UN photo

 

By

Mbizo Chirasha

 

 

Drumbeat- “Raising Mukondi” Phase2 (Brave voices Poetry Journals – The Zimbabwe We Want Poetry Campaign is this time of the year in partnership with Campio Burns Group- “From Ashes of the Fire”.  We are in solidarity with the burn survivors – Solidarity with Victims of Xenophobia, domestic and political violence, we are in solidarity with victims and survivors of burns and domestic violence, we are in solidarity with the victors who managed to pull through defying the aftermath, scars, pain and trauma.

 

We say write it, say it, talk about it, tell a story. We say poetry heals and words are a form of therapy. Let Poets from across the globe write on this cause alongside victims of burns, violence, xenophobia and maltreatment of refugees. Let’s tell our story through poetry, testimonials and flash fiction.

 

The Intervention is offered space at the Zimbabwe We Want Poetry Campaign Facebook platform (100 thousand poets for peace-Zimbabwe on Facebook). Campio Burns Group –“From Ashes of the Fire” is founded by Beulah Faith Kay, an advocate for peace, life skills coach, Poet and a literary arts activist. She works along with other great people around the world. The organisation is doing great through integrating burn survivors into communities by telling their story. We are proud to say that poetry is a refreshing form of therapy that serves heals scars, wounds and burns from inner to the outer.

 

We continue to invite our poets, new voices, regular voices, victims and now victors to send poetryrelating to the above mentioned cause and themes to Mbizo Chirasha. Thank you Nigeria, Kenya, South Africa, Pakistan, Cameroon, India, Zimbabwe, United States of America, Liberia  and Zimbabwe for taking part – Mbizo Chirasha

 

 

 

 

A NATION

 

 

A nation wallowing in hurt,

Perpetrated by our love to hate,

Liberated into this our fate,

Hunger feels my plate,

Tainted elections celebrated in haste,

Violence on the Television in my land copy and paste.

 

 

(By Mabenge Aleck – I am a passionate poet who writes for the love of poetry and as a way to have my voice heard on a broad range of issues. My poetry is influenced by the socio-econo-politica­l issues of the day world-wide. My hope is my message reignites the dream of our fathers of a prosperous, peaceful Zimbabwe whose people look forward to brighter future free of social ills, disease and injustice)

 

 

 

 

DANCE NOW TO DANCE NO MORE

 

 

If you like, dance.

Feel free. We’re in a world with no chains.

Dance! Dance with the crown on your head,

Dance with your royal robe flying high,

Spread it on the royal seat

And move like an Ostrich sipping royal air,

Brandish your dancing style with pride,

Jump and dance!

Swing your Stuart legs on our fragile soils,

Crush our crops with your toes,

No! Swing them even further!

Spread them across borders,

Drop your hands like a kite

and hit us by surprise,

Carry them up, majestically, we shall kowtow,

Dance! Dance! Dance!

When the drum shall sound,

you’ll dance no more.

 

If you like, dance,

Dance with our huts on your head,

Dance with our loin round your groin,

Dance with our women in moonlight hotels,

Dance in your bathroom,

Pour our sweats on your smooth body

Dance with our children’s future in guarded malls,

Dance like a woman in hard labor,

Pull leaves from branches with your turbulent sound,

Use us like an Osier for your art,

Dance! Dance! Dance!

When the drum shall sound,

you’ll dance no more.

 

 

(By Nnane Ntube – A Cameroonian who is passionate about creative writing. A teacher of languages (French and English) but she is currently furthering her studies at the Higher Teachers’ Training College, Yaoundé. Her poems The Lost Bond, The Pains I Feel, Hungry Voices, Change, Trust in Tears, A Child’s Dream, are published by Spill words press. Her poem, The Visitor featured in a magazine in Zimbabwe; 3Mob.com. The poems, The Pains I Feel and If I am Your Rainbow appeared in an anthology of Gender Based Violence, #Wounded which will soon be published in Zimbabwe by the POWAD group (Poets With A Difference). Her poems Before I Met You and As I Hold Your Hand are forth coming in a wedding day anthology in Zimbabwe. She is a social critic, a youth activist for peace and an aspiring actress)

 

 

 

 

I SPEAK

 

 

