AP photo

 

By

Mbizo Chirasha

 

The 10th publication of the Zimbabwe We Want Poetry Campaign comes along with the sacred month of November 2017. We continue to fight for a better and peaceful Zimbabwe, a tolerant Zimbabwe and an economical sound Zimbabwe through poetry (the power of the pen).

This sacred publication wants to send a clear message to the self-appointed prime minister and SELF anointed interim president of Zimbabwe, Grace Marufu MUGABE – who has become a national disaster and security threat to peace loving Zimbabweans.

To begin with, the overzealous ZANU-PF perceived to be part of a terrorist gang (COZWA of Inzwa inini fame), are attacking, beating and injuring citizens in Chitungwiza day and night. Many people are suffering in the hands of these thugs who boast of their strong linkage to the so called G40 political (cabal). The leaders of this COZWA grouping boast of their linkage to the highest family of the land.

Grace Mugabe is displacing poor citizens from Arnold Farm (Manzou villagers in Mazowe). These poor Zimbabwean citizens are brutally attacked and are being chased out of their land, such is the GREED And UTTER MADNESS! According to her own rants, Grace Mugabe is the only Zimbabwean who is capable of doing what she wants in Zimbabwe (dictatorship, selfishness, myopia and rot).

I think it’s time for Zimbabweans to refuse this whole tyrannical nonsense and autocratic crap of violence, hatred, greediness, corruption and hegemonic tendencies by the Grace Disgrace Mugabe regime.

This publication of the Zimbabwe We Want Poetry Campaign is also in solidarity with Martha O’ Donovan of Magamba TV for her unjust arrest by the Zimbabwean law enforcement Cybersecurity, Threat Detection and MITIGATION ministry at work). Just for a mere retweet.

We have been silent as Zimbabweans for a long time and we have not been doing enough to silence this family-made regime to hear and implement the content of our voices (monarchical, Napoleonic regime). Grace Mugabe thinks she is the only voice that must speak and that everyone must stop speaking. No!, we need Freedom of Expression in Zimbabwe, We are not going to be silenced, We are not going to just bathe, eat and sleep. Our voices are getting viral. We are going to speak until they cut our mouths off, until they bash our brains out, until they close all channels, until and until.

Zimbabwe needs new voices, Zimbabwe needs new political leadership, Zimbabwe needs a sound economy, Zimbabwe needs to be redeemed from moral decay and political decadence, Zimbabwe needs to be restored to its great and admirable status. We cannot have Zimbabwe as a family property. We don’t want Gods and Goddesses in State House, we want people made of clay and flesh. The Mugabe dynasty must give way for new leadership. Brave Voices will Speak and Speak until eternity.

The 10th publication of the Zimbabwe We Want Poetry Campaign is the journal of truth, the journal of justice, the journal a quest for democracy, the journal for change – Enough is Enough. Thank you to the Brave VOICES, Word GUERRILLAS, to our publishing partner Tuck Magazine. Aluta BRAVE voices from INDIA, NIGERIA, KENYA, SPAIN, MEXICO, GHANA, SOUTH AFRICA, AMERICA , AHOY ZIMBABWEANS, ALUTA ALL OUR FANS FROM AROUND AFRICA AND THE WORLD. Let your pen and your voice defend you and the suffering Zimbabwean masses. You can contact us on [email protected] – Mbizo Chirasha.

 

 

 

 

SAVAGE

 

 

To have stood in between two Crowns

And drank from the plunge of impetuosity

Heresy spelt in ecstasy amidst the gowns

And the solicit queries their sacred integrity

Infants pontifical and poised in between

Told, Borne frees’ but serenity never rendered.

The brother’s deeds has risen my eyebrows

Being the bourgeoisie at my displeasure

Rage she had mold and disgraced the motive

Of freedom fighting for I am in an incarceration,

A domain misled by the falsehood of individuals

In pursuit of miscellaneous manifestations

The comrade bulldozed through the bayonet

And left a bunch of hypocrites to serve

Genuinely interested in enslavement of this kin

Whom turns independence into a severe affliction.

