“Who can call a man dead whose words still hush and whose sentiments move?”

“Man African societies divide humans into 3 categories: those still alive on the earth, the sasha, and the zamani. The recently departed whose time on earth overlapped with people still here are the sasha, the living-dead. They are not wholly dead, for they still live in the memories of the living, who can call them to mind, create their likeness in art, and bring them to life in anecdote. When the last person to know an ancestor dies, that ancestor leaves the sasha for the zamani, the dead. As generalized ancestors, the zamani are not forgotten but revered. Many...can be recalled by name. But they are not living-dead. There is a difference.”

“Be the man who has the spirit of a ruthless tiger, ravaging every dusty corner of my soul.Be the man for whom I will tame myself voluntarily..Be the man who can make me forget my birth date in moments of utter dellusion.Be the man whose arms are my harbor, whose lips are my shore, and whose name is my only salvation.Be the man who erases my past and draws my future with trails of roses and kisses.Be the man who makes me sigh behind the windows of Poetry, longing to be written. Be the man whose cigarette's ashes are confounded with mine.Be the man whose voice moves mountains inside me.Be the man whose eyes devour the innocence within me with every piercing glance.Be the man for whom I will transform exceptions into rules.Be the man who will dare to tear this poem from my hands.The man who will rewrite with the uncertainty of the futur every single one of my verses.”

“Many African societies divide humans into three categories: those still alive on the earth, the sasha, and the zamani. The recently departed whose time on earth overlapped with people still here are the sasha, the living-dead. They are not wholly dead, for they still live in the memories of the living, who can call them to mind, create their likeness in art, and bring them to life in anecdote. When the last person to know an ancestor dies, that ancestor leaves the sasha for the zamani, the dead. As generalised ancestors, the zamani are not forgotten but revered. Many … can be recalled by name. But they are not the living-dead. There is a difference.”

“She’d never known a man whose initial move was to undress the woman he wanted.”

“Nor can a man any more live, whose Desires are at an end, than he, whose Senses and Imaginations are at a stand.”