JC McIlwaine/UN photo

 

By

Mbizo Chirasha

 

The Zimbabwe We Want Poetry Campaign continues with its special themes despite a shift in the last publication that paid tribute to the late democratic icon Morgan Richard Tsvangirai.

We continue to say No TO CHOLERA, NO TO WATER POVERTY, NO TO POVERTY and NO TO CITIZENS’ OPPRESSION.

We all require a good, clean and responsible government leadership. Harare needs clean water supply, clean water to Chitungwiza, clean water in Dangamvura, clean water in Makokoba, clean water in Banket, clean water in Rimuka and other cities and suburbs. Water poverty means poverty and we say not to poverty.

Zimbabweans require proper and well-coordinated service delivery. We need a fair treatment as citizens of a country bleached in a dictatorship for 37 years. We cannot remain in this mess. NO TO CHOLERA, NO TO CASH CRISIS AND NO TO POVERTY.

Thank you Sister Comrade Tsitsi Gladys Madzongwe for coming through, thank you for your theme poem ‘HARARE CLEAN OUR WATER’. Aluta Jambiya Kai for recollecting historical moments. Thank you Brave and Solidarity Voices from all over the world. Thank you followers and supporters. POETICA INFINITA! – Mbizo Chirasha.

 

 

 

 

HARARE CLEAN OUR WATER

 

 

Zimbabwe, the paradise of Africa, finds your

socioeconomic balance and claim your legacy.

Corruption and nepotism have stolen our civilization

My limbs are sabotaged with exploitation and nepotism

Yes! …Water pollution is a global problem amidst the Continent.

Economic suffocation cannot be appeased…

The indigenous have witnessed your struggles and narrated your success with glitches of corruption and poverty

Sorrow and tears flood their hearts

Pathogens have become a way of life for the poor whilst

Stakeholders are feasting daily.

The tap water is corrosive

It is unspeakable horror and genocide

Dirty hands, diarrhoea, cholera and malaria have

become the narratives of the indigenous.

The children cannot make and play with bubbles

There is no clean water to baptize the Christian believers

Hospitals don’t have clean water to bathe the patients

The medical staff cannot perform their tasks without clean water

The water is too frothy to wash hands.

There is no clear water to drink and wash away

the stresses of the day

Lovers cannot surrender and immerse themselves

with clean water.

Wake up Zimbabwe!

Today’s generation cannot be entertained

with tales of hardships

Be sober and vigilant!.

Rise up Zimbabwe!

Zimbabweans want transformational leadership

with empirical outcomes

Harare transcend and emancipate a culture of transparency

Zimbabweans need new knowledge and innovations.

With clean water we can rise up

With clean water we are destined to overcome

Clean water is the right to good health

Clean water is not a rule

Clean water is a humanitarian right

For every person!

 

 

Disclaimer: My prose in this poem is more of a critic with an intention to discern public, economic, social and cultural awareness for the people of Zimbabwe and around the world. My spoken word in this poem is primarily an act of compassion and advocacy in an effort to help eradicate the cholera and contaminated water crisis in Zimbabwe. It is my hope that this poem will help to speak one “VOICE” for the people of Zimbabwe on behalf of their current contaminated water crisis.

 

(By Tsitsi Gladys Madzongwe – PanAfrikan Poet and Author. Tsitsi is a native of Zimbabwe currently living in the United States of America. She was once a Resident Poet at the Book Cafe in Harare, Zimbabwe. Madzongwe has been featured and performed at the Voice of America, USA. She has also performed for the 2016 & 2017 PANAFest Festival, USA and MedStar Georgetown Poetry Café. I am a recipient of the “Who is Who” 2016 Award in the arts and entertainment)

 

 

 

 

UNTITLED

 

 

Dingus, confused felon political badass.

Revolting robust amend to the hot contention.

Fake promises, what a rattle….my head!!!

Mental plague, conditioned labyrinth.

Mottled mountains ashy.

Thick forests…. Cries conceive.

Dreaded souls of hungry officers.

Partner to impose disaster.

Feeding poisoned dishes.

Slowly you crumble in agony.

The thought you going to die,

is nothing but a real killer.

From place afar to them you remain at close quarters.

Their laughter echoes… in conquer.

You prowl in shame.

Foolish utter, bull, hogwash.

All you desired was the easy flow of life not the tolerable misery of clotted desires and anger.

