Reuters photo
By
Mbizo Chirasha
The poems in this article are a dedication for peace. The Zimbabwe We Want Poetry Campaign is in solidarity with the global community around the world who are all striving for a peaceful, positive transformation and change.
The Poems of this Campaign are also in solidarity with the 100 Thousand Poets for Change – Global which is a sister project with the 100 Thousand Poets for Peace- Zimbabwe since the beginning of 2011. We failed to do the readings this year but we celebrate with others through our brave poetry.
We continue to strive for a better and peaceful Zimbabwe. We continue to voice against untold violence and rampant human and media rights abuses by the regime. We give great thanks to MISA and the Zimbabwe Lawyers for Human Rights for stamping their commitment and unmeasurable resilience in the fight against the abuse of media rights by the regime.
Our Campaign through poetry stands by all citizens and organisations that continue the struggle in the pursuance of FREEDOM OF EXPRESSION AND THE FREEDOM AFTER EXPRESSION IN ZIMBABWE.
The Brave Voices want machinations of Kleptocracy to stop. The higher echelons are splashing hard earned cash through luxurious escapades while the nation is clouded in untold suffering.MADNESS!
This latest article is again a result of the continuous support of Brave Voices in Zimbabwe and the diaspora. In this well packed poetry beat, we have a guest poet from India; thumbs up brother poet for the solidarity. We have also contributions from West Africa nd Lesotho- VIVA!Brave Voices also boasts an interesting yet thought provoking thought by Barbara Nyagomo.
Brave Voices, let your pen and your voice defend you and the suffering Zimbabwean masses – To all those Brave Voices who wish to take in the struggle kindly post your poems on the group ,100 Thousand Poets for Peace- Zimbabwe or email us at [email protected] . We would like to run readings, performances and other events during this full year Campaign and call for partners in organizing, publicising and financing the CAMPAIGN. ALuta – Mbizo Chirasha.
Caustic Words
Then she was like a bull
A wounded buffalo bull on the rampage
Raw sewage flowed from her mouth
The stench of it filled my mind
Left me flummoxed beyond measure
The relentless unprovoked attack
The same tongue that praises the lord
The same tongue that worships the devil
An attempt at mixing oil and water
The she gored like a wounded buffalo
The nagging conscience she will bear
A giant emptiness engulfs her mind
(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)
KUNA AMAI ZVOSE (DISGRACE)
Chandinoziva ndechekuti kuvhunduka chatikwata hunge unekaturukwa
Munovhundukeyi imwi muchiti joko nezvikeyi ndimwi makapakata nhayi?
Kunyangwe svumbunuro dzedenga nedzepasi munoti ndimwi mwene wazvo ,zvino munovhundukeyi Amai zvose?,
Kumanhivi ndimi muripamberi
,kuyambuka Limpopo ndimi munongopininidza, munovhundukeyi?
Usadaro gire urimunhu wokuziva,dai ndaiva iwe ndaipeta musve ndoti mwiro sedera
Kumakomo ,kunhunguru nekutsvorotsvoti ndimi munomhanyira pamberi munovhundukeyi nhayi Amai Zvose?
Usadaro gire urimunhu wokuziva,dai ndaiva iwe ndaipeta musve ndoti mwiro sedera
Chii chatamesa musoro? ,chinokushaisa ganda kutuka vatana pamatare ,kuyanika vakuru kunge hanzu dzepwere, hukasha hwenyuchi here inoruma chaisingadyi? ,hwadzira here hwokutsenga mvura namakanda awo? ,vupengo here hwetarakita kuda kutakura vanhu vasere ?, chii nhayi Amai Zvose?,
Munovhundukeyi ?, imi muchifamba makagara sembambaira , vamwe vachitingura ,nokupaza pasi zuva richivapara nhongonya?
Usadaro gire urimunhu wokuziva,dai ndaiva iwe ndaipeta musve ndoti mwiro sedera
Manzihwi?, imi muchinyechura mipfimbi isu tichivundukura jena ne jovochovo rakafushwa nambuya gore rakaenda yomudenga mvura.
Munovhundukeyi ?,imi muchifambira mudenga soruvangu ,isu varidzi venyika muchitikandira mafufu semakonzo ,munovhundukheyi?,imimuchinyiminya namafuta satimba mumhunga , isu tichingochucha dikita kukushandirai , tokatarika kurima mapindu kuti imwi na chatunga mudye mukore ,isu tinorima imi muchikohwa
Madaimani(diamonds) edu makatora mukatenga zvikochikari zvinoraudzira(rolls and royces ), isu tichingotingura sezvandareva kana tikada kusimudza musoro motitema namvara anovava kunge gwenya mukwenya,muchirutsa nduru yamashoko inovava kunge mhiripiri ,penyu pamuromo panopisa misha.
