CHISIYA ECHOES: NEW ZIMBABWE POETRY

Capture it Now

2012-01-25T08:41:00.000-08:00

So many of those things
we must care to capture
before, as we've been told,
they escape--something to do with
the nature of ideas--and we'll
never again find them, or if we do,
we will as with the same palate
that took us there in the first place.

But I need to tell somebody now,
tell myself, reminder, about the day
I could have done what I'm doing now
but something I knew
dared me on, and I cowered,
perhaps not that exactly, but
I looked down then inward
and felt the small teeth of caution:
so while I'm feeling horrible
about this or that not yet accomplished
I have known too that accomplishment
that happens in public view
is not always a reflection of the failure within.

So many things, so many things:
and I hear some of you whispering:
Tell us, tells us now...
and laughing, I will pick satchel,
walk one or two steps before
I tell myself to face it....

Beyond Guesses

2010-02-03T00:05:00.000-08:00

After a while they look at you
and tell you who you are
and you smile, because that's what you do best
and nod, leaving them to believe
that's what you are--
and now it doesn't matter
because you confirmed it,
made it easier
for another group to guess
and not even bother to ask
if what they have heard you are
is really what they should see
when they too look at you.

KEY TO MY HEART

2009-11-13T09:04:00.000-08:00

KEY TO MY HEART

Who stands at my heart's door and knocks?
Knuckles raw
Serenades me,
Promising the sun, moon
All the stars.
My name
A sweet song
On his lips that quiver
With a love induced drunkenness.
A current runs down his spine,
He wants a part of me;
Who has spanned a lifetime
Searching to find a self
Eventually found in an emotional quagmire,
I will not trust a stranger
With my jewel.
Tell the mouse
The key to my heart
Hangs with the bell round the cat's neck.

Socialia

2009-05-22T16:43:00.000-07:00

Some people are just sores;
so you walk around
avoiding bruises, even on days like this
when what should matter
is that the zondos--
some call them mazondo--
are cooking....

And further down the hour,
we will be gathered,again
chatting and chewing: surprising someone;
and every now and then,someone mentions
country, culture, coughing,
until we return to the sores,
by the time we've counted
eight empty Mondavis, sometimes Gallos.

Before long, it's good-bye,
especially if not much good is left
in this oppressive Sacramento heat.

The Vestiges

2009-05-18T20:48:00.000-07:00

Something about the best there is
grabs and twists your insides
and you want to call Mai
even where no shadow exists
of what we could call devices;

First, there are those
luxiriating in the idea...
then dreams becomes nightmare,
and you wake up with a headache,
only there is that which drives
the idea of the best
which becomes a shame
when you turn and others say,
"Let's see."

Then the memory of shoots
Once in Mototi budding, but blooms delaying
until years later, carrying the weight
of the sky, we dreamt of burn-darkened
ends of what could have been blooms....

Something in talking about the best,
when even the worst would detest contests....
So you stand, sit, stand,
and the laughter you hear
is of hope turned clownish
where once we sat and told stories
we now roll, like donkeys,
in the ash insignificance....
but the whistle you hear,
those are the vestiges....

Smile & Send

2009-04-14T22:46:00.000-07:00

If you are like me
Today you are sending,
and Mukoma, looking down
will smile--exactly something
he would have done, no questions.
I am sending....

You can't do things otherwise;
pound the asphalt of adamance
turn away not to return,
even when you see reason not to.
Remember there are smiles,

and there is sending.
Hearts' doors can't just shut
and locks click to ward off the obvious
that often hides, until you open your mouth;

Sing about this day
of dents, but remember the panel-beater
of time, chance, fate even;
so then smile and tear velcro.

There are lines sometimes
where you go to send,
and remember this time
you will hold the line
and invite angry grunts,
but only if they knew
how proud Mukoma would be
looking down from where he is
because all he would have needed
was a short notice to know
that it was time to smile
and send, to end solitude
and begin a new chapter.

WAITING

2009-03-25T21:51:00.000-07:00

Skeletal beings

Eyes bulging out

Bony arms

And legs,

Milky white teeth

Gaze unblinking

Into the distance..