For the burning bush and running deer,

Those that know no rest from a creature dull,

He wrecks life just because,

His sport bleeding shot’s just because,

I speak streams of fearsome tears,

For the jumbo wild unsafe,

The rhino with its calf unsafe,

The wailing teak plucked for fun,

By a creature spoiling for a fight,

Stretching his muscular rifle for a shot,

Felling life just because,

I stammer at the wantonness open,

Clearing bushes for commercial bus,

Unfeeling tractors thundering at water sheds,

Scattering paupers out with thirsty throats,

A season too late, parched throats crack with death,

I shudder with ethos at the drilling roles,

Of multinationals secular rapes,

Open ulcers left to ferment among the displaced,

They howl to the moon with empty bowls,

Crude merchants feeding their crooked looting,

Leaving owners, ownerless,

I rest not at ease at all,

My soul protests,

My heart beats oddity,

To hear the silence on the lips of celebrants,

Toasting wine and stolen kisses,

On a cruise ship in the open seas,

Retelling lies of sumptuous meals grabbed from shrunken bodies of men ashore,

Where body count piles by shovel daily,

And human carcasses litter the plains of pain,

As corporeal looters fly aloft with the ease of a kite,

I tremble with rage at rape celebrated,

I gnash my broken teeth from the injustice visited,

Upon children,

Whose fault,

Remain birth in Africa,

And other spots where interests lay,

I pray,

Soundless tearful prayers,

And shame of my curse comes out loud,

That the heart that plans evil,

Should die not,

Before tasting the cup of sorrow,

That others so generously poured,

It’s not revenge, it’s not hate,

It’s only a fair feel of how the shoeless feel,

Running for dear life,

While you keep truck on your cross hair of your powerful gun.

 

 

(By Nancy Ndeke – Satirist, Poet and creative personality in Kenya)

 

 

 

 

ALL IN ONE

 

 

For the umpteenth time,

I pushed back my desk

dropping my dead feet thereon.

Spectacle adjusted, I glanced

at the boldly written question on my hand.

WHO IS A POET?

 

????

One, two, three, four poems

does not make one a poet,

Many verses and catharsis,

litotes and pathos,

metaphor and hyperbole,

irony and imagery,

assonance and paradox,

epistrophy and homonyms,

Satire and onomatopoeia,

personifications and alliteration,

Simile,

Enjambments,

Meters,

with rhymes to chime,

Doesn’t make them one either.

 

!!!!!!

Poets are immortal voices,

They are healing to the sick,

Bread to the hungry,

Wine to the thirsty,

Strength to the weary,

Spouse to the singles,

Teachers to the ignorant,

Peace in times of war,

Joy in times of sorrow,

Voice to the voiceless,

Uncommon ambassadors,

Poets are not writers,

they are good pen pain fighters.

Poets are solutions to unsolved problems,

Poets are everywhere,

and Poets are everything.

 

 

(By Ambassador Daniel Amakor (ADA) – a young Nigerian playwright, short story writer, actor and poet, who took into professional writing since 2013 and has since then served as a local poetry consultant. He has all forms of poetry beautifully interwoven to form a unique and formidable style of writing with its main purpose to cause necessary transformation. His writing subject ranges from the ultramicroscopic things on earth to the most significant things around. Having written for tele stages and journals, he was awarded a barge as an outstanding poet. Ambassador Daniel Amakor lives in Abia state, Nigeria)

 

 

 

 

DELIS UPROAR

 

 

The genius unstable with schizophrenia

Universe blemished by great mania

Suffering from dementia.

Sprouting vigorously them lunatics

Living with serenity in antics

The minds erased of humanity ethics.

 

Like the brewery bursting with beer

Flabbergasted worldwide in deep fear

Bracing the strong antipathy of xenophobia.

The clock wildly being rebellious

Hens with racquets throwing their eggs leaving mess

The sun raising from the west, sinking in the east.

Black and white signing to merge

Youths graduating as drunkards

Elders always raucous.

 

Wild animals escaping locked cage

Finding peace on the horrendous edge

With no-one to capture

Even taking a picture

Good and bad in a strange mixture

Gleefully waiting for the rapture.

 

 

(By Chrispah Munyoro – currently a student of Applied Art and Design, Graphics and Website Programming at Kwekwe Polytechnic College in Zimbabwe. Munyoro is a talented writer, journalist and a dedicated Design Artist. She is natural linguist, fluent in many languages among them English, Shona, Esperanto, Setswana, Swahili, Italiana and Yoruba. She began as a columnist writing feature articles in the Gweru Times in Midlands Province Capital of Zimbabwe. She has worked as a Midlands Chapter Chairperson of the Zimbabwe Association of Freelance Journalists. Munyoro was once a Zimbabwe Representative at Zone IV Regional Youth Games in 2014 Bulawayo in the boxing discipline. The multi-disciplinary artist is registered under AIBA the international body of boxing. The Writer, Artist, Poet, Journalist and athlete has been writing poetry since her tender years and she has participated in various writers, poetry, journalism and sports)

 

 

 

 

MYSTERY HEALER

 

 

When pills fails,

Syrups falters,

Inhalers ceases,

Injections clogs,

When all hope’s lost,

Danger looms,

Wealth’s spent,

Fear intensifies,

When prayers seems to tarry,

It seems like God has taken a break,

you want to tie a rope to your neck,

Yet you never know what keeps you back.

When all this happens,

don’t say the last prayer,

just pick up your mattress,

for a long rest has the healing magic.