Usadaro gire urimunhu wokuziva,dai ndaiva iwe ndaipeta musve ndoti mwiro sedera
I ye anokuudzayi kuti Gushungo ndimwari unokuzorai dovi mumboni ,hapanachisingaperi!
Mirai kutsvaga vavengi nomubakwa rehuni kana konaya munotapatira tikaseka ,tikazvirega
Mirayi kutsvaga varoyi muzvuru munorumwa nerovambira tikakukangamwayi
Inga zvamakaroororwa nenjonda wani ,madii mazvimwira ma Fanta neputugadzike makati mwiro sekunze kunoda kunaya, Imi mirayi kuita chimbekeya chinosekesa ,itai chimai chinehunhu,sei kungoropodza kunge karwizi kasingahwi,kusanyarika kunge gonzo rakandwa mavhunze , Zvadini konhayi?
Usadaro gire urimunhu wokuziva,dai ndaiva iwe ndaipeta musve ndoti mwiro sedera
Nzira yamatora inoda manyatera eganda rengwena, zvamurikuita kuzembera mbada ,madziya moto wembavha muchatsva kuti tsvi ,mirai kutambira mumachakwi munonyura.
Dzikamai sama Vhaire mugare pasi zuva risati ravira ,dai ndaivaimi ndaifambafamba kuchaka chena ,kukasviba muchadyiwa nezvikara,
(Usadaro gire urimunhu wokuziva,dai ndaiva iwe ndaipeta musve ndoti mwiro sedera)
Zvokwadi here makatenga ngoro ,
zvokwadi here munotoiwana yokutenga nhembe ngirande ,
zvokwadi here murikutoipfachura iyo mari , isu edu maziso akatsvuka negwembe renhamo,chembere dzichirara tsvuku pamitsara yamatura , imi muchidvova tsvi sendumure dzafirwa ,
(Usadaro gire urimunhu wokuziva,dai ndaiva iwe ndaipeta musve ndoti mwiro sedera)
Iyi yamatanga inoda shaya dzinotetena maputi kwete mipfimbi yamunonanzwira se ndurume , tikagara tichakuvudzai kuti dai makateerera edu matama,
Iye zvino murova diti sehoto kuti ndimi amai , hatidi amai vanomuromo unopfura sepfumo remhondi , vanoruvoko runovava serwediro , vanenharo segagachu renyama,
.Vanatose tapera kutiza musha ,totandabotso here mumakuvi evamwe iyo misha yedu iriko ,Ngozi yenyu yamakaro yatsakatisa musha seye gandanzara. Taimbofunga kuti muno funga asi munenge munofungirwa,
Gore rino makarova harahwa pagura remazoe ramunoda kurima nokunjekura ,mukadzitanda pamakuva napadzinde kuti dziende dzidzungaire nesango samarombe vachisiya pavakaradza vatana vavo,dzorayi mwoyo,pedzezvo mopa nherera hanzu dzine zvinda kwenya nezvikwekwe ,imi muchitekaira mumidhembe yengirande nemireka ,
(asi usadaro gire inga urimunhu wokuziva wani.)
Ndati tiyeuchidzane , kurova muchaponda henyu asi shoko harivhikwi , taneta nawo makwati enyu tava nhinhi , kana mukatirova iyezvino tomanya kwasadza ,tonozvidyirasadza ,tonongura shaya navanga adzo munaNyazvidzi , tichisangana ikoko imimuchirutsa ruvengo novukasha.
Taneta nokusvota muchidambura nhembe pachita somukoni koni,musationa kunyarara mukati tirizvituta ,zvituta ndizvo zvinopurururdza muchihumana nokupara ngozi ,musanakirwa nokupfachuka sekuti kunenhasi chete ,mangwana arikuuya chete
Munoshoropdza vamwe nokutaura kwamusina kuswera sezvinozi murimutsvene moga ,garai pasi murutse nyadzi , ,munovhundukeyi imwi makabata zvikeyi nejoko, hatifambeyi nendima.
Munotuma vana kuponda madzisekururu namadzimbuya ,muchivabatisa ropa imwi makati kwanga mujakafiri rovudyo ne ndarama , hezvo vana vopenga kunge zvihwa mupengo , vamwe zvavazvituta , voda jorodhani kana mashope shope ,gari pasi ,tsikitsirayi musati maenderera senhembe irikudambuka,
Isu ticharamba tochikuyeuchidzayi kuti dai murimwe mazvitetetenera mutetenegwa wamadaimani edu makanyarara ,asi munoti hatizive ,musakangamwa zvazuro nehope , tirongo rakakumiraiwo,kujakuka jakuka kwose kuchapera sembiya iripamoto
Mvura yamatanga kubata inopisa , dai maziva matii mwii zuva risati ravira , taneta nokushungurudzwa kunge zvana zvamajesa nguva yemvura
.