 

 

 

ECHOES OF DISTRESS

 

 

The tailor booted at sixty told he’s inept

Caused the economy to grew malignantly

Adding zeros at freewill accumulating to

Six figures a note, Amnesia spoken off

If not for the gun held to my forehead

I would have inquired for justice thwarted,

Too, to have denied the self imposed amnesia

Of a century blood overwhelmed by power

Though ruthless be the trailer I will protest

In rage the impartialities brought and deny

Being the victim of circumstances today

The brave voices enchants to wage war

Alas the son of soil got me yoked and mocked

Dancing in the dust, Storms so inflicting

His authority even questioned by her actions

A coup in disguise as she grace his crow

 

 

(By TYNOE WILSON – a rising Zimbabwean poet, a Word Slinger and a rights Activist. An impetuous mastermind so zealous to out the muddling and crippling societal affair through stanza)

 

 

 

 

OVER -EATING!

 

 

It all began

With the lowering of the Union Jack.

The innocent land welcomed a new breed of thugs,

With their appetites like hyenas

A new mode of eating was invented.

Eating everything was their slogan,

While the two brothers; poverty

Disease became the masses song.

Eat that land,

Grab it!

Eat with gladness!

It’s our time to eat one said another will add: tomorrow,

Their generations will payback what we’ve borrowed.

The loaf is not enough

Two loaves five fish

A miracle Christ did,

Yet here one eats alone

None remains, none falls, and their mouths are cupped

Not even a hiccup they swallow in haste the public cake.

Which many baked with their sweat

Oh! This eating game is so sweet,

Look at those mansions

They live in

While them, live in inns,

For tomorrow no place to call home

And roaming continues

And the Hyenic munching continues.

It is now full blown, everything continues.

Their bellies protrude like mountains

Even the belt is invisible.

It all began as a mere game,

Now it’s a shame,

The world is in pain,

Sanctions it has threatened upon the eating bigwigs,

With their wings in power they fight back,

We shall not allow imperialism!

Colonialism is long gone,

Now it’s Neo-eatinism!

Eat Pal, eat!

Less you be eaten…

In tears,

In jeers,

In sneers.

The eating game continues,

Hoping that one day in the name of the sun, the moon, and the ocean Shall swallow all those that eat humanity

And restore back the long lost dignity and integrity,

Amen.

 

 

(By DEDAN ONYANGO Alias MTEMI – a Masters student of Literature. He is budding poet and literary enthusiast. He hails from Kenya, a land which inspires his creative life – A POET INSPIRED BY HIS MOTHERLAND)

 

 

 

 

MY SONNET

 

 

They want us to live in fear

They want us to drop a tear

They want us to surrender

Yet they’re still on plunder

Poems prescribing him to retire

A Zimbabwean satire

They want us to honour what we don’t remember

Yet peace they object since last September

Only monopoly and self aggrandizement

Is the norm of their greedy parliament

Tracing the privacy on electronic devices

Very new political myelitis

And amnesia of cabinet reshuffle

Emulating to protect self important waffle

 

 

 

DRY CRY

 

 

Cleanse the blood that stained Chimoio

Heal the bleeding wounds of those bruised in Chitungwiza

Respect their affiliation

Is it still Rhodesia that you forward with the land act

Draft the tears of homeless Manzou residents

Evicted

Evitated

Savages’ expansion

Exploitation

Victimization

Industrializing our piece of earth

What’s that worth?

Citizens turned to destitutes

Morden day fruit-gatherers

And cave-dwellers

Our vote displaced us

Only mountains are shielding our salvage

How long shall people bleed?

Citizens weep

Cry blood Zimbabwe its revolution time

The hour is at hand

Dictatorial sun must set

Justice and freedom day dawn

Tired of wet cheeks

Dry cry the world can’t see

Soldier up no more turn cheek

This time let us not bow down.

