Chenjerai Hove

you asked me, party cadre,
for a membership card
of the ruining party.
what an insult
to the flowers and the birds
of my country
in my heart.
...

this is how we dress
power:
with whistles and muskets and gunpowder
from outriders
flashing lights
smoked glass windows
motorcades
titles
minus handshakes
minus smiles
minus sorrow.
we dress power
like a pestilence.
...

when the police come
and their whip dances on your back
refuse to yield.
when the scorpions come
and sting your eyes and ears
refuse to comply.
when the world whirls round
in the torture chamber
refuse to let your heart wither.



hear the voices of children
see the colours of our music
and dance in the death of devotion.



when the powerful receive titles
and the weak take crumbs of power
refuse to kneel by the footpath of deceit.
...

There in the village
roof tops smoke nimbly
like grannies puffing weakly
through resigning nostrils,
The hearts seem broken-hearted, barren:
Yet, there morsels abound.

Black, sooty earthenware pots growl
like witches' cauldrons
to sustain bush-bound children.
The stirring stick dances
its dual bump-jive
knocking the pot's ribs,
to prick courage to action.
The cracked, black-parched plates assemble
like prudent soldiers at ‘ATTENTION!'
to receive their instant shares
from long-standing promises.

The side pot smiles
like a baby on mother's back:
Cocks and bulls growl within
to greet moonshine heroes
perched on hilly countryside,
to feed on curfewed suppers
but fit to strangle the morning dawn.

On pot and side pot's permission
old granny crawls down the valley,
breasts licking the withering chest
containing fertile hope
and age-old scars
cured by Chaminuka's herbs.

Down she crawls, staggering, limping
muttering like a war-casualty.
Some mountaineering there!
Ancient feet, selecting paths
with prophetic skill, tread on.

A rude blunt thorn
breaks the tawny, thorny side
comforting itself in the old, drying blood!
Oh! she winces. An old rugged face
suppressed, lest some grim-faced cowboy hears!
She off-loads: she must care,
the load unshirkable, flesh begets flesh,
hungry wilds must feed.
She winces yet again!
A jerky, heart-pricking pull!
The thorn breaks within, half rotten,
and no blood; but tonnes of pain, thunderous!
She surveys the ground
and recalls: she is past child bearing!
But she must leave!
Rather late, the sun.
Granny forgets the blunt, rapturous pain
and takes to her load.
Ah, there! sinewy arms, clawed fingers,
straps of muscle; and courage.
Yet an eagle's grip there is.
She sighs, ancient lips mutter
some prayer to Nehanda
and forward she trudges,
trudging to hope itself - but the pain!
Maybe she is late,
but she suffers not with time,
time ticks her way
and she crawls
like a slave,
prayerfully
saintly
godly forward, heroic as the wind:
But unheralded by stately choirs,
Forgotten by national anthem makers!
...

in your time
you took away
the flowers of our freedom.
in your time
the weak defended
your weakness,
and the land cried;
the moon too
was dark
in your time.

(in memory of a Pakistani poet who refused)
...

we were not
the only ones left;
the fig-tree stood by us.

we were not
the only ones left
until the sky refused us
a visa.

sweet dreams, dear
as we wait
for another flower to bloom.
...

When, brother, will you be?
How will you be?
For you are not yet.
A ‘boy' you are called
by milk-plastered lips
and you undo your hat
to bare that musty dome.
Yet a ‘boy' you remain.
Your unpensioned thirty-year job
- unpensioned even in kind -
you have faithfully groomed,
while bosses go and come,
renewing that boyishness,
inheriting you and the garden,
but ever ‘boy', never ‘man'.
Maybe a bigger garden will
turn you to a field-man.
Did you tell your boss
you have fathered, husbanded like him?
Does he know your son
lectures to professors in exile?

Booted on ancient buttocks
by weak-boned madams
who rob your humility
implanting slavery and hate.
Even yoking you
with manufactured allegiances,
yet your blood-left rhythm speaks
When history chapters allow.
...

i am the only one
you are the only one.

the birds and the rivers
sing to me,
they speak in your voice.

if i fall silent
you will be silent too.
if i fall silent
your wounds will be named silence.

i am a piece of you
and you are a piece of me.

the blood in my veins is you.
listen to the rhythm
of the stream of my blood
and the echoes from the hills,
mixed with gentle ripples
of the waters in the fast stream.

but with time
you will hear your voice
in the blue skies of my heart.

in the dark clouds of my soul
you will hear a voice
that tells the story of your forgotten voices
of birds long dead
of elephants crippled by guns
of orphans you do not deserve.
...

Full with child
a long parallel waiting: an anxiety;
Together living, dying
with nine-month torrents,
torpedoed with building wars
and swelling with fragrant hope
knotted to pain, pleasure and resentment;
Living, dragging on weary muscles
Till one day, maybe night,
raids rupture hope in expectancy:
Fertility perishing in thatched graves
to drive lead-like tears
down slippery times
and swallowed by history's gorgons.
...

This war!
I am tired
of a husband who never sleeps
guarding the home or on call-up,
never sleeping!

Maybe inside him he says
‘I am tired of a wife
who never dies
so I could stop guarding'.
...

Mother sat
with hunger on her hands
and soaked love in her eyes.
Then the flies came
to sing nasty songs to her ears.
We listened to the interrupted tale
of hunger and strife.
But mother didn't sing
when singing time came
in the folk tale.
She just pointed to the flies
and asked us to hum
the same song sung by the wings.
We sang the winged song
as we joined the search.
Fly and child sang together.
Mother and the leaves fell together,
father was not present,
and we never met him.
While the fly sings her search
we search together
or form a joint committee
to resolve the issues of fly and child.
For on our hearts
are the steaming finger-prints of the fly
Whose wings told us stories
of the search for life, and to whom we belong.
Over the radio
we hear there is a crisis
Members of Parliament demand higher salaries,
so there is no debate about us.
At least we are free from wrecked promises.
We shall debate
in the open chamber
with a thousand million diseases
standing for the Grave constituency.
And figures of population increase
standing for Survival constituency.
Dogs-cats-rats-fleas
send representatives to this chamber,
so the debate gets dreary at times.
Language problems!
lack of seats!
or simple lack of order in the house.
Then we share all we have -
from pocketfuls of blood
to parliamentary jargon.
Together we survive,
the subject of long debating sessions
and stale overdue projects
that crawl now
when they should have run yesterday.
...

The coming was gold-ridden,
wealth that rinsed blood out of us.
Maybe we just looked,
sharing the amazement of pain
in seeing drunken madness.
We had a noose round our necks
so we tugged,
and cut the choking rope.
Independence came,
but we still had the noose
around our neck.
Still we smell greatness out there
in the decaying abbeys and castles.
So we carry the noose
and beg to be dragged again
in the name of development.
All I know is the land is here
and the people's bare feet maul the dry earth
till freedom come.
...