I rest my case eyes popped in candid arrest

 

 

(By Nelton Ganzel – My name is Ancilemo Gandari pen name Nelton Ganzel. Academically studied literature at Ellis Robbins boys high, but well the nature of my wellbeing as as script writer poet comes from within.l treasure and enyoy Dambudzo Marechera, Shima,Chinua Achebe and Shakespeare works. Born and raised in old Highfields.l write to inspire by and large reach many)

 

 

 

 

VOICES FROM ASHES

 

 

Note that I was murdered to have risen transformed

Note that my flesh and blood was readily made dust

Note that my bones and skeletons got incriminated

Note that my impetuous voice echoed from the ashes

Note how I was silenced… to have raised transformed

Note how I struggled: from the liberation coercion

Note how I triumphed over the sceptre and bayonets

Note how I gamed over the war sceneries impeccably

 

Denote when I rise from the ashes I vote mercilessly

Denote when my passions gather I will spit of venom

Denote when my strengths grew I will fight back fists

Denote when my courage reverberates I will burst out

Denote when I become potent, I will reign over again

Denote when I am with the mighty I will aside favours

Denote when I reign the Augustus house it will report

Denote when I speak order will reign, reconstructions

 

Denote how the muddled economy will reboot again

Denote how the incubators of corruption will vanish

Denote how the lost zealous and confidence bestow

Denote how the ills and evils will be driven to extinct

Denote how the brothers will cheer from the drums

Denote how the sisters will break a leg to Jerusalem

Denote how the fathers will fail conscience off brew

Denote how the mothers will pail the yield in joyous.

 

 

(By Wilson Waison Tinotenda – A poet and flash fiction writer. The editor of Deem.lit.org and its founding father. A human rights activist and ardent follower of the Zimbabwe We want campaign)

 

 

 

 

THE CURSED ALMOND HEDGE

 

 

“I see that every white man is an enemy to the black, and every black man an enemy to the white, they do not love each other and never will.” King Dingane to Richard Hulley, February 1838

Can it be that when Van Riebeeck erected the Almond Hedge and starved Autshumato and his people, that like Cain and Abel, their blood boils inside the veins of the generations; the cursed hedge that remains firmly rooted in the heart of a tainted people. The Verwoerd ghost that runs amock; kicking xenophobian dust in our eyes.

Our obsessive compulsions have coloured our soil. Colours are the demons souring our cultures and killing our traditions – black, white, brown, yellow, red – the Legion who pours hot oil over a baby and dunks a 12 year old in boiling water; bludgeon’s boys’ to death.

Murder and Massacres have become our bedside stories. Fairy tales and content for our novels, on-screen magic and blockbuster nominations.

Brown against brown

Black raping black.

Black killing white

White hating black;

White cowards targeting one

black victim at a time.

Presidents outwitting predecessors

Holy cow

The white elephant in the room

It is a peaceful and thinking man who can swing a sword with precision.

It is inner tranquillity that brings down the avenging arm that smashes the oppressor to pieces”.

While a man looks to a man

for change he remains a slave.

Did Marikana teach us nothing –

the odour of Bob and Grace lingers still

Jacob’s as fresh as yesterday.

We must pray that the rain we so fervently pray for, drains the toxins from our souls. That every morsel we fight each other for will eradicate the poverty that tears into our social fabric and desecrates societies.

It will take more than showers of blessing and filled dams to cleanse our hearts from the cursed Almond Hedge.

Our prayers must become violent, our knees bruised – we must drape our pride in sackcloth and ashes and fall with our faces to the ground where blood flows, pardon reigns and mercy speaks;

the place where King Dingane’s “prophecies” have no power and hell hath no sting.

Each man must learn to lead himself to the place where waters flow eternal, beyond the cursed hedge or be enslaved forever.

“What a piece of work is man; how noble in reason; how infinite in faculties! In form and moving, how express and admirable! In action how like an angel; in apprehension, how like a god! The beauty of the world! The paragon of animals!

And yet, to me, what is this quintessence of dust”? *Hamlet*.

 

 

(By Jambiya Kai – Jambiya is an emotive writer and storyteller who weaves the tragedy and victory of the human experience into a tapestry of memorable imagery and metaphor. She speaks with honesty on the socio-spiritual challenges of our time. Jambiya’s works are trail to a feast for those accustomed to the jaded perfunctory cleverness of modern wordsmith)

 

 

 

 

ALL OPPRESSION

 

 

‘All oppression creates a state of war.’

Simone de Beauvoir

 

 

I vaguely remember to have bought –

Letters of de Beauvoir, with all probability

Written either way when sickened

By love, – oppressed beyond bearance

To Jean Paul Sartre, to herself,

By demons of longing, – liberator of kind.

The huge black and white cover –

It was meant for a her, to read,

Whom I gifted for reading

She may not have a page turned

And I never found another illiterate

To share with. Your name should be

A brand. The values you stand for –

It should ignite a revolution

Lead a riot, – a rebellion to freedom.

Or otherwise you are a slave

A prisoner freed with cross heavy

Your shoulders droop head

In submission and your tongue tied –

Or unto yourself you declare

A march on liberty, for there is not,

Any worthwhile living as living with pride.