 

 

(By Sydney Haile 1 Saize – a Word guerrilla, a fighter of human rights, a Word slinger in the Campaign against despotism)

 

 

 

 

8 FORKED SERPENTS

 

 

love your enemies and pray for those who persecute you –

the Jack in the beanstalk who strangles, rapes and exterminates mankind –

To love as Christ loves us;

this is our highest mandate.

In my despairing war and cry, I mourn,

“What kind of justice God is this to love an animal that plunders and butchers; that chops the head from a human frame.

How do we love a Chimera who gobbles the meal of the famished;

the Orochi who wears the labour of the people as embroided gowns;

then parades her adornment of gold and precious stones;

the warlock that mangles then exsanguinates the victims –

how can we be asked to show mercy to a beast who preys on the vulnerabilities of the defenceless.

God if this love is at all possible please fill us now so that we may live the remainder of our lives in peace,

even if now is then –

let the nights rest set in

for our hearts love not them

whose deeds we loathe –

and faces we spit on.

What bittersweet love is this

that you show and

bequeath to us –

that you require of us

 

 

(By Jambiya – an emotive writer who weaves the tragedy and victory of the human experience into a tapestry of memorable imagery and metaphor? She speaks with honesty on the spiritual and social challenges of our time. Jambiya’s works are a must read for those accustomed to the jaded perfunctory cleverness of modern wordsmiths)

 

 

 

 

I AM BITTER

 

 

I’m bitter

i have nothing sweet for the people.

I’m the gall bladder

leave me alone if i’m not edible,

if not audible; whatever!

I think violently,

and write angrily

because violence is the environment that i am confined to live in; frustrated!

Everyday is bloody chaos

in the streets

in the city

cowing me to voice my bitter rage

into poetry.

Police, heavily armed

for the unarmed vendors.

Logic?

Police!

beating up the unemployed

sufferers

trying to make ends meet.

Police,

turning the vendors’ tables upside

down

crushing all their fruits and vegetables

and survival hope.

I’m bitter.

I can’t be sweet.

I behold that which forces me

to change

from writing of natural disasters

into writing of man-bred tear-gas and batton-stick catastrophies;

of the government evading its responsibilities

and hiding behind see-through conspiracies.

Of the system bent on brutality

unleashing police dogs to victimize the civilians it must protect.

I am bitter

and you must be bitter too!

 

 

(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)

 

 

 

 

AT DUSK…

 

 

Clicks in pics

Picks in clicks

Clicks at dusk

Pics in silhouette

Pleasing shades

Pulls us strong

Allures our souls

Skyscapes like

Wild sea waves

So vast and fast

Changing channels

With light and colour

Clouds and climate

Carrying two bright

Cosmic beauties

Sprinkling smiles

For over centuries

Hiding waves of life

Eternally and Incessantly

 

 

(By P.Nagasuseela – Professor of English, Bi-lingual Poet ,Editor Critic, Translator, Organizes Poetry Fests, workshops, Summercamps, Poster designer)

 

 

 

 

I SEE YOUR PAIN

 

 

I see your pain

I feel your anguish

I sense your efforts to reform

Heart beats of poetry

Will transform the nation

 

(By Gopichand Paruchuri – 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)

 

 

 

 

I AM A NIGHTMARE

 

 

My breasts are dry of milk in the climate of this heat

My earth ejaculates platinum and uranium

Anus of my rock puff pure gas and crude oil

The clay of my heart binds together the dust of my dreams

Forests of my mind sagging with coco beans and coconuts

I am tired of bullet and paparazzi gossip

I am a country eating peanut and bananas

I am the flower of want, whose bloom was pruned by madness,

Whose holy nectar was imbibed by mad drunkards?