No appetite for food

For sex,

For life itself.

They are waiting to die.

Bodies disease ridden,

Bitter hearts,

Angry hearts,

Sometimes just resignation.

Where is hope?

Where is love?

They are waiting to die.

There are men,

Women, children

In varying stages of degradation.

All going one direction.

Is there hope

Beyond the grave?

Is there life on yonder?

They are waiting to die..

It is "the big one

With a small name"

The scourge of Africa.

Unbridled lusts

Incubating death

In nations loins..

They are waiting to die

Unwilling passengers

At the last bus-stop.

Ticket paid in blood,

In advance...

They will all get on the bus.

Though some will linger...

They are waiting to die

06/01/05

Hearts

2009-02-27T11:15:00.000-08:00

North of here
is a place where
they talk about us
as if we are
not...

Then you look
around you one day
and see the sun
has forgotten to smile
and when you send
it an email

after delays
it will send
only one sentence:
"Who ever told you
that I smile?"

Intense, I say.
So let them talk now;
and, unsmiling,
we will thrash on
with our existence
while from a distance
they look and sob.

REALITY

2009-02-13T10:47:00.000-08:00

Reality

The reality of my being today,
Sorrow, solitude circling a hapless heart.
Penniless, as broke as my spirit is
Broken outside and inside .
Reality is there is no food in my house,
No water to quench my thirst.
Nothing to quench the pain I feel deep
Within the marrow of my being.
No lighting, I cannot see.
Groping in the dark for answers so elusive.
What do I tell my children?
Orphans birthed and schooled,
In the sorry art of poverty.
Ravaged by corruption,famine and more.
Reality is I have failed my kids.
A progeny conceived in a lie called hope.
I mourn for a lost generation,
Whose destiny is ash and dust.
Born of strife and disease in this land.
Dafur? Zimbabwe? Africa,its all the same...

STRAY FLIES

2009-02-09T11:02:00.000-08:00

Safe in blue,
even what we think
cracks the whip
of memory, in those moments
when mothers call our names,
only to be mocked
by the echoes of Chisiya.

Because a look so distant
that even Runde will question
why they have to keep looking
will be pocked by stray flies
which too do not know
what to report, where even they
can now declare starvation.

The safety is now in
the hell we have created
which sings in fear
of what we might do
had we stayed a few more months.

Path

2009-02-07T13:58:00.000-08:00

All about is a wound,
and she murders
the air in her way,
not sparing the flash
of what will glue us forever;

but this is not love;
there was no love in Rusitu,
just rain, rain, rain
and teachers' involuntary bankruptcy;

but she had a bank in her heart,
vaults locked by inexperience,
her mind the diamond
you dared not touch
unless you knew
insurance that protected the sun.

The wound on the ground
I have not walked in decades,
Her endless walking
defying
what in time should slow you down,
because unless I give this canvas back
to the trees, that smile
will continue to torture me
and ask why I never
opened an account....

WHO NEEDS WORDS

2009-02-05T16:02:00.000-08:00

WHO NEEDS WORDS?

Where are the lyrics?
Where is the rhyme
And where is the reason
For this sorrowful song?
The heart sings pain
And the heart hums strife.

They kill the children,
And rape the women.
The men have died
In senseless wars!!

Who needs words
For this sad song.
Which the heart sings?
The lyrics are in their eyes
A monotonous melody in their stride.
Its not a song,
Its a dirge.

7TH Nov. 2008

ANOTHER LIFE

2009-02-04T11:53:00.000-08:00

ANOTHER LIFE

Nostalgic heart,
A painful whimper
For a life that was.
A parsimonious existence
Living life
One day at a time.
With tomorrow,
A dream
Out of reach today,
Becoming today
Lived like yesterday...
Life in the village.

Constant music,
Nature's band.
Singing birds
Clacking chickens,
Barking dogs
Cows, donkeys and more.

Feet plodding earth
Foraging the forest,
Nature's basket,
Fruits,roots,berries,
Insects too,
Men hunting for meat.

