Pixabay photo

 

By

Mbizo Chirasha

 

 

The Zimbabwe We Want Poetry Campaign (Brave Voices Poetry Journal, the Poets Free Zimbabwe and the Word Guerrillas Protest Poetry Journal) continues to celebrate one main achievement, the removal of the Mugabe dynasty, a great achievement indeed by Zimbabweans.

The Mugabe madness is gone; we need more and more political tolerance and economic sanity. We do not want to regret anymore. We strive for a true and newly changed Zimbabwe. Abasha Corruption. Abasha Violence. Aluta New Zimbabwe. Aluta Best Economy.

We implore the new leadership to be strict and to investigate whoever is implicated in corrupt tendencies. We call upon through poetry / word bullets for the respect of the media, artists and other rights.

We say NO to intimidation of citizens and abuse of vendors. Vendors are currently the vanguards of the socio-economic landscape of Zimbabwe. Brave Voices implore the new leadership to undertake serious changes in the social strata, water, housing and other social deliverables.

We firmly call for free and nonviolent elections. Iwe Neni Tinebasa. Asante Sana – Mbizo Chirasha (Campaign Originator)

 

 

 

 

A SAD ASPECT OF A DYING NATION

 

 

Another Christmas again, void of credibility!

With the hungry children feasting upon

rotten crusts

of pus-pouting chicken-pox wounds.

The learned blame the system’s policies.

The church fathers think it’s the cabinet’s depravity.

The general citizens argue that it’s the leader’s autocracy.

The newspapers call for the restoration of some diplomatic international relations.

The western civilization prejudges the frowning crisis a racial incompetence.

The political analysts denounce it a deliberate intimism.

The prisoners on death role have a jaw-breaking diction

against the controversial nadir

no editor can rectify.

It’s a sad aspect of a dying nation.

The children’s innocent ogle

in disguise arrays despondence

with the bravery to defy the curse.

Tomorrow will dawn with a revolutionized,

favourable weather.

 

 

(By Blessing T Masenga – a bold word guerrilla, a fiery poet through his writings tirelessly and boldly seek to strip nude the oppression and the violations of basic human rights)

 

 

 

 

CHITUNGWIZA

 

 

To have risen eyebrows in hamlets

the portal of slums turns our crib

Nor ever ills to denote. Revulsions

At peak day on spells surviving kins

Sister gets paid for conjugal visits

If this be the quest of life sustenance

Gloomy penetrations, no doubt to

Bore bastards resultantly each core

Brother break a leg in pursuits awry

upriver is a hideout, a brewage pot

Kachasu ferments off season so dry

That fails the brothers’ conscience…

Mother out in streets scavenging on

Ghost jobs prove the distress epoch

Prevailing round and round hamlets

with lips as dry as lizards from heats

Fathers deeds not to nit-pick, it prove

Nitwits duped each moments, name

Hustle is his formal job crafts. No lie

Is vice tongues pay a prize or bribes.

 

 

 

DANCE

 

 

No one is less important in crafting

Our Nation forth. As one let’s stride

In reshaping our prospects daily in

Propel the notion in motion sisters

The famine voice to echo triumph

As brothers beat the drums swiftly

And so loud. Let mothers feet trip

Dancing to Jikinya, Ngcuzo, Dinhe

Mbakumba my grandma sang of…

Tis just but bliss in cast, recalling

all efforts left at wretches is alive

once more spells progressivism.

Oh fathers of the day roar alike the

Old lion did but the echoes of wits

that turn on us…Chaminuka Tsuro

Chinamora, Nehanda and Kaguvi.

 

 

(By Tynoe Wilson  – I am Wilson aka lowlife diarist with the zeal to embroid the societal restriction logo that herald our misery as poets, writers and the society)

 

 

 

 

THE SONGS OF MY PEOPLE

 

 

The songs of my people

They are sweet to the ear

They are full of drama too.

People who once loved

Spew bitterness and bile

Rub pepper on the wound.

They are songs about men

They are songs about women

Who were once inseparable,

An expression of pain

Painted as pleasure.

The songs of my people –

They make us laugh

They make us dance,

in cowboy hats and boots

 

 

(By Michael Mwangi Macharia – a poet based in the Rift Valley region, Kenya. He contributes literary and education articles to the Kenyan dailies. He is also involved in directing, adjudicati­on of music and drama. He has developing interest in History, fine art and photography)

 

 

 

 

BOUND BY BITTERNESS

 

 

Wars are not won by the deaf.

