Identity Apples - Poems by Mbizo Chirasha
- By Mbizo Chirasha
- Published January 26, 2010
- Poetry
-
Rating:
Mbizo Chirasha
Mbizo Chirasha was born in 1978 in Zvishavane District in Zimbabwe, and was inspired by his social surroundings at a young age. As a young man, Mbizo quickly gained prominence as a performing poet and writer both in Zimbabwe and internationally. The themes of his poetry include children's rights, politics, social lives, gender issues, praise and protest, culture and African pride. Mbizo's poems can be read in print, but are even more powerful when performed by the dynamic poet himself. With a vision of using his poetry to promote peace, healing, stability, and cultural freedom, Mbizo is a poet with commitment, talent, and a desire to perform whenever and wherever he can.
View all Entries by Mbizo Chirasha
ETHIOPIA
see talking slums
silenced tongues
freedom silenced
hope killed
a bling of ghettos
collapsed humanity
mothers weeping,
under the compression of religion
trees dripping tears
ethiopia, your festering open wounds
you are my anger!
children burn in smouldering canisters of hunger
time opened new wounds of memories of old scars
chained on rocks of ignorance
you need a compass of decency
my poetry is a catalyst fermenting your injustices
into beverages of justice
you are my sadness!
your heartbeat bleached in political fermentations
rhythm galvanized in furnaces of cultural myth
laughter imbibed by the rude stomach of the gun
culture crushing under the weight of globalization
ethiopia, you are my wound!
CHILDREN OF CHIMURENGA
trapped between digital civilization
and chimurenga revolution
iam a poet from the land stones
iam a writing from the bush of trees
justice is not the shape of our noses
freedom is not the size of our breasts
morning children of chimurenga
belly of the struggle carried you to war and back to your canaan of mixed flowers
your ears are not wounded by bullet, but by gun sound
your minds stitched together by marxist propaganda
you married liberation and divorced oppression
erasing the dust of centuries of peripherilization
born out of blood filled centuries,
living in centuries refilled with blood
where the sun rise with blood on its thighs
trees weep at dawn
sorrow dangling in the mist of your wronged faces like drying biltong
good morning children of chimurenga
LETTER TO FLORIDA
florida!
iam drunk with the sting of your tongue
iam drenched with the bitterness of your lips
iam dopped with the smelling scent of my sweat
florida!
black smell is lingering in the bottoms of your conveyor belts
spirits of my children dance in your coffee shops
sight trapped in your coca-cola barrels
scent floating in the rude rhythm of hip hop
florida!
my children
with civilization scarred faces
with their slavery wounded hearts
florida bring back my children
come out, let's fight
florida!
GOOD MORNING HAKAHANA
sunrays dozing inside tired yawning tombo mugs
babies breathing mucus and dust
wealth and wisdom draining down through the nose
sex demons pornographing their drama on teenage breasts
shebeens walking the streets naked,
brothels stripping nude in my face
poverty farting its stink in aging faces
neighbours stealing love from neighbour's lover
within a blink of an eye.
Hakahana, your brother Havana, cough syphilis
and other half brother Eveline Street sneeze the bad breath of bullet
ghettoes dancing kwasa and ndombolo with the wind, Hakahana, repent tonight
life is a fraud
good morning Hakahana.
SCORPION STING OF MY RHYTHM
sting of my rhythm arouse dozing minds, to
rise up and arouse other dozing minds
to provoke slumber to life
and stupor to soberness
i am not addicted to mental slavery
i have to discard some burden in the journey to my
destiny
wrongs have to be righted.
(c) Mbizo Chirasha
see talking slums
silenced tongues
freedom silenced
hope killed
a bling of ghettos
collapsed humanity
mothers weeping,
under the compression of religion
trees dripping tears
ethiopia, your festering open wounds
you are my anger!
children burn in smouldering canisters of hunger
time opened new wounds of memories of old scars
chained on rocks of ignorance
you need a compass of decency
my poetry is a catalyst fermenting your injustices
into beverages of justice
you are my sadness!
your heartbeat bleached in political fermentations
rhythm galvanized in furnaces of cultural myth
laughter imbibed by the rude stomach of the gun
culture crushing under the weight of globalization
ethiopia, you are my wound!
CHILDREN OF CHIMURENGA
trapped between digital civilization
and chimurenga revolution
iam a poet from the land stones
iam a writing from the bush of trees
justice is not the shape of our noses
freedom is not the size of our breasts
morning children of chimurenga
belly of the struggle carried you to war and back to your canaan of mixed flowers
your ears are not wounded by bullet, but by gun sound
your minds stitched together by marxist propaganda
you married liberation and divorced oppression
erasing the dust of centuries of peripherilization
born out of blood filled centuries,
living in centuries refilled with blood
where the sun rise with blood on its thighs
trees weep at dawn
sorrow dangling in the mist of your wronged faces like drying biltong
good morning children of chimurenga
LETTER TO FLORIDA
florida!
iam drunk with the sting of your tongue
iam drenched with the bitterness of your lips
iam dopped with the smelling scent of my sweat
florida!
black smell is lingering in the bottoms of your conveyor belts
spirits of my children dance in your coffee shops
sight trapped in your coca-cola barrels
scent floating in the rude rhythm of hip hop
florida!
my children
with civilization scarred faces
with their slavery wounded hearts
florida bring back my children
come out, let's fight
florida!
GOOD MORNING HAKAHANA
sunrays dozing inside tired yawning tombo mugs
babies breathing mucus and dust
wealth and wisdom draining down through the nose
sex demons pornographing their drama on teenage breasts
shebeens walking the streets naked,
brothels stripping nude in my face
poverty farting its stink in aging faces
neighbours stealing love from neighbour's lover
within a blink of an eye.
Hakahana, your brother Havana, cough syphilis
and other half brother Eveline Street sneeze the bad breath of bullet
ghettoes dancing kwasa and ndombolo with the wind, Hakahana, repent tonight
life is a fraud
good morning Hakahana.
SCORPION STING OF MY RHYTHM
sting of my rhythm arouse dozing minds, to
rise up and arouse other dozing minds
to provoke slumber to life
and stupor to soberness
i am not addicted to mental slavery
i have to discard some burden in the journey to my
destiny
wrongs have to be righted.
(c) Mbizo Chirasha