I am a night mare, poets and prophets bring back my wildness

 

 

 

LETTER TO MY DAUGHTER

 

 

this poem reshuffled cabinet

the rhythm resigned the president

its metaphors adjourned parliament

my daughter

awaken sleeping patriots eating peanut in slogan darkness

rise dozing voters in the warmth of political acid

awaken struggle heroes in graves tired of wrong epitaphs and fake eulogies

awaken fat cats puffing zanunised and mdcided propaganda burgers in slumber

rise green horns drinking much talked herbal tea of change

grandfathers of patriotism to bring back

truth drowning in potholes of grief

god fathers of change to bring back my vote choked in drums of new renewed

corruption

bring red hot charcoal to roast political bedbugs sucking our blood in daylight

bring a word scientist to burn the justified injustice in poetic sulphuric acid

my daughter

this poem reshuffled cabinet

the rhythm resigned the president

the metaphors adjourned parliament

 

 

(By Mbizo Chirasha – Founder, Editor and the Promotions Executive at Large of the Zimbabwe We Want Poetry Campaign)

 

 

 

 

OJA

 

 

She eats fire and quenches it with

The wind Storm.

She breathes smoke without

Fire.

She is fearless.

She catches bullets between her teeth,

She bites bullets, she sweats bullets

And she rages calmly.

She has fire shut up in her bones;

The woman is so hot

She swims in oceans of living water.

And she fears nothing.

She spits her truth in sparks of flames

That ignite the night into

Blazes of revelation

Otherwise hiding under cover of

Combustible

Ticking time bombs of secrets

Ready to belch out of

Diarrheas of explosive volcanoes.

She dances on magma that cools

When she pauses to ponder a thought

And wonder how

Nothing is too hard

For her to swallow

Because when she shits a brick,

It is fluid

And passes easily

Like the storm

In a dream

That never was.

She eats fire.

 

 

 

THE POWER AND THE WEILDER

 

 

I come from a place where you the offended

Have to say, ‘I am sorry ‘.

It feels like having your face ground

Into the shit that has just been pooped on you

And then when you’d be asked

What you are sorry for,

You are then being made to eat

The remaining shit on their shoes for dessert.

Power wielded over the helpless and disadvantaged

Seems to be a highly relished delicacy

That consumes despots who don’t know to wear kid gloves

To apply power to the weak and helpless.

 

 

(By Roberta Turkson – a restaurateur who started writing seriously a few years ago. She published her first book of poetry, Talking Robbish in 2014 and her first children’s storybook, The Children of Abuta Village in 2015. She just finished writing her second poetry collection, Ghana Handkerchief, and Other Poems and is currently finishing up work on her next children’s storybook. She studied in Ghana, West Africa where she’s from and now lives in Nashville Tennessee)

 

 

 

 

A BARREN LAND

 

 

A barren land

of soulless corpse.

Dead brothers stand;

mourning mind warps.

A reminder-

Life does not pay

War’s the grinder

death fights the day.

 

 

(By Munia Khan – a poet and short story writer, born on a spring night of 15th March in the year 1981. She is the author of three poetry collections: Beyond The Vernal Mind (Published from USA, 2012, To Evince The Blue (Published from USA, 2014), and Versified (Published from Tel Aviv, Israel, 2016). Her poetry is the reflection of her own life experience and her short stories are mostly fictions based on reality. Her works have been translated into Japanese, Romanian, Urdu, Italian, Dutch, Spanish, Russian, Greek, Indonesian, Bengali and in Irish language so far. Her work has been published in several anthologies, literary journals, magazines and in newspapers)

 

 

 

 

THE BEST OF REST

 

 

The hurly–burly wind

That passed by yesterday

Is down the drain

In nothing flat,

A new stripe of book will flicker

Like a virginal carbon-paper

Awaiting to be stricken

In spiffy smirch of streak

The moment lapsed

And the night is at its lull

Copping some z’s

When drapery is drawn over the sun

As if to shoot the next scene of film

Is like snatching dreamer’s dainty dream

Grim reaper can pop up to snatch your consciousness

Or pop up when you are of grey age

No one knows

When it will wheel by

When it will take hold of you

When it will thwack

At the door of your ticker

Grim reaper is that film shot

With characters unidentified

Location not really allocated

Grim reaper is that second coming of Messiah:

Demise is the emblem of life.