The trauma of injustice not only lives in our soil and soul but permeates the air; we die of dreaded disease – bitter toxins contaminate the flesh we consume as our staple diet.

Self seeking justice has destroyed our humanity; we have forgotten how to feel and feed others.

We are too wound up in our own pit of despair and inflected ferocity to listen.

Our ears are open but our insight shut –

Hate has infested our enslaved auras and calcified our bones.

We use our words to slay not save;

we kill the wounded because

we are too tightly strung.

We recognise only our own pain.

We don’t heal by self-centred focus – we heal by feeling;

and feeling the fear and pain of those who walk as we have walked and walk. We feel not as fools but as the freed. We listen not as slaves but as saints.

We fight as victors not victims;

for a soldier who beholds death is already defeated.

He who conquers has trained his eye on life.

We overcome when our swords are raised against pain not people;

for what shall we do with ourselves who are consumed with the drive to rip the heart of the despot –

are we then not killers too.

We heal and feel when we can embody the writhing and palatable wounding of massacred souls around us who are colourless in death.

Our fight for freedom is not about us;

it’s about them;

It is in looking through the pains and pangs of a wider world and knowing we have been called to carry the dying and to uplift the frail and falling.

Only then will we be free.

Hatred has never liberated a slave – it is his thinking mind and awakening sense of self-worth that snaps the chains from his feet.

His clear sense of strategy has him walking from prison even should contention last 27 years.

When we believe that only we and others like us suffer injustice and torture – that is when we become the masters of our own bondage.

It could be a long walk to freedom for those who find peace in pain – it takes time to die to self. But that is what we must fight for.

We pierce the darkness not the dead; our eyes are trained on our victory not victimisation.

Let our mourning speak of a new dawn and our memoirs of victory tiled in toil.

 

 

(By Beulah Kleinveldt/Jambiya – 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)

 

 

 

 

MY SILENCE REMINDS ME

 

 

My silence reminds me

Of thousands scattered across

Far away into the winds of description of home by Warsan Shire

And I wonder how men learn to smile

In a world where little boys and girls have learnt to caress the graves of their mothers

In a world where everyone knows of ambulance sirens

And greetings have been replaced by questions of how many were killed last night!

No one leaves home

Unless home is smoke

Until the boy you kissed holds a gun bigger than his body

Men tell me how to kiss goodnight to a loved one

Salutations of a gun!

The sound of reduction into silence

Holding breath

Hoping that the bullet has not hit your brother

We know of it.

The salutations of a gun!

And the smell of Army boots

Lastly ,

We have learnt how to cry

How to hold our arms in unison

How to bury loved ones in multitudes!

Beneath the oceans of our skin

Lays a system of death embedded in whispers of bullets

Beneath the voices that rise

Is the secret kiss of a loved one silenced by the bullet!

 

 

(By Julius Muriithi – Poet and Student from Kenya)

 

 

 

 

STREETWISE

 

 

I beg O…

In the name of this almighty!

Is the underlying disguise

I see all day long

In the city or town streets

I walk ho…

See them crippled our society

submit to lazy individuals

Allow them take along,

Every sweat earned

You being run over

The song of a hawker-city council attendants stampede,

The noise from the law enforcers step our thread bare buttocks

And the cold gun barrel rest on our naked necks

While we are nothing more than sits

To the low high officers of the peoples

A meal a day

We stay focused of being rained on dirty politics

Have you heard?

Sweet melodies from a blind street bagger

Leaves us all opened mouthed

The disabled is always our hero

Making us feel safe on the naked streets

I wish you knew my fate

I don’t but the street herbalist does

He is a god on the street

For a near Wesley brown or silvery coins

His tongue sees my future

Am more alert at the law enforcers

The low high officers of the law.

Whose rubber boots massages our buttocks

His gun barrel threaten our souls

And we kindly curry him on our backs

of the street acrobats

Have you seen how beautiful they are

How aggressive they live

How patient they can be

they are the accommodating souls

Help them or not!

They won’t mark your face

Let you pass without calling u ‘sister’ or ‘brother’

A day later with the same plight.