 

 

(By Sadiqullah Khan – The Brave Voices Poetry Journal Solidarity Voice from Pakistan, Dr Sadiqullah Khan is a gifted poet of immense insights and creativity. Writing on a range of subjects his themes are social, spiritual and politically aware. Looking the domains of day to day living, delving deep into the sufferings and joys he seems to be the voice of dispossessed and the vast majority of poor he passionately identifies, yet his art touches the high mark of existential writing, unique in style and composition, he appears to lead his own genre. He belongs to Wana, South Waziristan in Pakistan)

 

 

 

 

TO MY POETRY FRIENDS

 

 

You might wonder what poetry is.

Well,

Poetry is not written.

Poetry is not pondered

Poetry is not created

Poetry is not drafted like an architectural building

Poetry is not manufactured like goods for sale.

Poetry is not formed like a political party or an organization;

Poetry is felt.

How you feel about nature.

It emanates from deep down your heart.

The mind is not part of poetry.

It only intermediates.

 

 

(By Sitidziwa Ndoya – Poet, critic and writer)

 

 

 

 

LOVELY TRUMPETS

 

 

Lovely trumpets

Heralding hopes

That gives us joy

Divine strength

In a hand full of mud

That make our future

In hazy days

these rosy blooms

Fuse rainbow hues in our hearts

Fancy hopes

Spring eternally

And make us face life challenges

 

 

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

 

 

 

 

I HAVE WORKED MYSELF OUT

 

 

I have worked myself out

Shut my presence out

Not to be entitled to this shrine

That has defined its own standards

The shrine has become so sacred as ever

Not fit for persons of our character of nobility

You have to earn yourself to be their cream

I have not earned to be their desired destiny

The people are wagging in their tongues

Who else then can be there

In their minds and conscience

I am etched there at the shrine

I will not shrine myself there

For the shrine is just a place

A place like another on earth

I believe in their hearts

For their hearts are the shrines

Obituaries in my name

Are cast and dry in the sand

Cannot even sway to move them

A court order perhaps

Will change the fortunes of my demise

Lough as I did heartily

For their denial

Of my status beyond my life

 

 

(By Shepherd Zengeya – Poet  from Zimbabwe)

 

 

 

 

I SING

 

 

I sing of days gone by

I sing of years gone

I sing of seconds lost

I sing of time wasted

I sing of faces which were

I sing of faces gone

I sing of faces that are

I sing of faces not yet

I sing of faces which we yearn for

I sing of faces which we regret

I sing of faces

I sing of wants

I sing of needs

I sing of basics

I sing of shortages

I sing of deprivation

I sing of slogans

I sing of chants

I sing of songs

I sing of mourn

I sing of jovial

I sing of jubilee

I sing of truth

I sing of lie

I sing of rallies

I sing of camps

I sing of meetings

I sing of promises

I sing of pressure

I sing of stampede

I sing of queues

I sing of bribe

I sing of go slow

I sing of stay away

I sing of demonstration

I sing of strike

I sing of inflation

I sing of devaluation

I sing of fraudulent

I sing of extortion

I sing of incarceration

I sing of black mail

I sing of assassination

I sing of denunciation

I am a singer who sings not with the mouth but with my hand

I sing I sing I sing…

 

 

(By Prosper Kavunika – Zimbabwean born writer, an afrocentric social commentator who is provocative in his approach but at the same time advocating to bring back that decency we once had)

 

 

 

 

GHETTO BLUES

 

 

Fingers were made before forks,

I hear you say, and you further say:

Now this is your passport, pass

Giving you swift passage, to pass

On the fleas and maggots from your puss,

Putrefying litter bags

And un-gloved un-sanitised hands?

Unwiped backsides, straddle hubby’s meal:

Belief – potent love portion, to bewitch him

Into blind love;

Rational, thrown out of the window

To land on icebergs of litter.

Tarmac pockmarked with potholes

Denizens of snails whose parasites

Flow within the wanton kids’ veins to dash their green hearts.

ST Mary’s is my home, for aeons has always been

Litter bin can be like cafeteria my own trusted posterior;

Loud fart down the street leading to contaminated algae;

Stale ale in the communal jar

Roving from lip to lip,

Swallowed into the recesses of the tummy

Producing loud report of intestinal thunder;

Lightning in the blankets

Thunder in the mango baskets.

Then, all of a sudden, a blackout.

