MP
– Dear Zimbabweans, Activists, media, writers and poets. The MIOMBOPUBLISHING blog journal brings you regular posts of word slingers and word guerillas that are part of the Poets Free Zimbabwe Campaign (the Zimbabwe We Want Poetry Campaign) starting from September 2017 to August 2018.
We are going to feature one Word guerilla every week to send a strong message to the merciless , ruthless and careless Mugabe regime which has left the POVO( majority) in limbo. Zimbabweans continue to suffer under the burden of untold poverty, human rights abuses, violence and despotism. The Zimbabwe We Want Poetry Campaign is trending on our Facebook group 100 Thousand Poets for Peace- Zimbabwe; Poets post their words on the group wall. The Admin of the group then select poems for the Tuck Magazine /Zimbabwe We Want Poetry Campaign (Brave Voices Poetry Journal). MiomboPublishing supports the same CAUSE by featuring single hardworking and vocal contributors to the Campaign every week. Dear reader experience the lyrical dexterity and the verbal bravado in the poetry of JAH POET- whose campaign name is Word guerilla –Blessing T. Masenga
We invite you to read her poetry, send comments like and participate in the CAMPAIGN on our FACEBOOK platform. For more information send us an email to miombopublishing@gmail.com-
THEIR TRUE TESTIMONY IS UPON THEIR OWN EPITAPHS
I’m done of walking up and down
in conditioned ignorance and legalized false hope
like a madman chasing nothing
upon these pot-holed and sewage-flooded streets
of this cold and bleak city
in search of employment
but in vain.
Streets laden and nicknamed with sacred names
of the lied of,
the abducted
and the lynched; the eliminated role models
of our betrayed struggle.
Names of the victims
of our today’s top political echelon
whose lives in great sacrifice were hell-spent
behind bars and sometimes in hiding,
in the woods and in exiles,
in honest pursuit of their people’s freedom.
A noble dream that never became a reality
but rather died a sad death of a sperm in a condom,
not guilty but perishing in incarceration.
Names of those who were labeled criminals yesterday
and brutally doomed!
but today
for the sins they committed not
have been ironically granted a posthumous repentance
and then canonized heroes.
Madness!
But in this blind contradiction,
by inscribing epitaphs upon their concrete tombs,
the villain’s bloody hand
had honestly given a true testimony
of his own victims in clarity
that shall linger forever in history
but unawares!
In their undiscerned sincererity,those few lines, due to censorship,
still are descriptive enough
for the generations to come
to read and know
these fallen victims were indeed the founding fathers
of our sold out resistance.
(By Blessing T Masenga).
GUNS AT HIS GATE
At this gate
guns are now disloyal.
Without his peep
guns now sleep.
With throat chocked with bones without flesh
guns now can’t sing.
At his gate
guns are now sculptures, exhibited
gaunt
with starved looks of charged misery.
Behind his gate
he’s failed and shaky
and a feeling of vulnerability; a vulture
Sometimes hovers and swoops
about him.
At his gate
guns are being kept frustrated
with naked bones, guns are choked.
Behind his gate
he’s hopping mad.
In his hiss blind anger wages a suicidal warfare,
but unawares.
At his gate
guns lie prostrate
in apostasy
with throat picks of complaints.
It’s a stance
a protest either, maybe
to remove bones from the barrels.
At his gate
there is a chorus of gunfire, singing
an irony coup song
loudly and boldly
‘Our father who art in heaven
deliver us from his gate
and lead us into hiding
from where we can ask him in safety
to share munching the fat flesh with others
whether it be beef or pork
sharing must be the norm.
amen.’
HARVEST OF THORNS
Her hope’s night stars
Of up-to-nothing patriots
Who by elections the state Idolized
But past the victory frustration Scourged
And others to suicide flew their Passion
And to rebellion and treason
Thumbing down leaders and Officials
Inciting pandemonium no pen can Pen-
Her hope’s Crime ridden ghettoes
Of downtrodden out-of-work Militant youths
And free working sheepish Loyalists
Bound in satisfaction at the Expense of their patriotic idiocy
The worst failed and exploited People-
Her hope’s Crime Alleviation team
Dodged duties into the thick Forest of their frustration
Between deployment site
And suspected crime scene-
In frustration, she is seen by the Country roads
And in caves, in townships
And niteclubs:as a thigh vendor
Marketing crumbs of her stale hope.
PAFUNGE (Give it a thought or Think about it!)
Hero izwi kunemi vatongi.
Itai zvenyu madiro aGeorgina,
itongei iyi nyika sekuda kwenyu.
Ko munowanika neyi zvenyu?
Makaropadzwa ndimizve,
vadyi venhaka isu takaringa,
‘bva pamberi nebasa iyi nyika ndeyenyu.
