By Mbizo CHIRASHA, World BEYOND War, June 14, 2020
MAIDUGURI
I am Biafra sitting on oil
I am bleeding uranium and tea
I am loaded with ashes and flesh of Sambisa
Carrying whistles and obscenities of wrong revolutions
Roasting daughters for supper
Weaving words in wind and on wood
I was born with hunger to be free
I was not born free
I am vomiting xenophobia and the past
Planting freedom in the Volta of Sankara
I sing of Congo that lost its bread, season and sand. Peasants drunk with bitterness willing to die
Bujumbura, watching Ebola eating supper with republics
Copper pregnant Kalinga-linga dancing in darkness
Sing Maiduguri, symptom of unfinished struggle
Death walking naked in deafening forests of Warange
Children planting bullets like maize in Bokungu
Dissidents chewing scorn
Puppets munching flags
We are tired of picking scorn and grain
Propaganda foxes looting ballots to fatten their puppies and
Mother dogs
Mongers pocketing the state in their ragged overalls
Salivating tongues dangling for another ballot feast
Brother, Poverty sits under the skin like an itch!
2 Responses
A powerful poem, Mbizo! I wonder what a world beyond war might look like. I can’t see beyond our current world’s horizons. Is a world beyond war without people? Are the people who would wage war for the sake of power, wealth, or some idea be gone from such a war? Would there be no more violence or threats of violence? Would people only take what was fair to take? I thirst for such a world for my children and grandchildren, but I don’t know how to get there.
“Are the people who would wage war for the sake of power, wealth, or some idea be gone from such a world?”