Reuters photo

 

By

Mbizo Chirasha

 

Heartbeat – This edition of the Zimbabwe We Want Poetry Campaign is wet with the dew of new found hope of the Zimbabwe populace and the fog of dust after dances and gyrations as cities, villagers and everything Zimbabwean celebrates the fall of the long serving Napoleonic Dictator Robert Mugabe who has since hanged his political boots for new players to fit in.

We are very excited because we are part of the change we wanted, we are part of the struggle that brought freedom to the people. We continue to say, WHEN POETS SPEAK OPEN YOUR EAR DRUMS. It is very vital to fight for what is right.

We fought this first battle alongside all weather friends, poets, progressive politicians, change makers, activists and students. We now believe that poetry fits in as a catalyst for the attainment of the freedom of the masses, attainment of good governance, attainment of equal rights and attainment of a tolerant society.

Our voice continues to shout to those who lead in this post Mugabe era that lets history not repeat itself. Enough of politicking, We Zimbabweans and the world we are watching.

Zimbabwe is haunted by political rot, economic scars, corruption gangrene and polarisation. A lot of work has to be done by the new leadership. Let the rights of people and their freedoms be upheld, let violence be a thing of the past. A good leadership to both creative and negative criticism.

The poems here are waving a goodbye to the last Napoleon of Africa and throw in some rays of hope to the new leadership for a new and better Zimbabwe. We thank with boundless gratitude fellow poets from Kenya, Nigeria, Zambia, Ghana, Cameroon, India, South Africa, United States, Bangladesh, Spain and of course voices from Zimbabwe who dedicated their time in giving their voices and solidarity to the Zimbabwe We Want Poetry Campaign.

We thank readers for your likes and comments. More poetry is coming. We also thank our Tuck Magazine for vast spaces that they offer to publish the Brave Voices. Brave Voices – (Let your pen bring freedom and voice birth a new Zimbabwe).

GOODBYE CDE R.G. MUGABE. Let Zimbabwe walk into a new dawn draped with both early morning fog and the dew of hope – by Mbizo Chirasha.

 

 

 

 

HAIL ZIMBABWE

 

 

Revolt rumbles through overwrought Harare air

Revolt rumbles onto her imprisoned streets

that for so long have led warrior-poets into jail cells

Revolt rumbles over the royalty of the “Blue Roof”

Revolt rumbles over the black sky gawking at rocky falls

and watery eyes hazed in the smoke of injustice.

Revolt rumbles in the feet of army tankers grinding up

the long road of slavery and dystopian revolution.

Revolt rumbles over Zimbabwe’s old hump-backed mountain

that gave her backside to Zimbabwe’s revolutionary wind

Revolt rumbles over old Mugabe’s ‘gracious’ gait

Revolt rumbles into the Zambezi and into the Limpopo

Revolt will burst her own banks onto her own deserts

Revolt rumbles in the plunge of the Victorian Falls

and in the fall of the old tyrant from ‘Grace’ to grass

Revolt rumbles over the sleeping savanna shrubs:

the spider lilies and the dombeya find their roots

in graves of lost inspiration of war veterans

In graves revolt rumbles in the drunken roots of smoky clouds

that conflagrated the African skies and ate up its little suns

Revolt rumbles in the silenced voices of fallen comrades

Revolt rumbles in the beat of ngoma and ingungu

Revolt rumbles in the raspiness of freedom cries,

in frozen bullets burying their heads in comatose guns,

in the veneration of rock-strewn house of Zimbabwe,

in the slumbering of the Balancing Rocks of Chitungwiza

in the raging roots of the marula and the musasa

in the clenching of fists and the rustling of pens

in the drumbeats of justice

in the drum beats

in the drum:

Hail Zimbabwe!

 

 

(By Adipo Sidang – a trained philosopher, Adipo Sidang considers himself a Pan-African poet, playwright and award-winning novelist. He is the founder of AfroGovernance Initiative and Agora theatre, platforms that he uses for civic engagement on democracy and good governance. He is the author of “Parliament of Owls” collection of poems, a play under the same title and “A Boy Named Koko”, a novella)

 

 

 

 

TANGENHAMO

 

 

To have drank from savage breasts

Nor sour to denote as bitter sweet

Appeared the fruit bored from thy

Corns of Revolution, Chimurenga

Savages of a lifespan, Thirty seven

Dropped a fellow comrade in vain…

Never did the remains yield deviation

The green vast empire, overgrazed.

Only sorrows, lamentations of those

Lost in the blazing thoughts of parity

And today masses rallies in raves Oh!