 

 

(By Ambassador Daniel Amakor (ADA) – a young Nigerian playwright, short story writer, actor and poet, who took into professional writing since 2013 and has since then served as a local poetry consultant. He has all forms of poetry beautifully interwoven to form a unique and formidable style of writing with its main purpose to cause necessary transformation. His writing subject ranges from the ultramicroscopic things on earth to the most significant things around. Having written for tele stages and journals, he was awarded a barge as an outstanding poet. Ambassador Daniel Amakor lives in Abia state, Nigeria)

 

 

 

 

THE WORDS YOU HAVE SPOKEN AT MY BACK

 

 

The words you have spoken at my back

Are before my eyes now

You chew my words like kolanuts

I was told kolanut ripe in your mouth

The words you have spoken at my back

Found it ways to the door of my ears

I do not look for troubles

I look for better days in my season of song

Eyes that look are many but eyes that see are few

Every man is a king but just that the crown differs in size

I see you when I see you

May we look like the good time we are passing through

 

The opposition party sees nothing good in the ruling party

The ruling party sees nothing good in the opposition party

 

Many eyes look but few eyes see

You have eyes

You have eyes my brother

You have taken your eyes to the market

 

Those who listen to the noise of the market will see nothing to buy

A lady is impatient at the market

But she has the whole time before the mirror

 

It is nice to eat when others are eating

This season of change is an eye opener

Cycle of time

Time of cycle

Life is a circle

We live here too

 

The normal eyes will hurt one another

I have seen the eyes of the raging wind

I have seen small things grow into big things

Today brings good words to my ears

Have you seen the upland sun after the rain?

 

 

(By Oladipo Kehinde Paul – Nigerian Poet and Educator)

 

 

 

 

THE WARS OF ASSIMILATION

 

 

Strong swift historical tidal waves

Drifted captors ashore. Shipwrecked

Cruel fate, imprisoned freedom

 

Stupefied by sunny sandy beaches

Flourish of virgin forest,

Unearthed gems, rich oil wells

Invaders waged a war of conquest.

 

Thronged into the land with baboonish might,

Consumed by self- importance of full-sized men

carved out a satellite province of Lilliput.

Forced her into a concubinage.

 

Monarchical kakistocracy implanted.

Strived under grip and whip,

Institutionalising the reign of terror

Coughing out stinking corruption

 

Lilliputians, transformed into hands,

Tagged contemptuously as brainless

Despised because of origin, language and

Diminutive sizes, accorded second class status.

 

The monarch to fully dominate, launch,

Wars of assimilation at multiple fronts.

Mental intoxication, falsified curriculum

Smearing youth with sooth of ignorance,

Obstructing the light of true history.

 

Calculated demolition of structures and institutions,

That made Lilliput famous and proud.

Siphon of rich oil wells, leaving people thirsty

And hungry. Desert encroaching due to

Wanton butchery of virgin forest.

 

Pent-up frustrations, ignited flames of liberty,

hatching persistent uproars,

shaking fragile foundation of a loose

Incompetent corrupt monarchy.

 

Trepidation in the silver palace

King in precipitation unleashes

egregious lethal crackdown on divorcees.

 

Satellite transformed into battlefield.

War machines intone dirges as they

swallow of up fleeing souls. Whimpers

Of pain submerged by its pounding.

 

Manned birds fart bombs and bullets.

Infantry loots, rapes, kills and roasts villages

Armed groups crop up daily

Conflict grows bigger

Death toll on the rise

Journey to freedom bloodier,

The world watching in sadistic approval.

The wheels of progress on a stand still.

 

 

(By Beyia Ngam Emmanuel – Ngam Emmanuel is a Poet, Writer, an advocate of political justice and a High School Teacher. Ngam graduated from Higher Teacher Training College that earned a Diploma in Languages (French and English). Writer, Teacher, Poet Emmanuel enjoys reading and gardening)

 

 

 

 

FAR AWAY FROM HOME

 

 

As the clouds race against the sun

Watching today going by, you tightly hold on to it

Wishing to go with it as it passes away

Painful it is to remember the thoughts of yesterday

Hopes of seeing tomorrow slowly die out

I am a refugee far away from home.

Each day comes a blessing

Each meal as a gift

The yearn for a rest goes out with each breath

The hope of seeing my native land is erased with

each blink of the eye

I am a refugee far away from home.

The mind is full of plans

Eyes full of visions

Heart filled with prayers

Hands tattooed with scars

Feet spiked with pain

I am a refugee far away from home

Prayers ascend with pleas for a better tomorrow

Humming melodious tunes of a joyful past

Days are ever busy

Nights always painful

I am a refugee far away from home

 

 

(By Prosper Kavunika – Zimbabwean born writer, an afrocentric social commentator who is provocative in his approach but at the same time advocating to bring back that decency we once had)

 

 

 

 

 

The Zimbabwe We Want Poetry Campaign