Poetry

Reuters photo

By

Gerry Sikazwe

Tales of Brokenness

These are cries of hearts crushed in pain,

They are words of voices slain,

Of faces that no longer resemble their original forms,

A people, eternities ago, sold to anguish and despair.

These are paintings coloured by broken brushes,

They are faint shadows of lost dreams misfortune daily lashes,

Mere tales of brokenness, completely pitiful,

Of a people, long ago, given away to fearsome gloom.

These are whispers of stitched smiles unheard

They are sketched signs of crippled wishes unread,

Utterly ignored,

About a people, such as us, years ago, offered to oppression.

Take Your Place

Wake up sleeping lion,

Your place is not with hyenas,

Yours is to cause terror and feed on finest flesh,

Leave bone licking and crushing to them that are slothful,

Take your throne and thereon roar.

Stand up and get work done,

Neither idleness nor sleepiness is your portion,

You must begin making bricks, with which to build your obese future,

Let them that are lazy, thatch their tomorrows with fairy dreams,

Take your place and pioneer civilization.

Flap your wings eagle,

You are not a chicken nor are you a duck,

Loft heights where fashioned for your exploitation,

Forsake the dusty ground to them that are afraid of heights,

Take your throne and thereon soar,

Start what has never been started before,

The status quo has no effect on you,

You don’t follow trends, you set them; that’s who you are,

Limitations are for them that think within the box, not you who has no box,

Take your place and steer the world.

Now Is Time

Lay me down in pastures green,

Before the Sun with utter madness burns,

And all grass to brown dry.

Set me under the shade; beneath the leafy tree,

Before all its leaves,

Scorched to the ground fall.

Let my soul wallow in mud,

Playfully, interacting with wet earth,

Because soon, only dust remains of life.

Gerry Sikazwe

I am Gerry Sikazwe and I write poetry. I am currently a student at the University of Zambia studying for a Bachelors degree in Adult Education. I have a poetry page on Facebook that I manage. My poems have been featured on Africanwriter.com and Mshikamano.com.