Gerry Zimman

Gerry Zimman Poems

The Best Poem Of Gerry Zimman

Can'T Wait, Bob

Can't wait, Bob
Can't wait for us
To put you in the ground
Can't wait to hoist
Our beautiful striped flag
Over your state funeral
To hear the ululations in the towns
Harare, Chimoio, Bulawayo
The ululations of joy
For the passing of the Father
Who burned our hope
Like leaves of tobacco

Can't wait for them to come at night
Dig up your hollow bones
To feed them to the jackals and hyenas
Whom your veterans
Never quite managed to tame
Can't wait, Bob, to hear the commentary

You know what they'll say
Why, yes, he proved them right
Thatcher and Carrington
Botha, Smith and the CIA
For didn't they predict
Devastation and depravity
What is it they are calling him, Bob?
Good Old Smithy.

You call us racists all
Go tell it to the ghosts that haunt you
Tell it to Tongogara
Tell it to Nkomo
The slaughtered Ndebele
The raped, the maimed, the tortured
All the brave ones you had murdered
Tell your story of self-glory
To the ones awaiting
Who can't wait to put you in the ground

Go for your picnic in the hills
With your black snake one last time
By the dongas that ran dry
The fields where maize once grew
Zimbabwe is your graveyard now
On which at last the smoke will rise.

Ah, it's devastating, man
Do you hear the stories from the Congo
From where his dollars come
Rape of men as well as women
Stealing children, burning fields
A place with no peace anywhere
It's not quite like that here
The chickens run and lay and wait
For their cockerel to come
The loving father who would choose
His only people to destroy
With the hope he gave
And took away
With him, to the grave.

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