by CORNELIUS MWANZA

 
MAKONO 

Like life dies in death so is my country. 

its people a tapestry of languages  

the charm of country is poetry. 

Makono so I hear in Mzizi ditty. 

Spat and urinated in debt. 

A country lost; copper pawned. 

dirge of a nude language 

sang in plea for restructuring.  

To eternal debt forced 

the smell of 1964 sweat all fade. 

arching stomachs of street kids 

outstretched palms of a country in Aid

An evocation of humdrum, echoes of Dambisa 

a sjambok in signatures

wailing of families of how much a dollar costs?

A living cost driven in pen.

*

OFF PAGES 

I want you dead. 

Though I love you, but you did what I dread––

: Cheat

I want you dead. 

Yet my words slant backwards. 

fear of falling off political pages

I write this as a condition of questions. 

Would it not be fair? 

If hospitals were closed 

as they are mere gateways to cold rooms. 

If political hooligans were all dead

 Presidents made a celibacy vow.

And vendors left the graveyards.

Embalming, cremation, caskets, and coffins  

If death came without a cost.

If prostitution was legalised.

Churches declared public brothels.

*

A GRAIN OF WAR

Have you gained a grain? 

has the year passed through your face?

did you buckle at its weight? 

the war in Ukraine came, 

the Tele with words of war, 

economics moved by a crane in war,

in Sudan and the Congo, it still rains,

 a war in plague 

Israelis and the Palestinians went to war, 

a new world broadcast communique  

the sirens in Syria are loud silent,

ambulances cry a dirge of death, 

drainages are holes of war, 

and the women spoils of war.

*   

PAMWELL MUNATAMBAS REQUIEM.

A putrid of slavery. 

Libations poured in piety. 

A new song sung as a requiem. 

Neocolonialism is debt. 

Fifty-four enveloped in fear. 

A veneration of poverty, 

pains ready to sign,

Contracts of debt.

“The clenching of hope

holding tight to whatever. 

Africa Mines and fists 

for economic battle, we lose.

After the pen, we brick to fall. 

what does the future hold? 

If not lost hope and homes. 

Coffee, Tea, Rubber gone. 

Minerals shipped and lost. 

All our feasts lost to western fists.” 

Then I heard Pamwell Munatambas voice.

"Watch-Watch -Oh youth of Africa

Their heads that stand. 

Far above the smoke of death...

And the thunder of the canon 

To them -is but the voice of a capricious maiden.

For years of suffering in silence 

Have taught them to give of their best.

For only the best is good for Africa ".

*

KABWE 

A hoe lost in the weeds. 

women in cladded chitenges

silenced ululations bleed

pathways, acres, hectors of lead  

the land holds poison

tides of a mine closed.  

A ghost for a town. 

Cotton, a textile closed. 

the land holds poison  

Akabwe a small stone of Broken Hill Man, 

A town lost to the winds that once lead with Zinc.