The Signing Ceremony Poem by Gankhanani Moffat Moyo

It is the signing ceremony
Of the death pact
Who goes first
And who goes last?
That is the ghostly question
Vibrating in our insides
Struggling, seeking to be exhumed
An explosion, a blast!
The metallic points
Of the signing pens
Bleeding red death
On the white paper
Whence the decrees are made -
The pact of death.

In those conference rooms
Colourful speeches
Like poetic inscriptions
Are engraved on TV screens
That these pacts are facts
Created to correct
And draw out of the abyss
The poverty-stricken
Malnourished Zambians
But when hands are shaken
Smiles beamed
Words like swords
Are buried in the bellies of the poor
Told to till the land
And feed the overfed
And the facts of the pacts
Are the fats and the oils
That run down the over-ballooning bellies
The official black suits stained
In the greases of the delicacies
While in pain and in grief
The poor in the abyss are buried!

Now, the darkness dwindles
As the sun rises…
The soiled and oiled suits
Pleading for plentiful washing
It is the rotting poor
Reeking in the abyss of death
To sweat without rest
And wipe clean best
The oiled, soiled, stained suits
In the sacrifice
For the ailing mother Zambia.

When night approaches
Sharply pointed pains
Scruffily scribble white paper in blood
And the packs in stacks
Are created - the conjoined loves
For the poor ailing Mother Zambia
The feasts abound around
And the signing ceremony
Of the death pact
Still goes on.