
Past: Shungunamutitima International Film and Documentary Festival and International Images Film Festival
Mbizo Chirasha is the author of a Letter to the President, co-authored
Whispering Woes of Ganges and Zambezi, co-edited Street Voices Poetry
Collection (Germany Africa Poetry Anthology), co-editor of the
Corpses of Unity Anthology, associate editor at Diaspora(n) online,
co-authored Metaphors of the Rainbow, chief editor at Time of the Poet
Republic, founding editor at WomaWords Literary Press,
publisher at Brave Voices Poetry journal, and curator at Africa Writers
Caravan. He is also a UNESCO-RILA Affiliate Artist at the University of
Glasgow, 2020 Poet in Residence Fictional Café, 2019 African Fellow,
IHRAF.ORG, project curator and co-editor of the Second Name of Earth
is Peace (Poetry Voices Against WAR anthology), and contributing
essayist to Monk Arts and Soul Magazine. His poetry and writings
appear in FemAsia magazine, Wrath -Bearing Tree, Ink sweat and tears
journal, One Ghana One magazine, Ofi Press, World Poetry Almanac,
Demer Press, Atunis Galaxy poetry online, IHRAF Publishes, The Poet
a Day, Bezine.Com, Sentinel UK, Oxford School of Poetry Pamphlet,
Africa Crayons, Pulpit Magazine, Poetry Pacific, Zimbolicious, Best
New Poets, Poetry Bulawayo, Gramnet web journal, Diogen Plus,
Poeisis.si, Festival de Poesia Medellin and elsewhere.
PRESIDENT BLACKCOCKEREL
1)
I smell the crashing of the revolutionary light
Soothsayers talk in sacred tongues that the light in the moon went with last revolutionary legend,
Tyrannical legend died clutching the clay of country in his hard-clenched right-hand fist. He chanted another chant,
another slogan,
another clenched fist slogan.
In this pitch-black night,
obituaries wetted pseudo-revolutionary columns and frail patriotic tabloids,
paradoxical revolutionary legend died with his Marxist -Leninist hardened forehead creased with the graffiti of a stolen country, a country strangled to death, a country that is now a walking ghost.
A country lost in the cemetery of political vendetta and propaganda vulgar
Learned tyrannical revolutionary legend, munched the all -protein -all vitamin chlorophyll-filled bean-leaf Oxford English dictionary, Imbibed the red-grape beverages of Latina encyclopedia, sanctified by Vatican City Catholic moguls. The dead tyrannical, revolutionary legendary stalwart shaped by concocted ideological recipe and intellectual concoction of Marxist-Leninist-Stalinist socialist gin, Victorian- Elizabethan verbiage, peasant-guerrilla-bush struggle for freedom scholarship, pan African-Nkrumaist socialist extremism-
A balanced diet.
A concocted Ideological recipe.
An Intellectual concoction
The revolutionary legendary stalwart is lying in salient stone
And that lashing tongue with its lips chapped by vitriol is sealed in silent marble
And that Leninist- Stalinist- Marxist- Nkuruma-ist charisma is silent in the silence of the stone
And that extremism carved propaganda-ist clenched fist slogan holds the red clay of earth in silence in the silence of the stone
Tonight, this midnight, Ideological charlatans sing praise and protest, the legend went with the country, the tyrant went the country’s sorrow-soaked epitaphs, grief-laden obituaries, tear-filled eulogies and our gold in his fistful slogan.
And zealots and charlatans, poets and griots sing still, they sing praise and protest for a guerrilla graduated into patriotic superstar, later an autocratic medalist but still, he lived and died in paradox, revolutionary paradox
Griots and zealots sing protest and praise still and still, they sing to the pitch-black night, to the death of the death of a legend, to the stolen country
Manyarireiko, manyararirei
Manyararie,manyarariyeko
Manyarariyeiko, Manyarariyeko
the legend stole treasures of the land and the conscience of my now vulgar tutored and vitriol schooled poverty hardened generation.
My generation polarized by political polio.
My generation lost the light of the moon
My generation lost the beautiful blink of the sun
Legendary tyrant died clutching the golden red clay of the country in his slogan hardened clenched fist
Jongwe raenda
Raenda rakanyarara,raenda rakaguta
Raenda Jongwe
Jongwe rakukurudza,raenda jongwe
Jongwe raenda
Raenda jongwe raenda richidemba
Raenda jongwe
Jongwe raenda nezuva,raenda nomwedzi muchena
Raenda Jongwe
Obituaries inscribed in rain- beaten century- aged potholed highways
epitaph was a black cockerel carved onto the edges of torn banknote,
eulogy was a by a Vatican supplication and a Latin poem
jesters and griots danced out the night with presidential parody
He died inside the pitch-black night,
the funeral ritual was conducted inside the pitch-black night.
…………………………………………………………

