We have become raven’s baggage
So we call out like a raven
In raven’s two voices
Fevered breath or our own wounded
feeling
Our nightmares starts
Out of “there is no cholera in
Zimbabwe”
Out of the dead men from cholera
Out of the dead women from HIV Aids
Out of the dead children from
hunger
Out of the dead young adults from
political killings
Out of little children become war
soldiers
Out of the vengeance of Mugabe’s
CIO
Out of the beast ZANUPF, police and
army
Out of a country now locked in
political gridlocks
Out of the lunatic moans of Mugabe
against Britain
Out of the lunatic bile of Mugabe
against the west
Out of the forthcoming breakdown due
to this defiance
Out of cry songs that now stains
the whole region
Out of the stench of South Africa’s
silent diplomacy
Out of the stench of SADC and
Africa’s denial
Out of a conspiring humanity
Out of this chaos is a journey that
leads across Limpopo River.
We are footfalls walking through
the dense forest
So many frontiers that we have
crossed
So many shadows of so many at one
side
And our silenced dreams on the
other side.
The raven’s voice falls silent in
the darkened leaves
The trees are the only ones who
pray for themselves
For the moon always passes on top
of them
And in the dark nights we wait for
the moon
To tell us to venture into the
hungry crocodiles in Limpopo
And I can see their red tongues
stretching out
To lick the slime of our yoke and
blood.
We are another one among these
marauding herds
Limpopo River is now a mixture of
silt, blood, bones and scars
Where other traumatised adults
giggle chorus of grief
And every anguished cry feed these
fat crocodiles
We are now bones within this
river’s churn
Soon fish will have to negotiate
us.
Biography
Voices from
exile, a poetry collection was published by Lapwing publications Ireland,
2010, a novel of interlinked stories on Zimbabwe, KEYS IN THE RIVER, was
published, 2012, by Savant books and publications, USA. A book of essays, THE
BLAME GAME will be published by Langaa RPCIG, Cameroon, 2013...and two more
books have recently found home with publishers in the USA.
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