They simply need a saviour

A saviour to lead them to classroom doors,

Studios and Art galleries

Or fashion shows

They need someone to hold their hand to the right direction

Hear them play in an appropriate stage

Play the drum sets with the right band

Dance for the right artist

They need a library to borrow books from

Not a bowl with two desperately tired coins waiting for a good Samaritan to pass by! A beggar, yes a beggar on the street

You need stop playing foul

Someone needs not pity in the name of able physiques.

What a lazy lad you are!

Pessimistic opportunist!

We need laws to punish such,

Not for being lazy

But for the injustice they do…

Harmlessly needy souls of the community

disabled members of our states.

They don’t need beggars to lead them to the streets

When they don’t want to be there in the first place.

When all they need is for the beggar to leave them alone!

To walk in the streets of towns and cities

As they head to their places of work!

 

 

(By Caesar Obong – Caesar has been inspired by Spoken word, Western pop, traditional African music and world music. While he embraces so many kinds of musical genres, languages and universal themes, he has always kept his African heritage and Ugandan roots at the core of his musical identity. His poetry is embraced with acoustic backing which gives poetry a unique identity)

 

 

 

 

BURY THE HATCHET

 

 

No more war, brethren

Bury the hatchets

Long gone are the days of blind cheering and sloganeering

Name calling and public showdown amongst politicians,

Let the tempestuous sea of pointless tirades calm down

No more war, fellows

Why not fights a different war instead,

collectively let’s fight against hunger

faithfully declare war against poverty

collectively; a war against corruption, to wage.

In unison; sincerely, to invite peace and freedom to our doorstep.

Can we find unity in our diversity?

Can we peacefully agree to disagree in our national discussions?

Can the stained political landscape be sanitized once again?

No more pointless bickering, fellows

Sharpen not the sword anymore

Sharpen your mind rather

for our nation need you all

Why should those in authority be gratified by the aroma from the burning hopes of the ordinary man?

Can we not nurture a spirit of inclusivity and bury the past that is marred by demonization of political opponents?

Bury the hatchets; pick up the trowel

Time to build is now

 

 

(By Brighton Busybee Muponda – is a Zimbabwean author born on the first of November 1986.He stays in the city of Masvingo, Zimbabwe. He­ co-authored a poetry anthology called Dzinonyandura which was written in Shona, a native language spoken by the majority of people in Zimbabwe)

 

 

 

 

BUT WE CAN’T SEPARATE OURSELVES

 

 

we are born into the middle of a machine of schemes

dirty dreams

pimps b-witches on a guest lists

no need for id

the search

the see through empty head

the logo

the 3D flat screen

the titles and fade with end credits

so so criminally authoritative to you?

That they had to be held accountable for more than one themselves but also you?

We can break this maze

etiolated differently by our various axes

Our latitudes and leanings and longitudes

But there is nothing for us on the other side

so we just walk away

 

 

(By Pasi Gunguwo  – Zimbabwean Poet, Writer and Actor residing in Canada)

 

 

 

 

A MIDNIGHT DANCE

 

 

She sweeps her skirts my gaze to win

The stars have crowned her queen;

She flirts with earth, the wind, my gaze-

The gazelle exudes less grace.

Clothed in night and rising dust

too thin to shelter lust,

the roaring drum ignites a trance

she bleeds her sweat in dance.

She beams beneath the thick moonlight

While lusty eyes delight,

Worshipping her every part

In the unforbidden night.

I lay my claim with an eye’s invite

Then melt into the dark,

She follows me beyond the lake

And lays her flesh at stake.

I cup her pointy cones now bare

Retreat I do not dare,

Then take her on the riverbed

Like Adam newlywed!

Tonight we burn the coal of night

And roast in sweet moonlight,

‘Til amber breaks the morning sky

 

 

(By Philani Amadeus Nyoni – 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)

 

 

 

 

OCTOBER MOON

 

 

October moon arrives at my door

A little ghost, raw orange zest

The chaff of the moon floods the valley

With pale yellowish flowers of light

And melting slivers, breathing coolness!

The sliver of the bright moon rocks

The ashes below heaven, down

With heat that is warm to touch.

Its half rim like a distant fire

Is burning the eastern horizons.

We might as well say we are

yellow-throated

In the moonlight’s pouring corn light

Listening for our names

In the million-petalled slivers

of the moon’s being

Unbowed by life’s winds

The moon has pulled over us

like a Cyclops’s eye

In the long silences the moon is hiding.