( 11)
In this pitch black night, zealots and senators congregate like wild hens
Senators cackling vendetta and zealots singing political vulgar, gobbling fresh bread from the rich wheat of our sweat, gulping matured grape-wine of our toil.
Tonight, our tears wash the corruption-clad parliament tarmacs
As our ever-pouring sweat rinse their extortion-laden courtrooms
teargas graffiti decorates the broken statehouse lampposts
Hieroglyphics of poverty match the campaign print on the torn presidential election bandana
I see the president grazing the steak of our ballot-cast for dinner,
I snoop on torn newspaper headlines for lunch
I stuff my rumbling stomach with gossip and grapevine for peace
I see the double-chinned parliamentarians greedily drinking our juicy sweat of our hardly won freedom for breakfast.
I see famished citizens gasping for dignity, dignity imbibed by the un-couthed mouth of the gun,
Father died with a torn election campaign Tshirt draped on his wood and tin-made coffin and his cold feet was covered by the three doeks emblazoned cheap propaganda, he raised his fist for a solid slogan and chanted a revolutionary hymn before sliding into a death trance.
Father died a socialist, an ideologist, a revolutionary
Towards the dawn of his sunset, he jabbed the wind, jiving for the freedom cockerel,
he chewed propaganda mustard biscuits with gusto,
he drank the ideological whisky with verve.
Political vibe chopped his mother tongue and spoke in political tongues of green combat propaganda
Father died waving a fistful slogan.
Father sang a song alongside the slogan chant
A song of the last liberation
A song that was carved on his DNA like a radio antenna
He died before the setting of the moon
and left a song and a slogan chant,
a song of the last liberation
He died before the claws of dawn caressed our rondavels,
In this pitch-black night, I hear the wind whistling the tune of that song
, song of my father
He loved my mother, president black cockerel and the song
Brother went to war and never came back,
I peep through the broken window of life that one day we see brother walking back to his village rondavel,
the pain of loss is decaying my respect to the parliament until my brother returns.
Freedom was gobbled by the November goblins,
revolutionary eggs gulped by greedy young cockerels with their disrespectful alarms announcing dawn at night.
Charlatans reaping cash and belching corruption stink into our sandpaper, poverty taunted suffering souls.
Beloved generation, beloved bitter-sodden generation
Our sunset long years before black cockerel died, before November knives hacked the revered black cockerel from the zenith of the throne, Yes, another dawn was announced inside the pitch-black night, before owls announce their anthems, before dog’s howl to the last star, before hyenas laugh the last giggle


https://www.ihraf.org/ihraf-books

Tribute to African Writers by Mbizo Chirasha 2015-12-04 09:06:07 |
That will marry when I want
For the beautiful ones are not yet born
While we wait for the rain
In the coming of the dry season
Behind the anthills of Savannah
Milking the cows of Shambati, gathering good bits of wood,
And the fortunes of Wangarini, in that forests of a thousand demons
A sleepwalking land, for things, had fallen apart
We faced the wrath of the ancestors, bones, and shadows
For it was not an easy walk to freedom
With farai girls, nehanda, and the son of the soil,
In that long journey of popynongena, we met Matigari,
And the tycoon from Peter Maritzburg, and the poor Christ of Bomba
We saw the devil dangling on the cross and his blooming petals of blood
We had the arrows of God
We wanted to kill the mangy dog
In the river between was this a war of freedom?
Indaba my children
We sang the song of lawino and ocol
Walking down Second Avenue
Fighting to decolonize the minds of the people
We became the house of hunger
In the country of our own
The butterfly was burning
In the burning summer season, we never ate the grain of wheat
For we harvested thorns and nervous conditions
Cry my beloved country, country of my skull
For Nehanda still snores even after the struggle of Zimbabwe.