To them

That cannot say yes

To the cat-o’-nine-tails of life;

The best of repose has punched the clock

Sweetest of rest it is.

 

 

(By Martins Tomisin – I’m currently studying at Olabisi Onabanjo University, Ago-Iwoye, Ogun State where I have earned awards and recognition. Some of my poems have been featured in numerous literary journals, magazines, and anthologies. I love painting colourful rainbow-of-thoughts on paper. I vehemently believed that, “life without poetry is like a soup without condiments; without it, life will be flavourless, distasteful and unrhythmic)

 

 

 

 

THE ECLIPISING WORLD

 

 

The dusky evening slowing down

How busy are people now

No time to roam,

Eclipsing World goes to sleep;

It’s time to return home.

Everyone is in a hurry,

With bag full of daily commodity

Where is time to stand and merry

No time to roam,

It’s time to return home.

Stormy evening roaring

High and low

How can one stand and stay,

Blowing air may take away.

Vagabond poet standing still

Looking around with stable mind

How God blessed the World with beauty

Beauty that fills every passionate heart

With innocent beauty divine.

Standing by the traffic stand

Looking around with utter dismay:

The world is moving, moving round

Wheel of the time is rapidly

Passing around.

Human beings are in chains

Singing song of humanity and love (In a temple)

Earth is blessed with blossoming beauty,

Filled with ethereal beauty and charms

I search and find-

Mind is blowing and blowing like wheel

On looking the eclipsing world around.

 

 

(By Priyatosh Das – a poet and writer in English based in Karimganj, Assam, INDI­A. Chairperson at Nobel Prize Aspirant Great Poets Society and United Nations Assembly of Great poets and writers. Member of several writers societies including World Union Of Poets (US),World Writer’s Society, Larissa, GREE­CE)

 

 

 

 

MY GREATEST DREAM

 

 

Everything was perfect like the garden of Eden.

People were free like the Israelites.

There was freedom of expression. No chaos, violence nor oppression. Like Pharoah and his army the ruling party conceded defeat.

 

The new government was responsible and accountable like a caring father. It was like a camera, focusing on what’s important.

It captured everyone’s heart.

Ministers were humble, they were putting people first like Joseph.

MPs were no longer missing persons and they were honest like a religious song.

 

Poverty and cash crisis was a thing of the past like the great depression of the 1920s. Zimbabwe was a developed country. Unemployment rate was on zero percent, everyone was employed. Investors from all corners of the world were permanent on our country like a tattoo. Infrastructure and recreational facilities were out of this world and our country was the hub of tourist.

 

No one was living abroad. Zimbabwe was like Canaan the land of milk and honey. Other countries depend on our country for their survival.

United Nations, Africa Union, World Bank and International Monetary Fund headquarters were based in the sunshine city, Harare.

 

The youths were aware that they are royal, powerful and limitless.

No one was nurturing ideas of poverty, competition and want.

Girls realised their value. No one was inflating them like a balloon or pushing them like a vacuum cleaner.

 

Being a poster, prophet and prophetess was not sexually transmitted. Satan was defeated. Everything was just right.

Everyone was living right. It was like Utopia.

Then l realised it was only a dream…a dream…a dream.

 

 

(By Tafadzwa Bandera – upcoming  Zimbabwean poet, counsellor and child rights activist)

 

 

 

 

THE SUN LONG SET

 

 

The sale by date is gone

The sun long set

The dementia has set in

Someone did not tell the emperor

Tell the emperor of his nudity

Is it the warmth in that cocoon

Shielding you from the nauseating poverty

Not seeing those yawning shells

That were once thriving factories

The ever escalating mass unemployment

That to you is evidence of progress

When home is now not habitable

That your brats live next door

You do not see the conspicuous hypocrisy

Blind to your double standards

The dementia long took root

Heidi Holland was spot on after all

 

 

(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)

 

 

 

 

 

The Zimbabwe We Want Poetry Campaign