Truly the phoenix brought a curse…

Tangenhamo my grandma sings of

Chimbwido of old times hallows too

Changes from a mountains step awry

Alas…Papa its time we seize the hope.

The race hast been prolonged and the

Mutual ideology strained along without

Caution. A ship at a threshold of sinking

Turns the Zimbabwean fleet. Rugare…

 

 

(By TYNOE WILSON – a rising Zimbabwean poet, a Word Slinger and a rights Activist. An impetuous mastermind so zealous to out the muddling and crippling societal affair through stanza)

 

 

 

 

GLOOM EXIT

 

 

Gloomy exit

Dark footsteps

No shadow striding sideways

Mass jubilation

Dreaming of escaping tribulation

Their political predicament

Frustration of unemployment

Gloomy exit

Dreary trail

No compatriots on your failed rail

Fireworks all about in the country

Surprising solidarity

A dawn of a new era

Overwriting an error

Of political longevity

Gloomy exit

Only history remains

Famishing your legacy and reigns

It’s a great relief

Thou your resignation left many in disbelief

 

 

 

IS THIS OUR GENESIS?

 

 

How good and pleasant it is?

To see civilians cheering

After deposing a long time menace

Dethroned even by his own minions

Who are battling a factional acquisitions

Are they impeaching him and his corrupt cultures

Or it’s just a political gimmick to secure their opulence

And safeguard their long-term status

Or it’s a turn for repentance

A genesis!

If they’re going to pay for reparation

To recompense mass graves; –

A yester Matebeleland genocide

Manicaland diamond holocaust

The Mashonaland massacre

Was Mugabe the only fiend?

Is this the beginning of genesis we all hoping for?

A democratic election!

Power hungriness should be a thing of the past

Kaguvi, Nehanda and Chaminuka were they not revolutionaries?

But they didn’t belong to anpolitical party

So why do we need to vex

Judging patriotism through political spheres

Zimbabwe is for the people

And for these very people it should be sovereignly ruled.

 

 

(By Sydney Haile 1 Saize – a Word guerrilla, a fighter of human rights, a Word slinger in the Campaign against despotism)

 

 

 

 

REFLECTIONS

 

 

Reflections of hope

Reflections of dreams

Ignites the old and the young

Echoes past grand events

Bright days past and future

Dark days past and present

You are our delight

Kindle joy and hope

Delicate, soft and bright

Bestows endless hope

 

 

(By Gopichand Paruchuri – a Poet – Lecturer in English – Interest in Literature – Keen on Travelling, Head of the Department of English and Vice Principal at JKC College, Guntur,Studied MA in English at Acharya Nagarjuna University)

 

 

 

 

OPRESSION IS OPPRESSION

 

 

When a man is shackled, be it wrists or feet, lip or limb –

he remains a slave.

White Rhodesia enslaved

its black people.

Be not fooled by memories

Of green plains

“White wealth”.

A greedy man is a corrupt man

matters not his skin.

Power is blatant and

cunningly drills into the minds of desperate and

gold hungry fellowmen;

the ignorant –

those with ears

that do not hear

and eyes that do not see.

The good man begs to feed his children.

The greedy black man reigns.

Is the innocent man to live his entire life under the rule of a superior god who undermines his humaneness because of the colour of his skin?

Greed and corruption came from one man and his goons.

It was no different in 1970…..

They simply dispensed

more crumbs then.

May the scatterlings of Africa

return and rebuild.

Crown Freedom as King.

and guard your throne

against military rule.

Respite drones like a casper – bulldozing decades of poverty,

suppression and vexation –

Joy swirls on point.

Leaps like a deer let from the stall.

May the whispers and wails

of the walls rest.

Let the gods who forged the Great Zimbabwe with blood stay chained

and cemented beneath it.

Draca has been obliterated.

He’s remains now fertilise

the soil of the graves he dug.

Be wise Zimbabwe,

there is only one God.

Stand!