Sometimes memories smell like a dictator’s fart
We once jived to our own shadows under the silver moon and our shadows
danced along with us, we rhymed to the nightmares of hyenas and
hallucinations of black owls. Our desires sailed along with gowns of
fog back and forth at village dawns. Wood smoke smelt like fresh baked
bread. Time bewitched us, we ate William Shakespeare and John Donne.
We drank lemon jugs of Langston Hughes and Maya Angelou.
Soyinka’s lyrical whisky wrecked our tender nerves.
We bedded politics with boyish demeanor and dreamt of the black
cockerels and black Hitler’s
Sometimes time is stubborn like a sitting tyrant
Last night, commissars chanted a slogan and you baked a dictator’s
poetry sanguage. Zealots sang Castro and Stalin and you brewed a
socialist crank, the president is a stinking capitalist. I never said
he is Satanist. Back to village nights, hyenas are laughing still,
black owls gossiping, silver moon dancing still over rain beaten paths
of our country dawns.
Sometimes time stinks like a dictator’s fart
Your lyrical satire sneaked imbeciles through back doors. Your praise
sonnets recycled suicidal devils and polished revolutionary rejects
Back then, smells of fresh dung and scent of fresh udder milk were our
morning brew and under the twilight the moon once disappeared into the
earthly womb, Judas, the sun then took over and every dictator is an
Iscariot.
I never said we are now vagabonds
Sometimes time smells like a dying autocrat
Mwedzi wagara ndira uyo tigo tigo ndira – the moon was once sour milk
silver white and fresh from the Gods’ mouth and sat on its
presidential throne on the zenith of bald-headed hills and later with
time the moon was ripe to go mwedzi waora ndira tigo tigo ndira
Sometimes wind gusts whistled their tenor through elephant grass
pastures, we sang along the obedient flora Chamupupuri icho…oo
chamupupuri chaenda chamupupuri chadzoka
Chamupupuri icho…oo!
Our poverty marinated, yellow maize teeth grinned to sudden glows of
lightening, the earth gyrated under the grip of thunder, then Gods
wept and we drank teardrops with a song mvura ngainaye tidye makavu ,
mvura ngainaye tidye makavu .. Pumpkins bred like rabbits, veldts
strutted in Christmas gowns. Wild bees and green bombers sang protest
and praise. I never said we are children of drought relief.
Sometimes time grows old like a sitting tyrant,
Tonight the echo of your praise poetry irk the anopheles stranded in
tired city gutters to swig the bitter blood of ghetto dwellers, gutter
citizens eking hard survival from hard earth of a hard country, their
rough hands marked with scars of the August Armageddon, their sandy
hearts are rigged ballot boxes stuffed with corruption, they waited
and sang for so long.
Chamupupuri icho…oo chamupupuri chaenda
chamupupuri icho…oo chamupupuri chadzoka
Chamupupuri icho..oo

From the sad memories of dada
And dark mysteries of animism
I am Buganda
I bleed hope
I drip the honey of fortune
Makerere; think tank of Africa
I dance with you wakimbizi dance
I am Tanganyika
I smell and fester with the smoke of African genesis
I am the beginning
Kilimanjaro; the anthill of rituals
I am the smile of Africa
My glee erase the deception of sadness
My tooth bling freedom
I am myself, I am Gambia
When others seep with bullets stuck in their stomachs
I sneeze copper spoons from my mouth every dawn
I am the Colombia of Africa
I am the Cinderella of Africa
Where mediums feast with the ghost of Kamuzu in Mulange trees
Here spirits walk naked and free
I am the land of sensations
I am the land of reactions
Coughing forex blues
Squandermania
I still smell the scent of Nehanda’s breath
I am African renaissance blooming
I stink the soot of Chimurenga
I am the mute laughter of Njelele hills
I am Soweto
Swallowed by Kwaito and gong
I am a decade of wrong and gong
I am the blister of freedom vomited from the belly of apartheid
I see the dawn of the coming sun in Madiba’s eyebrows
I am Abuja
Blast furnace of corruption
Nigeria, the Jerusalem of noblemen, priests, professors and prophets
I am Guinea, i bling with African floridirization
I am blessed with many tongues
My thighs washed by river Nile
I am the mystery of pyramids
I am the graffiti of Nefertiti
I am the rich breast of Nzinga
I am Switzerland of Africa
The rhythm of Kalahari sunset
The rhyme of Sahara, yapping, yelping
I am Damara, I am Herero, I am Nama, I am lozi, I am Vambo
I am bitterness, I am sweetness
I am Liberia
I am king kongo
Mobutu roasted my diamonds into the stink of deep brown blisters
Frying daughters in corruptions microwaves
Souls swallowed by the beat of Ndombolo and the wind of Rhumba
I am the Paris of Africa
I see my wounds
I am rhythm of beauty
I am Congo
I am Bantu
I am Jola
I am Mandinga
I sing of you
I sing Thixo
I sing of Ogun
I sing of God
I sing of Tshaka
I sing of Jesus
I sing of children
of Garangaja and Banyamulenge
Whose sun is dozing in the mist of poverty
I am the ghost of Mombasa
I am the virginity of Nyanza
I am scarlet face of Mandinga
I am cherry lips of Buganda
Come Sankara, come Wagadugu
I am Msiri of Garangadze kingdom
My heart beats under rhythm of words and dance
I am the dead in the trees blowing with wind,
I can not be deleted by civilization.
I am not Kaffir, I am not Khoisun
I am the sun breaking from the villages of the east with great inspiration of revolutions
Its fingers caressing the bloom of hibiscus
Liberation!