(Usadaro gire urimunhu wokuziva,dai ndaiva iwe ndaipeta musve ndoti mwiro sedera)
(A SHONA POEM expressing displeasure on how the top Zimbabwean woman called Grace Mugabe is abusing the executive powers of her husband Robert Mugabe as lash her razing tongue and spew vitriol to Zimbabweans leaving the trails of factionalism, hatred,confusion and poor performance)
(By Mbizo Chirasha – Founder, Editor, Promotions Executive at Large of the Zimbabwe We Want Poetry Campaign(Brave Voices Poetry Journal), Poets Free Zimbabwe (Miombo Publishing Journal) and PENS SHAPETHE STRUGGLE (Word guerrillas Poetry Journal))
STREETS OF DESPAIR
As the clouds dress the majesty Heaven
My mind too, is covered with despair
Wandering up and down
My streets of hope and confidence
That
What will be life like?
If misrule and injustice survive another minute
In my beloved motherland
If democracy slumber for good
In a twinkling of an eye
If our Moses got tired weary and dreary
And resign daylight?
What else will this life mean to us;
The jobless
Hungry, naked
And the shelterless?
Think about it!
The situation is getting worse daily
Millions of dollars are corruptly missing
Masses going bankruptcy
Starving
And fleeing in pursuit of greener pastures
Whereas the government is on a plunder
All these horrific empty days of holding office
Where are the fruits of their toil?
Ain’t they great failures?
In a corner lies a query still
Who to blame…
If the hooligans assassinate those who stand for humanity
And only the villain remain to be the vampire sucking the blood of the sufferers?
What shall survival be?
I’m cocksure that the Great Zimbabwe
Will be a hell just for the natives
To discredit the Head Creator!
(By Haile Saize I)
CHIMURENGA
Where are you Chimurenga
Are you satisfied to abort Zimbabwe
Plunk the children to cry
And wonder why must you die
Chimurenga we thought you were with us
Both in agony and in success
But only until we realized your plastic smile
Then you had to desert us
Left us vulnerable to internal power struggles
Yes you fought the invasions
European expansion
Colonisation
Imperialism and all the ism and schism
To leave us the divisions
The fight against Shona and Ndebele ethnic groups
The vote; -an imperial spot
Chimurenga please come stand with me
The Maji-maji where’s your uprising?
Come confine the cowards to oblivion
And let Zimbabwe feel that haven of peace.
(By Haile Saize I – a Word guerrilla, a fighter of human rights, a Word slinger in the Campaign against despotism)
AT TIMES
Am stuck in the past I have been
All those friends who promised me support
Have disappeared with the wind
If life offers lessons
Then am failing the classes
Because am lost in the broken glasses
That I can not see the light
It is like am walking in the heavy rain
Am loosing connection just
To connect only with myself
Giving you chapters of my life
You to place them on your shows
Because am trying to teach you love
Yet all around me is hatred
Telling you a story of which am flipping back pages
Loosing track of what am saying and praying
Every night for you to understand what am saying.
(By POLLY MAKOTOKOTO – Founder of Afro poetry Movement, Poet and Perfomance Artist in Lesotho)
TIME
The hands in clock
Go round and round
Making the same time
Which generations follow
No two sunrises are same
No two seconds are same
No two years are same
Chimes of clock carry history
Time shows no mercy
It has two great things
Beginning and ending
In a second …
A beginning and an ending!
(By Gopichand & Nagasuseela Panchumarthi – Head of the Department of English and Vice Principal at JKC College, Guntur, Studied MA in English at Acharya Nagarjuna University)
Found Scroll of Timbuktu
As humanism to The Renaissance,
Ubuntu calls the children of Afrika;
From Nubian Nile, to sublime Azania
The conga summons you to the dance!
Dispel the archaic for the ancient!
Is the reason the reason, or reason
That holds the bloom from season?
Call to the mountain sapient!
The lore of Christiandom is as holey
As these borrowed robes upon our souls.
Hearken now for eternity calls
Writhing are the serpents of the holy!
Thirst ye for the waters of the living,
There was a heaven before we were stolen,
Had we no gods ere Yahweh was given?
Your peers of old await your freedom!
No donkeys with horns to call unicorns
That tread guilt streets paved with gold
Stolen from the Motherland since so old
No hell no Eden, no Iblis’ horns!
Children of rape, denounce your father!
Children of cannibals, what’s for supper?
So blessed and wealthy; how do you suffer,
Roar now loud and silence thunder!
(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)
MY FIRST LOVE
You left me with a broken heart
I believed in you
Stood up for you
And sang for you..
Sacrificed this life cz of my love for you
You lay there all beaten up
Beaten up and powerless
Slowly dying away
Depressed and sad that’s what you were..