The river- a life line,
Drinking with the animals.
Boys fishing upstream'
Women, girls
Washing clothes.
A kaleidoscope of rags
Dotting bushes.
Old women bathing,
Shrivelled buttocks
Dessicated breasts,
Dead to the world.
Children playing
Shrieking,shouting
Sheer ecstacy,
A joy no money can buy!!

Girls balancing clay pots
On braided heads,
Gourds in hand,
Taking water home.

Boys heading cattle in the hills
Carving wooden weapons,
Weaving with grass
Whips to drive the beasts.

The day glides slowly by
Warmed by a lazy sun,
Taking no hostages.
A nonchalant crowd
They have conquered time.
That's another life.

1st Dec. 2008

NOT IN ONE DAY

2009-02-04T02:13:00.000-08:00

Yesterday someone said
this is not necessary anymore;
and I walked silent, for long,
like I had not heard a thing
then remembered to always hear
words when they seek attention;

thus today I wore
pants made of words
scrambled
as if poems are fabric
when you run out words;

it was a statement
that until words retire
this position will always
be filled, and the smoke of industry
will stop only to fool breaks
which for centuries
have always wondered when
they will be taken....

THINKING ONLY WHERE WE CAN'T ACT FULLY

2009-02-04T01:44:00.000-08:00

When I don't sleep like this
I am not here, and if you
were to walk into this room now
you would hear music I am not hearing
because it long transported me far...

Why do we think only
when we can't act fully;

So now they are going to talk again;
and those who should talk
cannot talk anymore
when mobile companies charge in Forex.
So now we can't afford
To make our mothers back home
Afford to talk to us,
that's even before we know
what they are not going to get
in the stores, which will laugh--
the shelves will--at them
when they shovel out
the local currency....

But perhaps I should sleep
and dream that dream again
of my walking in the village
pockets full of US Dollars
wondering into village shops
where open-mouthed store-keepers
had no use for my green bills
and so I would wake up
to learn to exchange my currency
before I left the city....

But when I don't sleep like this
I don't want to be here
because here all you hear are words
at the root of which
is hope for those who learned
long before we knew to suspect
that when worse comes to worst
the best of the worst will
kill simple desire
before even hope
learns to fly....

You can try now;
try to haul me to bed
with the promise of dreams
where fish fly, and birds crawl
with beaks, while snakes stand tall
Not to remember at all
anyone ever telling them to rule....

TO ENEMIES OF CHANGE

2009-02-04T01:24:00.000-08:00

Some say words
can't run riot...

A few laugh
when leaves whisper
and feet can't graze
when we are transfixed
in a moment where change's
threat is pure
diahrrea....

They should have done this
centuries ago, before the children
learned to ditest
this apprenticeship
and now the burden
rolls in the ash
of its dispair....

Now others fear words,
and we will watch
when like the Gonera bees
the words will chase them
into their caves of no return.

TUNNEL OF NONSENSE

2009-02-04T01:17:00.000-08:00

Let me for once
not understand this language;
I will let the air talk
in its salted and peppered words,
and I will watch them
twist in pain when more
ears rebel against what yesterday
was their very root:

because why let things
that can't talk claim eloquence,
when our mouths rust
from lack of use?
Why let ears trained
to ping away sense
stand tall and become
the sense they defy?

I don't want to understand
this. Stop wasting your time
watching a brow that may
twitch its invitation
because where ears rebelled
hearts already deserted....

Yondo Sister

2009-01-13T11:23:00.000-08:00

Waist
of words, no waisted time
if music still resides here.

To dance well
don't hate verbs.
Learn to kick nouns
in the ass and wipe
feet on adjectives.

That's what she does,
Yondo--perfect poetry
packaged in the fabric of time,
coil of past and future,
where the present
cannot stop to bloom.

That vortex, prelude
to the tropical storm
of her dancing, waist
of no wasted words.

Tales Today, Tales Tomorrow

2009-01-12T01:22:00.000-08:00

They left this morning
for the summit, to see
the sun dancied
for the new year.

