PRESIDENTIAL GRIOT
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 demeanour
and dreamt of the black cockerels and black Hitlers.
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
AZANIA: for an African country loved by God
Azania! I have a song for you
A song of bees feasting the rainbow nectar on the tattered petals of the revolution
Egoli! I have a love song for you
Song of Nomvula, the princes of the rain
Madikizela! I have a love song for you
Song of the abandoned poem.
I have a love song for born frees eating beetroot in Thembisa
Povo smoking ganja in Thokoza
I have a love letter for tweeting imbeciles, whose bellies are burning with emptiness
Zambezi! I have a love song for you
Song of fat cats milking cash cows of the state until udders bleed
I have a love song for you, Azania
Song of your bottoms frying in ovens Xenophobia
Political turncoats watering Marikana fields with blood
Orange River flowing red
Cicadas singing protest songs
Eating funeral sandwiches with apes in Kgalagadi.
Finding no sleep in burning trees
Azania, this jungle burnt off the coal of our dreams.
Azania!
(ii)
Azania, smell and memory of Mandela
Mzansi, long walk of sobukwe
Land of metaphor and ambition
Choking in toxics of xenophobia
Babies lulled to sleep by rants of fake revolution and alliteration of the rainbow nation
Metaphors of madness!
See Hani and slovo-your freedom suns watching sarafina from terraces of life
A Scarred revolution!
In this land that lost its gold and salt.
Azania, you are the rainbow laughing the last giggle
Xenophobia burning rainbow flags to ashes
Xenophobia! Black ants burrowing back into their umbilical soil
Madiba weeping, singing for another summer, another rainbow
Madiba went away with rainbow, clutching the clay that bind the rainbow threads together!
Azania, Mandela was the clay of the revolution and the glow in the sun
Azania, foxes and their puppies are eating from the pot of gold- Egoli.
Hyenas sniffing the sweetness of this earth now blistered by revolutionary ailments
See the heartbeat of Soweto carrying the soil of madiba forever!
Poverty saluting the sun, cockroaches drinking the milk of freedom.
Azania! You reaped freedom not the fruits of freedom, the red sun and the bruised rainbow
Rainbow is sleeping in stone, Mandela!
Rainbow weeping Marikina after swallowing rain and grain.
Marikana! Afro phobia eating the beloved. Beloved shelling, pounding brothers like monkey nuts in mortars of apartheid.
Born frees cracking their shoulders to catch that thin glimpses of freedom.
Mbizo Chirasha:
Founder of Writing Ukraine Prize, Publisher at Time of the Poet Republic, Curator at WomaWords Literary Press, 2020 Poet in Residence of the Fictional Cafe, UNESCO-RILA Affiliate Artist (Glasgow
University School of Education). 2020 Free-Speech Fellow / Writers in Exile(PEN Germany and Foundation of Free-Speech). 2019 African Felllow for Ihraf.org. African Contributor to Bezine.com (USA). Monk Arts and Soul Magazine( UK). Author of A Letter to the President, Pilgrims of Zame. Co-Authored Whispering Woes of Ganges and Zambezi, Co-Edited Corpses of Unity, Second Name of the Earth is Peace, Street Voices (all African, German and English Anthology), Edited Voices of Africa: A Call for Freedom Anthology, a PanAfrican Ihraf based writivism Project. Mbizo Chirasha works as Festivals Live Literature Producer, Literary Arts Activism Diplomatie, Writivism Projects Curator, Visiting Editor at Large, African Writing Associate, Visiting Writer and Poet in Residence.
Aloka 