 

 

(By Jambiya – an emotive writer who weaves the tragedy and victory of the human experience into a tapestry of memorable imagery and metaphor? She speaks with honesty on the spiritual and social challenges of our time. Jambiya’s works are a must read for those accustomed to the jaded perfunctory cleverness of modern wordsmiths)

 

 

 

 

YOUR RESIGNATION

 

 

Your resignation has brought us a fresh air

Making 2018 election will be free and fair

Lifting our mind to a structure of positivity

Evincing us a brightly stars & moon placidity

Your resignation has given us a happiness

In minutely & hourly we celebrate so lovely

We’re now free for your regime of distress

Pointing us an edifice of chance so deeply

Your Resignation has beckoned a Leader

A leader who has a deep sympathy with us

A leader who endured in your cruel power

He’ll now show us a genuine love not bogus

Your Resignation has modified our future

Opening our Lofty psyches from immature

Evincing a life of braveness in all our parts

Voting a new president with our lofty hearts

Your resignation has brought a Lovely smile

A smile to the whole world without complain

We’ve been enduring many years in your phony smile

Today the world will never espy our tears of pain

 

 

(By Emmanuel Douglas Mulomole)

 

 

 

 

BREAK ME

 

 

My feet is on a journey but I am static

Where do you go when home

Is somewhere you cannot go?

I have no blood in my veins

But every time I breathe, I bleed

Where do you go when home

Is somewhere you have never known?

No good mother allows her son

To go out of home when evil spirits are hungry

Unless outside is safer than home.

Yet again, home is somewhere I have never had.

My head is bleeding

My soul is hurting

God the grand alchemist

Heal me like how you heal ghosts

And if you can’t

Break me and scatter my bones

To vultures.

 

 

(By S Kojo Frimpong)

 

 

 

 

NEVER AGAIN

 

 

never again should we travel

travel along this thistle laden road

never again should we be along

along this thorn laden road

never again shall we deify

elevate a mere mortal to a god

never again should we propagate

propagate a dangerous personality cult

never again should chiefs be partisan

wining and dining with thieves

joining the ravenous gravy train

and derailing the freedom train

never again should pastors abandon

abandon their divine mission

abandon sermons of profound love

to take up slogans of death

never again should youths be used

used to prop demented individuals

those that lionise themselves

turning that sacred struggle into a possession

never again should there be intolerance

intolerance of dissenting voices

never again should there be deaths

of those deemed discordant voices

never again should there be delusions

about a divine right to rule

never should visitors refuse to leave

never again should they overstay

 

 

(By Jabulani Mzinyathi – a Zimbabwean to the marrow. A firm believer in the peter tosh philosophy that there will be no peace if there is no justice. Jabulani is a pan African and a world citizen)

 

 

 

 

DID YOU SAY GOODBYE TO US?

 

 

One of your friends, Pohamba

touches your olding skin.

Your skin with its beautiful scars-

scars of all those Mozambique years.

Nyadzonya, Chimoi, Tembwe, are

wounds on your beautiful old skin.

Maybe your skin reminds you of

those years and how good you felt.

Walking the bloody-fields of Nyadzonya

calling on your donkey or it

might have helped you to think

so clearly as you did.

Did you think, once, then

of the vast collective concerns

of your follower’s time?

Though it’s your final days.

We laugh but it must feel to you

like the war is still going-on.

As you absorb your last

empty eight decades and fold inside.

Did you say goodbye to us?

 

(By Tendai R.Mwanaka – Literary, Visual & Musical Artist/Critic/Mentor/Editorial Publishing Consultant)

 

 

 

THE FLUSHING

 

 

Then Mother Africa

Growled, growled

Then she belched

Her tongue darted

Dropped Bob Mugabe

Deep into oblivion

Then she growled

Growled, growled.

Opened her mouth

To yawn and I peeped

And saw more monarchs

Spinning in her innards

To be flushed, to be flushed

For polluting her inside

For starving its dwellers

For enslaving her kids

For soiling her shrines

For felling fellows like trees

For augmenting their stays

 

 

(By Nsah Mala – an award-winning writer, poet, motivational speaker, and youth leader from Cameroon. The author of three poetry collections, Chaining Freedom (2012), Bites of Insanity (2015), If You Must Fall Bush (2016), Nsah Mala’s short story ‘Christmas Disappointment’ won a prize from the Cameroonian Ministry of Arts and Culture in 2016. In the same year, another story of his received a Special Mention in a short story competition organised by Bakwa Magazine, the leading online literary journal in Cameroon at the moment. His French poem was cited in the novel En compagnie des hommes by the internationally-accl­aimed, award-winning Franco-Ivorian writer and poet Véronique Tadjo in August 2017. His forth poetry collection in English, Constimocrazy, will soon be released by a US small press while he is finishing a collection in French, Les pleurs du mal. He has read poetry in Africa and Europe)

 

 

 

 

AMNESIA

 

 

So much anarchy.

The blood daughter of diversity.

Was it not a race of superiority…

That brought about this disparity?

and so much calamity.

Cold with ease,

the Trojan horse stood at bay.

Brows of skim.

Veins pumping with coldness

a heart full with perfidy.

