(Editor’s note: The following three poems are written by Ndaba Sibanda of Zimbabwe.)
How They Received Him
He was moving from door
to door, asking citizens
to give him a big vote
so that he could become
their next prime minister.
They chuckled and looked
at him as if they thought:
here’s a man on a mission
to count the number of hairs
on our bodies in a split second!
Cut To Size
He — Mthethwa — would not leave a stone
of sham and shame sheltered by another
he held a powerful pen that spat out
scalding reddish ink in the face of bias
His words were saltier than intense venom
for they unleashed a very volcanic thunder
which tore apart the vile core of venality
transformed their blindness into alertness
galvanized their laziness into throughput
ripped apart their culture of one-sidedness
burnt to ashes the bums of the felons
and cut short the bristly tails of arrogance.
Hiding In A Hub Of Inspiration
words hear and heed my plea please
swim with me into creative spaces
and shatter and shame a writer’s block
as you shudder a reader’s imagination
please pay attention to my passion
for it is cool to hold values of this craft
let a hunger for story-telling eat me up
swim with me in collaborative milieus
let a hunger for shared experiences rule
sail and swing with me into intriguing spaces
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