Pushing night into dawn

dawn into morning

The night’s eluding face

slipping away with a quite

Undressing the moon

Spherical arc in death emerging Eve

naked and embarrassed

 

 

(By Tendai.R.Mwanaka – Multidisciplinary artist, editor, writer, scholar from Nyanga, Zimbabwe)

 

 

 

 

FOR THE COUNTRY I LOVE (Fragments)

 

 

Turn styles, children in a playground

Whirling themselves into dizzy fits

Staggering in lands bought to make their fathers work themselves into a fit. Did you hear the siren summoning them to lunch?

Empty lunch boxes, I thought as much.

Nehanda, Kaguvi and Mzilikazi filling up a time sheet,

forgiving each other for the bloodshed,

waiting for boss to call them back to the line.

Lunch over, Nehanda weld the machine back to sober.

Why do Kaguvi and Mzilikazi think they could take days off often?

My history is a cancer but radiation scares my ancestry away

Zimbabwe placed a cancerous breath on our chest,

So aren’t no breastfeeding today

 

 

(By Mbonisi Zikhali – I am a humanitarian, carer of our grandmothers and grandfathers. I am a warrior for truth, and leader of our youth. I am the new Zimbabwe, along with my brothers and sisters)

 

 

 

 

REMEMBERING 2008

 

 

Late one morning I walked the night;

not only was the sky alights

with Scorpio, and fireflies,

and owls with disembodied eyes;

but scattered widely in the dust

a million diamonds keen as lust.

A million spiders’ eyes reflect

my headlamp, and then I detect

ten million termites loading grass:

a mass oblation comes to pass:

upheavals of the motherland:

close the pits with shovels of sand.

Orion killed by Scorpio,

his dying light, his afterglow;

that tilting of the Southern Cross,

Eros spilling Thanatos;

bushfires dimming an errant moon,

the Senet wind a loud bassoon.

Late one morning, walking the night

like Dickens after Esther’s plight,

a stranger, undirected, hurled

against an unforgiving world,

yet mindful of our mother’s womb,

which doubles as a common tomb;

mindful too of shovelling sand

in rhythms of a saraband,

grand, triple time, long second beat,

laying to rest just so much meat;

of coffins ranged in serried ranks,

hear it scattering on the planks

 

 

(By John Eppel – John lives in Bulawayo and has 18 publications of poetry and prose to his name, including collaborations with Julius Chingono, Philani Nyoni, and Togara Muzanenhamo)

 

 

 

 

VIOLET DELIGHTS

 

 

Violet delights

Swinging on the mud

Like the gleeful kids

In the holiday evening

All flowers are unique

You fill our hearts with joy

And make our lives pleasant

You add glory to all functions

 

 

(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)

 

 

 

 

A SILENCE

 

 

Long deep slipping on surface

Of the moon in sad twilight –

A silence returning to me like

An old friendship culminating on notes

Slowly stringed and from the hollowness

That it shrieks taking my heart out –

That am become stone or a tree axed

Bled, that to my empty helpless fortune

That on my palm I intently gaze blind,

That to them I not a tear may shed

Silently breathing except say a word,

For beyond beyond there might a hope

Stir and there might be kindness

Blessings and the touch of Jesus

For the sake of all about to suffer,

My humble prayers to the Divine reach.

 

 

(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)

 

 

 

 

NOAH CAPTAIN FLOODGATE

 

 

Lord, Your Word I have spoken

yet none among the people hearken

not even one among my kinsmen

save my wife, three sons and their wedded wives

are with me on this shipwright business to save our lives

all I know is tilling the land and feed on what it gives

now I must cajole vipers and lure a lioness from its cub

I must pet the elephant, and the rhino’s snout I must rub

I must cage the hippo and store for it some grub

eight heads and sixteen hands must gather creeping things sly

and select the choicest from among creatures that fly

the shark and its water-fellows bring them to comply

the ark is finished that you made me build

in its caverns every species tame and wild

for posterity, and with Your blessing we are sealed!

 

 

(By Cosmas Mairosi – a performance poet born and bred in rural Zimbabwe. He trained as a primary school teacher. At the moment, he is living and working in South Africa. To Cosmas, poetry is life. To him art does not mean anything unless it comments on issues that directly affect human life)

 

 

 

 

 

The Zimbabwe We Want Poetry Campaign