Not without a drop of please, nor peace.

Bearish land.

Take all – leave nothing.

Plunder ! Plunder! Plunder!

Cold down Davy Jones’ locker.

Was it not Christianity

they spoke of with so much alacrity.

Or to speak of civility?

Greet, Greed that cold insanity

that burnt humanity.

 

 

(By Nyashadzashe Chikumbu – a young man , whose very ambitious, and strives for complete self expression. Very interested in all words of art strives to see art gaining its former glory.  A Poet and Follower of Marxist Principles)

 

 

 

 

LIBERATE

(written for the dawn of new Zimbabwe)

 

 

I shall tell a tale about the shackles of oppression, Solid masses of impunity To which our feet were bound before being caged behind stronger than alloyed-steel dictatorship.

Sunk deep amid wild whirling waves of yet to be felt economic crisis. In this sea of sorrow; a composition of terrified tears and gallons of guilty greed.

We were sent to exile from our own motherland and struck nude of our democracy.

Keep silent… (wails). Those, those cries you hear are hymnal compositions of revolutionary realization.

Loud liberation calls we used to boldly recite.

The ground on which I now stand boasts of housing hostages of this hostility in the tale I’m telling. A rude riddle.

(sounds of riffles)

Worry not descendants, the beat of the gun and the pace of your heart beat fuse into a beat for a rhythm of this new choral I am composing about a new dawn.

Before the sun on the east Rise beyond those big hills, my sons, we shall see on the other side a buoyant life.

Before the light shades violently the demons of ethnical origin,

We shall sit and sing a dirge for this fall we prepare for.

Sons and daughters, before we set into this direction

Brace yourselves to encounter the enemy among the people.

For my old bones won’t fight anymore.

But these hands will on this scroll

Write of your Victory when you return

To take this naive hermit

Back home

And burry the remains of my grey hair

In that same land my ancestry lies.

 

 

(By Jojji Kaka– Oluoch George Patrick, going by the pseudonym ‘jojji kaka’ is a young Kenyan poet who believes in the power of writing to diffuse positive influence to the greater mass)

 

 

 

 

APRIL IN NOVEMBER

 

 

Never mind the fifth and Guy Fawkes,

There is something about November!

The shells stopped falling, Owen went home

On the edge of 1918 Europe’s winter.

Twenty years had taken form

After the sequel to the Great War

When Ian Smith stole the farm:

Rhodesia would a British colony be no more.

It was November, again, the eleventh.

In the course of time Smith became the foe,

And a new country was born, on the eighteenth

Of April 1980 and christened Zimbabwe.

Bob Marley came down and sing to black mirth,

Even billowing teargas could not chase him away.

Now, on another eighteenth we crowded town,

Petrified; not of fright but of fight, hearts bare-

laid on placards. Cried the picketer: ‘DOWN!’

‘INDEPENDENCE DAY’, ‘GO AWAY BOB!’

November had mustered another dawn,

One our diligence should not have false!

 

 

(By Philani Amadeus Nyoni – a Zimbabwean born wordsmith. He has written award-winning poetry for the page, the stage and the screen. He has also written articles and short stories for various publications, local and international)

 

 

 

 

EXTRACT from BANANA REPUBLICS

 

 

Mbare, I see you scratching your mind like ragged linen

smelling the breath of slums and diesel fumes

the smoke puffing out through ghetto ruins is the fire dousing the

emblem of the state

Belly of Zambezi ache with crocodile and fish

Villages piled like heaps of potatoes against the flank

of eastern hills

Farmlands dripping golden dripping dew

Sunshine choking with vulgar mornings

Dawns yawning with vendetta filled redemption songs

Drums of freedom sounding fainter and fainter, blowing away in the wind

When streets rub their sleep out of their eyes

Villagers scratch painful living from the

infertile patches of sand on this earth whose lungs

heave with copper and veins bleeding gold

Ghetto buttocks sit over poverty, kalinga-linga

Corruption eating breakfast with ministers, kabulonga,

with shrill cries of children breaking against city walls

Shire river tonight your voice rustled dry, like the scratching of old silk

Politicians grow everywhere like weeds

Land of ngwazi, yesterday crocodiles breakfasted on flesh

owls and birds sang with designated protocol

Ngwazi your cough drowned laughter’s and prayers

Your breath silenced rivers and jungles

 

 

(By Mbizo Chirasha – Founder, Editor and the Promotions Executive at Large of the Zimbabwe We Want Poetry Campaign)

 

 

 

 

 

The Zimbabwe We Want Poetry Campaign