my dances are second chances

A disease contagious and ever spreading 

While I self-destruct you built a bar

Even hospitality without a heart

All this life

All these people

All this life

All these minutes

And the air we breathe

All the knowledge

All the understanding

All the giving up

All like rebound

All the smiles

Of faces you don’t remember

The paths you have sauntered

Do you ever stop for a minute and think?

All the pleasures

Or maybe losing your virginity

All the pain

That’s all growing up

All the truths

All the lies

All the same

And you still tread home

All this time

You don’t know about

All the expectations

All like nothing

All these thoughts

All the love

How magnificent the fire

How irritating the pasts

All the life

All this life

You are that

Reflections and rebounds

Look how Jesus has saved us

He that spared not his own Son, but delivered him up for us all...

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Oh! Surface of lies

With your sons promiscuity

Clothed us with lusts

And compounded our hearts

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Stole from us contentment

Thankfulness and love

Shied not to loathe us

With our sufferings you laughed

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The wages of sin are death

But look how the Lord has saved us

And whom the son sets free

He is free indeed

The good ones are always suffering, no love for the pure hearts,

Good men finish last, their intentions taken for poison.

But love wholeheartedly and remain pure anyway.

It is what it is  

Paradox in paradigm

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So you are told

Of starving children in Africa

Vanity how profound

Even a paradox in paradigm

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Clone those incapacities

While serving destruction

Media manipulation

To form stories you would want

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Even forming YOUR OPINION

That’s media manipulation

Images

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This life is