We too used to go there at dawn,
Pegged the perfect spot
On the highest point of Chisiya,
Our own Kilimanjaro here,
When it finally peeped out

The sun would find we had already
Danced its message, and the new year
Was already croaking its budding message,
And when we insisted on looking

To see how the sun winced,
We walked away, aware that although
disappointed, it would never scotch
Scotch us with its anger.

They came back and said they saw it.
We nodded, understanding that they
Would die to know one day
They will sit like us now
And not even pretend to believe.

They too will look at own
Returning from summits with tales
Of sun's soukous and ululatation
And will not nod without belief.

Tea & Toiling

2009-01-07T21:31:00.000-08:00

We drink our tea with sugar and cream
Always,
Even some say try black.

Tea & Toiling,
That was the motto in Mototi
When rain remembered home
And the river liked to roar.

If you drink tea
Before you carry hoes
And weed all day,
You want it with sugar and cream
To make toiling sweat as harvests.

Words Like Floods

2009-01-07T21:03:00.001-08:00

Runde always roared
when rains hummered Mazvihwa
and we did not know anymore
what the sun looked like.

When a river speaks
It helps to listen
and bag those words
before they grow wings
and fly away, but we let

Runde fly through time
And now, sitting here,
I am one of a few
Who listened just once.

Ehe, For Real

2009-01-05T02:23:00.000-08:00

Now they tell us
we can't talk about these things
unless if a big name like CNN
pays us to report poverty
in these places. And we tell
them "these places" are our homes
and they look
at us and say,
"For real?"

Natomas North

2008-12-28T15:51:00.000-08:00

You look at houses.
I look at pages.
RoomSource brings the steam
Of confidence to your eye

while Marechera, Marquez, and Morrison,
Scramble for my day's last minute
Long after words
Have exhausted the architect.

It's Not a Fantasy

2008-12-21T12:36:00.000-08:00

We can look into the future now,
See the impossible morph
Into smiles, shouts of joy,
As children skip about again
To welcome us back home.

One day, their turn will come,
Not to be chased from home
By desperation but by the thunder
of a tradition our years here
Have culled for them.

We can be forward-looking now,
Even where the the eye defies vision--
As what it sees pricks growth--
We can still see tomorrow's sunrise
And sing the new chorus of change.

© Emmanuel Sigauke 2008

Is this fantasy (Zimbabwe)?

2008-12-19T03:02:00.000-08:00

With natural senses shut,
eyes of faith open,
I begin to envision
things that are not,
as if they were.

The tables have been turned
as a new era begins.
Is this for real,
Or another good dream?

I see people
pregnant with expectation-
filled with hope
and determination.

Hatred & bitterness
flee,
as grace adorns
hearts with forgiveness.

I see hearts of stone
melted by flames of love.
Change is in the
atmosphere-
trust has replaced fear.

I see brokenness healed
as dignity is restored.
From the North and the East,
the South and the West-
All are returning to rebuild.

Violence and bloodshed
are coming to an end-
people stand hand in hand,
as they rebuild their land.

I see people in battle,
slaying sin & corruption,
Fighting AIDS, division and poverty
with unity and with dignity.

I taste the sweetness
of liberty; a new ZIM-
May this dream
become reality.

Posted by Shilla Mutamba

Near Tugwi

2008-12-05T04:49:00.000-08:00

Walking, sometimes running,
To the pastures, near Tugwi--
That's what it was, Tugwi,
On the other side of which,
If the water was friendly,
Was a place you could like.

But this walking, this running,
With sekuru, the young uncle
Who has friends who have other friends,
This has stuck over the years,
And I don't know why
The running never stopped.

BRAIN

2008-11-22T09:34:00.001-08:00

I remember back when they said,
"Use it."
When we smiled, and stampeded
the landscape of youth, aware
we were already using it,
that using was so common a process
no one would one ever
have to remind us....

Now I see, now I see.

YESTERDAY AND ALMOST NOW

2008-11-20T11:11:00.000-08:00

The dream, it has been taking refuge;
now all I can do is sit and reflect,
see Angwa and that vestibule of opportunity
when he said, "Go, go to town."