 

 

(By Richmore Tera – Poet, short story writer, playwright, actor and freelance journalist who once worked for Zimpapers (writing for The Herald, Sunday Mail, Kwayedza, Manica Post, H-Metro) as a reporter but currently focusing on his creative work. Currently, he is the Associate Editor of Chitungiwza Central Hospital’s weekly online newsletter. His works have been read in Zimbabwe, Africa and the Diaspora in various publications which he contributes to. He is the author of the monograph, “Here Leaves Silently Fall, a collection of poems, which was published by Arts Initiates in Namibia in 2009)

 

 

 

 

LONGING

 

 

Love has played so many games with me

It took my black card and gave me a red card

It thought I loved hide-and-seek

It hid its face behind the house on my arrival

I struggled to catch a glimpse of it,

It was impossible,

It passed in front of me like a wind,

Leaving behind its strawberry perfume

 

Love has taken an axe and butchered my heart into pieces

It left me hanging, starring at kisses

 

Love has bandaged my wounds

It brought to the lamplight my own,

It spread a white cotton on my wounds

It used the sticking plaster to fasten the edge

Now I have a burning urge

As I hold my cotton’s soft hand

Oh look! A spark just flew from our hands.

 

 

(By NNANE NTUBE – A Cameroonian who is passionate about creative writing. A teacher of languages (French and English) but she is currently furthering her studies at the Higher Teachers’ Training College, Yaoundé. Her poems The Lost Bond, The Pains I Feel, Hungry Voices, Change, Trust in Tears, A Child’s Dream, are published by Spill words press. Her poem, The Visitor featured in a magazine in Zimbabwe; 3Mob.com. The poems, The Pains I Feel and If I am Your Rainbow appeared in an anthology of Gender Based Violence, #Wounded which will soon be published in Zimbabwe by the POWAD group (Poets With A Difference). Her poems Before I Met You and As I Hold Your Hand are forth coming in a wedding day anthology in Zimbabwe. She is a social critic, a youth activist for peace and an aspiring actress)

 

 

 

 

REFLECTIONS OF A TIME

 

 

When the rain fell

The children dashed for the grass

The pools so fresh with rainwater

Green reflecting so clear

It was fun to kick at the water

Delightful shrieks of laughter rent the air

Glorious bliss in the green lawns

No fear of malaria then

No fear of cholera then

No fear of pneumonia

The child knows no fear

Has never known…until you tell

The child knows only delight

The mud puddles

The rainwater has been muddied

The child is a sight to behold

A muddied bloody child!

Delighted in play

Unaware of lurking danger

That was fun!

Pure bliss!

The child knows no evil

Clean slate…tabula rasa

The child knows play

He knows joy

She knows laughter

Don’t make her cry

Don’t make him a fox

No…not yet.

 

 

(By Caroline Adwar – a rising Poetess, an English and Music Teacher in Kenya. She started writing poetry while in high school and she is a fanatic of old English poetry writing traditional style, rhyme, repetition, alliteration and assonance. She is currently experimenting African free verse and her poetry will soon be published in Kenya, Zimbabwe and other International platforms. Caroline is a Bachelor of Education Arts (English and Music) from the Kenyatta University in Kenya)

 

 

 

 

PRESIDENT

 

 

We are tired of gulping diluted ideological brew,

Our earth is barren of justice,

Villages are wet with cheap propaganda

We shriek under the burden of hope smashing slogans.

 

 

(By Mbizo Chirasha – an Internationally anthologized Poet, Writer in Residence, WordPress publisher, Creative Arts Projects Curator and Arts Activism Catalyst.Mbizo Chirasha is the Originator/Instigator of the Zimbabwe We Want  Poetry Campaign http://www.newzimbabwe.com/showbiz-39824-Poems+on+Zim+abuses+to+be+read+in+the+US/showbiz.aspx,( Brave Voices Poetry Journal -Tuck Magazine, Word Guerrillas Protest Poetry Journal – Zimbabwe Sphere, Poets Free Zimbabwe- Miombo Publishing). His poetry, writings and blog journals are widely published across the globe, https://tuckmagazine.com/tag/mbizo-chirasha/, Chirasha is a solidarity member of the  Global Arts and Political Alliance (GAPA http://www.ga-pa.org/2017/11/21/gapa-meets-poem-mbizo-chirasha/, and African Partner of the International Human Rights Arts Festival, New York, United States of America (http://www.blackstarnews.com/education/education/the-international-human-rights-art-festival-highlights-poet). He publishes Women Voices and Profiles in his POI Journal (www.personalitiiesofinspiration.wordpress.com), Writing /Poetry Voices in MP (www.miombopublishing.wordpress.com). Mbizo Chirasha  is a Poetry/Opinion Journal Contributor to  the Tuck Magazine (Brave Voices poetry Journal-www.tuckmagazine.com/mbizochirasha. He Co-edited a bilingual Poetry  e- book in Germany and English with Andreas Weiland, International Poet, Translator, Publisher and Critic in 2017 (http://www.street-voice.de/SV7/SVissue7.html)

 

 

 

 

 

The Zimbabwe We Want Poetry Campaign