Accidentalized

Some are removed quickly with rhythmical pace
like the picking of leaves at a tea farm in Thyolo

some are hacked by sharp Machetes. Marred like bodies

Lain on the road side of a Rwandan street

some without pain a bullet straight to the arterial lobe
Like Martin on the balcony of Motel Lorraine

Some are crashed and smashed by the mangled car

Their long trips cut short by the little gods’ blood sport

Some jump from high the window o! How brave you were brother

And how cowardly your colourful actions or was it the Devil who said.

Jump! Or I will have you accidentalized.

CHAMELEON

Until this ailment is sedated

We should not develop empathy

For fiscal promises

Nor give heart to lucid proclamation

For the demons of egalitarianism

Have bestowed them

With means to veil their putrid practices

Whilst they remain in the leisure of power

CAN YOU BE FREE

Can you be as natural as the sun

searing in the firmament?

Can you be like this ode mine, not my opponents?

Can you be like hip-hop?

Can you be limitless?

Can you permit each dialogue I utter?

Can you not be a flaw in my recitation?

Can you be here for permanence?

Can you be there for eternity?

Can you not be? His, Hers,

Theirs, just mine,

Can you be? I ask you,

Can you be black in restful time and in hopelessness?

Can I contain you?

Like the exact colour of my skin?

Can you rise with me and value what I represent?

Can you be original?

Can you be honest and not ridicule my character?

Can you be?

I dare ask you can you be free.

WHEN SEASONS CHANGE

If you choose

To sit thereon beyond what is licit

Because your plethora of water lilies

In our loch

Gives you ample whips

To diktat without heart

Those who crossed out your countenance

If you choose  

To deny; feasting with their old chicken

To castrate their weary,

Yellow daffodils

Rightful liberation for them to suffer

What you once endured  

If you choose

To mend all ailment and malady

That transpires in your kraal

And none for our infested store

Because we had given you

None of our blotted finger on cue

If you choose

To disregard your obligation to us all

And. our worthy herald who goes forth

In dried ravines

Pelted with thickets and quagmires

To find spirits for our hamlet,

For our parish

For the endurance of all

You should not denounce

Nor throw stone

When our arid season changes for the better

CHIPIMPHA

As

You return to solid earth

To the water’s rim

To this murky clammy dust of northern earth

To wastelands mascaraed in wreaths

As you return to augment the soil’s crest

To drink from her unyielding breasts;

This eternal dearth

Your rich cadaver

Your remnants provoke

Tearful applause

On their kin facades

And our mournful gaze

As you return we retain

Your hallowed earth

Your vision stretched

Your disposition your

Wisdom left

Within these edifices and

Assemblies you raised

As you return to solid earth

You live us with a similar test

For another lion at the crest lurks

Plans to devour your young cabs

He gives us insolent names

Such as scoundrel and charlatan;

To undermine our plethora of wits

As you return back to the frozen earth

Where they can touch you no more

I would like to thank you for your valiant life

For your love and unyielding kindness

For your straggle and resolve Chipimpha!

MEMORIES AND A MAD MAN

Like a river we have sauntered through crevice stone

Through old eras now the wise eye gone

Gone in the gust of yesterday’s throne

Departed in the leave of an old empire’s chill

Spent but we forget not your repressive spill  

Like the river’s bank, we have borne scars

Scars from memories of a firm mind’s sedition upon our serene hill

With its vast spread sitting on our yielding brim

I remember you young men; black boots pressing against my steady bark

Your black pants red shirt with a black strip

That ran down your long sleeve’s end

Where many have felt your controlled rage

Controlled by the wiry man sitting on the lower stool

Where he bowed us all into timid fools

Where was the skipper when the train misplaced its tracks?

Perhaps he went off looking for his luminous twig

Why then are your sentiments, directed at him with a mad face

Let him have his tantrums let him spray his rage

We shall have him quite at the ballot box

He is a sensible man after all just let him wander his dream