Back then you stood on Market,
chewing popcorn,peanuts, sucking Freeze-eats,
cared little about what awaited you at home,
no worry about gaping fireplaces,dry-throated pots,
even where your stomach could growl.

Not now. We wouldn't just up
and got to town, would not even look
for the shoulder-burdened boys
who used lug joy for single coins;
now pot and person swallow air
to appease chirped throats
before the dream roasts ambition.

WHERE WE STAND

2008-11-13T13:51:00.000-08:00

Do we crawl when others walk?

Do we sob when others roll
in the ash of laughter
with donkey assurance about granite
tomorrows that defy the fury of dynamite?

And now we say we are not those
who sit and remember to spring up
when the clap of thunder
splits the tailbone of indolence!

CONNECT

2008-10-03T13:42:00.000-07:00

You blink only your one light
as if you save the other three
for a dry day, so blink on,
sparing no second,
until I begin to see
why you cannot stop.

SOMETHING

2008-09-30T05:43:00.000-07:00

Give us something
simple,
something with eyes,
ears
something that can walk,
run--
something that carries the day's mood.

FLASHES

2008-08-26T10:58:00.000-07:00

See a tree,
leaves like ears
listening
to whispers of the heart
smiling
in the sun
as if they can hide
their green
a green so grim
it insists on
shining.

Under that tree,
boys and girls, one adult
and a drum:

then years later
a voice on the phone
says half of these are gone.

The tree stands still
in the imagination of one
so far away that his dreams
cannot leave it alone.

We sang and praised under that tree,
pursued hope until the sun stumbled
and regiments of the nights
thundered.

No, not that serious,
but before the sun rots
see the group stomping on time
because they are determined to win
the race before a new day
yawns.

Maybe this is serious:
Two drums, seeking hands
whose fingers ooze art

until we know
this is not about art
out there, but that in here.

The tree is a home,
the boys and girls are sheep
and rain dreams of setting foot here

until the sun stumbles
again, a night without
regiments.

The hooves of time
don't thunder, rather slumber
when throats free imprisoned sounds.
Drums wake,feet hammer the red earth
until it sobs with joy.

If it shines
it's the grim green
smiling in the sun,
a tree with leaves like ears
that listened to things of the the heart
before departure extinguished innocence.

GET UP & GO

2008-08-26T10:46:00.000-07:00

If you can't arrive
it's because you never departed;
so you will wind down
the ghost of a path in your imagination
Warn-out once by adventerous feet
overgrown now by the weeping grass
that refuses to sing
when destination confirms
no more that someone
left one place & arrived somewhere.

READY FOR CHANGE

2008-08-10T21:49:00.000-07:00

Swift-hearted muckraker
help us feel
how
the day sobs,

how
the sun's rays
protect
themselves
from our eyes,

how
the receding moon
wobbles
along
its warnout
path,

how
the stars
peer
through the sockets
of their maligned
universe.

SIX, SEVEN, SIX, SEVEN

2008-08-10T21:38:00.000-07:00

Here, where the land sobs
and rivers chew livers
while helpless mothers watch
we have learned to laugh
even when the steel doors
have been permanent-locked.

We still remember those days,
so, no sir, no madam,
We don't fault Mandebvu
for his T & R days
but a little slap on
the wrist even, could
have sent a message.

We have already seen tomorrow
and live not to remember
even where nightmares
continue to throw rocks
when the wasteland we call sleep
rouses us again.

You come on here
scarred land of forgetfulness,
where now our hearts
are dry rags
that can never be wet,
even when the river
offers to quench the thirst.

YOUR RETURN

2008-08-10T21:23:00.000-07:00

Three-legged bed
after two decades there?

Why did our ancestors
mock us by making you
the one who could ever cross?

PUNITIVE MEASURES

2008-07-25T23:01:00.000-07:00

Two bulls decide
to lock their horns
just as we are on our marks
to sprint to a resolution.

So now we either understand,
or stand confused
now that our people
are really facing it...