The Lab of Poetry Poem by Gankhanani Moffat Moyo

We are in the lab, in this room
Creating a deadly bomb
A bomb as of a storm
In the lab, in this room.

In the lab are we seated, dears
Africa's own sons and daughters
As thou thinkest like fire
And implements like the mighty sun
What are we then
In this lab to create in turn?

Like the lion of the jungle
That stealthily strides upon the earth
Dear, with no fear of any peer
We create a blasting bursting bomb
That shall break boundaries

And when the bomb if fallen
Upon the sires and sons of this earth
It shall beat and break boundaries
The boundaries that separate Kanyama from Chawama
Lusaka from Mazabuka
Western from North-western
And Zambia from Gambia

We shall beat and break boundaries
That separate your blood from mine
And thy breath from mine
And thine heart from mine

And we shall call upon somebody
We shall call upon our ancestors
Hidden deep in the hearth of the earth
We shall groan and moan
We shan't slip into sleep
We shan't eat to keep fit

We shall call upon the blood
That drips with this pain
From this part
The heart of Africa
We shall weep sore in the night
And shed blood from our souls
To bury the lines between black and white

O' gentles, you shall hear voices changing
The skies of our sweat to piles of praises
The black bitter blood to blood of brave boys
The mournful voices of Africans
To voices of birth of mirth
For we shall come back

True, back not to sing, but back to our black truth
Once again we shall sing
Bathing in the illumination of the full moon
We shall dance our energies out
And truthfully circumcise our children
For cleanliness and purity

The young shall speak out
And give not up their mother Zambia
The young shall not stop
Till Zambia smile,
Till Zambia smile.

We are in the lab
Creating a bomb to fall upon our people
And kill the loss we've gained in them
The loss in truth in Africanism
And bring Africa back
To the mother of the world's civilisation

We are in the lab
Not a lab of rubudiam
But a lab of consonants and plosives
A lab of alliteration and mono and bi and deca and poly syllables
A lab not of for the Iraq war
But a lab of development
A lab of diction
A lab of speech
The lab of poetry.