Kubva Zambezi kusvika Limpopo
chamada torai,wamada pondai,
pamada garai,zvamada ITAI.
Nguva ino yose ndeyenyu DZAMARA kare.
Mukada kuti inanaire pamanakidzwa,ndimi.
Mukada kuti ibhururuke pamasuviswa,ndimizve!
Mukada kuti idududze neshure,
chikoneso handioni iwo mahanisi makapakatira.
Asika munyori Hamutyinei
ane kureva kwake muzvinyorwa zvake,hamutye nei?
Akati KUSASANA KUNOPARIRA,
chimwewo chizvarwa ndokutsinhira.
Inzwa mutinhimira manyezu nyakata:UPFIMI HUROYI!
Taiti akareva mano asi nhasi tazobvuma kuti raive idi.
Ko taiziveiko paye pakanzi KURA UONE!
Takamboti chedu hapachina apa tarangarira WAKANDIGONA WENA,
asi tariro yakadzoswazve matiri naMUCHADURA!
Vakadzi muchiita vekutibvutira kuti mukudze enyu madzinza,
nekuvachinjanisa sehanzu.
Chimwewo chipanga mazano ndokuti ndezvemeso musawane chamunoreva ndiro BARIKA REMASHEFU.
Asi nhafu dzakadai dzimwe dzenguva dzinoparira,
hatichadome nemazita umwe AKAZODZIPWA NEGANDA REMHURU.
Kuti tive nerugare tichasvawo tasosa neminzwa kwatinogara,
kuve MUTUNHU UNEMAGO
madzimai edu asati apera.
Asi chokwadi hachidiwe
ndapihwa yambiro kasingagumwe nekureva iri rangu shoko,
ndikati kumuyambiri AKANGA NYIMO AVANGARARA.
Apamazve kuti ndichenjerere chitemo chitsvetu-tsvetu,
ini nekuzvitutumadza ndikati ndingawanikwe nei,sarini?
Nezwi nyoro nyoro ndokuti CHINAMANENJI HACHIFAMBISI.
Regai tireve sekuzviona kwatiri kuita.
Tichanyarara kusvika rini ivo vachitisvotesa,
hunzi ATSVINZVINYA REGAI AKATSIKWE.
Paramende yaita ROVAMBIRA.
Tikasachenjera tichaitwa mutamarege wembada.
Kunze kuya kwaipa wamai.
KUTSIGOTSIRA rugare.
INONGOVA NJAKENJAKE muhurumende nemumapato ematongerwo enyika.
Makurukota okudza MABHINDAUKO kupfuura ruzhinji rwenyika.
Pachavo hapachina kuwiriranazve.
Vave munhange mutange yekurwira hukuru.
MUSODZI,DIKITA NEROPA zvoverera.
NDAKAGARA NDAZVIONA kuti ndiyo tambiro yavo muHOUSE OF HUNGER.
Isu ngativayevei hedu whilst WAITING FOR THE RAIN,
GUKURAHUNDI ichatisiira nyika yachena.
(A shona poem depicting all the moral rot and economic decay in Zimbabwe)
WAIL BRAVE VOICES!
Files have leaked out!
The truth is now viral.
No propaganda can triumph
to gloss over or contain it.
The disfavoured are on the death list already
to die man managed cruel executions
whilst the lowly rewarded Gestapos
would fix their shing-moo blind eyes on the victims’s genitals
responding in frantic hysteria
to the discotheque
of the jeering gunfires.
Wombs of the nabbed,
hijacked
and abducted
are provoked to ache with rhythmic spasms
of concentrated misery and despair
as their products in cold blood
are ruthlessly massacred.
Journalists,
Poets,
all Activists,
strikers on strikes,
protestors; protesting!
and demonstrating demonstrators
rounded up and bundled
in fetters.
Their crime no felony at all.
Condemned by prejudice out of Court
just for speaking out.
I question such a rule!
A baby who cries not will die
in his silence
in his mother’s cradle.
Do their brutish indifference serve to oversee the wisdom
in our traditional proverbs?
Do their might challenge the essence of the people’s constitution and rights?
Must this, their deviation
enjoy success and reign condoned?
Never!
Away with a system which hanker that its citizens were mute!
Down with a system which long that its people were blind!
We are potential warlords
but are no means warmongers.
We mean not to play the aggressor,
nontheless we harbour no intention to be slaughtered
in our beds.
This time we will flood the streets
for the freedom of our unfairly suppressed voices.
Indeed by this we mean freedom.
Wail brave voices
till there are nomore choked throats!
By Blessing .T.Masenga
(– a bold word guerilla, a fiery poet through his writings tirelessly and boldly seek to strip nude the oppression and the violations of basic human rights)
–btmasenga216@gmail.com -).