They left you for dead my love
With no more space to love again my love
Betrayed and confused you were my love
Poverty made its home in you
The economy waved its hand goodbye
The future of our kids looking bleak my love
The land broken and is dying my love
You bear your fruits but they locked that away for themselves
Time is ticking
The children are singing
And we all are wishing
You will make us proud my love
My love, my one and only
My first love Zimbabwe
(By ALFRED MASUNDA – Poet, Founder at Avante-garde Association of Young Artists. Studied at National Gallery of Zimbabwe School of Visual Arts and Design)
Poems from the graves
By skojofrimpong with Oheneba Kofi Wabik and 40 others
When I was little I wanted to be a spy
But I never knew why I wanted to be one
Or even understood why I had to be a spy
Until now that I still have so many unanswered questions
Hovering in my head like scavengers
Waiting to feast on my dead brains
At any least given chance
Why were we kept from so many secrets?
When they knew it will one day be open themselves to us
I wanted to become a spy so I could
Figure out what goes on behind closed doors
When lovers are coiled inside blankets
I wanted to also know how our parents
Did their magic that brought forth
One of our kind every four years
I wanted to find what was hidden
Behind the deep blue skies
And the deep blue seas
I wanted to find out what goes on behind closed doors
And inside the dark when all the lights go out
But now I realise every secret is open
There are no secrets but mysteries
So I am a spy and I know not
What I am seeking but I will know
When I finally meet who I have been
Seeking for right from birth
I will realise I was finding myself
And I didn’t know I was lost
When I Was Little
(S Kojo Frimpong – A writer from West Africa Tema, Ghana to be precise. A lover of poetry and a reading addict)
WAITA ZVEKURIDZA BHOSVO UGERE PAMUSORO PENGOMA
Zvoshamisa zvekutoshamisa zvomene,
Zvandonzwa sendofamba ndisina kusimira,
Ari mabasa ako zvako iwe Nyaguhwa,
Unofuridza uchiwedzera mhiripiri inovava sechikukwa.
Ko zvandatosara ndaniwa sehuku,
Kuita kundiveura musvuwu ini ndisingadi kugerwa,
Ndave dhabha-dhabha mupfvungwa zvese nemoyo,
Ah idi wandikobvora moyo.
Wandiridza wena iwe Nyaguhwa,
Waita zvekuridza bhosvo ugere pamusoro pengoma,
Kuridza zvine mutinhimira unonzwikwa kure-kure,
Ah wandigura kunorira,
Wandifefetedza ndikanzwa kupera shungu,
Ndangovewo chiseko chenyika,
Nhasi vanorova zvikwe-e zvavo vanaAmai Dzvatsva-tsva.
Basa washanda wena iwe Nyaguhwa,
Unoverengwa pane vanhu vane mbiri yemakuhwa,
Yafira kwangu nhasi, ndatovewo bharanzi remumaraini,
Vanondiona vawana nyaya dzekumwisa tsvutugadzike,
Ndazviona, ndabvuma uri mharapatsetse chaiyo,
Ndazvinzwa waita zvekuridza bhosvo umire pamusoro pengoma.
(By Cosmas Shoko (Nyanduri Wedyaringo MuZimbabwe)
Give me my pen and paper!
Let me ride on the
waves of
memory through ink
and rhyme
Let me oh let me write
about that yesterday
that knocked
the wind out of me I wish
I could go back to…
There’s no more ink
In my fountain pen
Left only is the stink
Of its blots
It’s dry nib, now a spear
Tears paper like a shredder.
It spewed in its times
Indelible black ink
On white pages
Which like stains of blood
On a priest’s robes
Tell tales of horror
What story can I still write?
What song can I still compose?
There’s no more ink
In my fountain pen
Left only is the dry nib
Which now like a spear
Haunts paper and pad.
(By Tapera Makadho & Catherine Magodo-Mutukwa – Poets for social change and positive transformation in Zimbabwe)
The glide on wall
Behindhand sealed flaps
I perceive her being molested
This is bondage
She cannot free her self
Because of the terror
I am the glide on her wall.
She is verbally abused in my presence
Physically touched and in anguish
All I can do is to lookout.
She is profound on earning a living
Yet he takes no deed to attest
His virility
I am the glide on her wall
He is calm and incompetent
Leaves his family to agonize
As he spends his last dollar
On sluts
Starvation his weapon
And all I can do is to perceive
I am the glide on her wall
(By Tynoe Wilson – aka lowlife diarist with the zeal to embroid the societal restriction logo that herald our misery as poets, writers and the society)
Quote from Barbara Nyagomo
ZIMBABWEANS
“At this rate, Herald News Headlines in the very near future will be like, ‘President Robert Mugabe passed through Robert Mugabe road on his way from Robert Mugabe international airport going to Robert Mugabe square with his son Robert Mugabe Jr to celebrate the Robert Mugabe day…
PLEASE REGISTER TO VOTE
No Comments Yet!
You can be first to comment this post!