Revelations: Africa in Poetry

June 2008

85 June 2008 (For the fallen friends and relatives during the 2008 elections in Zimbabwe) These are the fallen heroes of the new millennium Sons and daughters of the soil who fell fighting for true democracy To express the views of their hearts And to open the skulls of their heads Ruthlessness of the juice of politics! Bad politics! That teaches bad thinking That he who differs in opinion is an enemy That he who supports another party is an enemy Though a brother Though a sister Though a father Though a mother Shameless beings Perpetrators of violence Who distil flame with petroleum To fossilize the bones of their fellow comrades Shameless beings Who remind our fathers of the horror of AK Who set ablaze the houses of their neighbors in the broad day light Who butcher the flesh of the bodies of their fellow countrymen 86 Who beat elders in the presence of minors Only to teach them bad character Some calling: ‘Ngozi beware!’ They never heard For their ears were filled in with concrete stones And their souls thirst for human blood Specialists of rhetoric Good for nothing other than speech and utterances of doom Lying to their followers That Messiah will never come Worse still: Messengers of hope and real peace Messengers of freedom and real will of the people I mourn my brother Mberikunashe Who died a painful death Threshed Spat on Salted on his wounds Pinned ‘mbiradzakondo’ To ashes they burnt Even his bones I mourn my brother Ashes! ...