Chris Nener photo
By
Kabedoopong Piddo Ddibe’st
We Roll The Wheel
We are rolling
Our pierced bicycle of freedom
From the buffaloes
Of thirst and hunger
That knock dead children and mothers;
We’ve to roll the wheel, anyway.
We are rolling
Our slowworm wheelchairs of freedom
From the heavy handed mad bulls
Of the arbitrary cold prisons,
And the stupid amendments
That knock dead the nation every five years;
We’ve to roll the wheel, anyway.
We are rolling
Our wheelless coffins;
Some shall fall again,
But let’s unite to stand the pain,
The crown is worth more than the pain;
The prison of one is the prison of all;
We’ve to roll the wheel, anyway.
We are rolling
Our lives towards the beacon of hope,
Wheeling longer and higher above
The truncheons thudding
With the whisks of whips,
Running the Nation’s businesses;
We’ve to roll the wheel, anyway.
We are rolling
Our punctured bicycle with love,
A liberating love, love for the nation;
We may not reach the Promised Land now,
But we’ll reach finally soon, anyway.
The Working Girl
She works nightly
Where pigs of daddies lurk.
Men who rightly
Lurk late to attack
The soft spot of the world,
Cutting her without a word.
She lurves wildly
The men she tames mildly
With such a sweet turpitude,
She sees poison sweet a solitude,
Like a lustre of life in the air
Stacked in her thick lustrous hair.
No longer nightly,
But as we make hay.
Tweedledum meets
Tweedledee on streets
Tu-whitting, tu-whooing;
Crushing without wooing.
A man eateth where he worketh,
The grain on the mill’s teeth.
Wine of a fool gets done with mere tastes;
No dowry, working girl, but men’s tests.
Kabedoopong Piddo Ddibe’st
Kabedoopong Piddo Ddibe’st is a Ugandan Poet/English and Literature teacher, born in Kitgum, an Acholi by tribe, aged 26.
He is from the land ruled by Idi Amin Dada (1971-9), then by Museveni (1986-present), invaded by LRA/Lord Resistance Army under Joseph Kony(1986-2006).
Thus, he comes from a dirt poor family background, a nation where life is at stake.
The poet persona's grip on the political vitrine of post colonial Africa is that of torpidity. The picture of the wheel or wheelchair, envisions a crippled country that's wheel ridden, such a of a donkey walk with poor developmental acceleration... I love this poet and I wish I could review some of his works.