Introducing the Zimbabwean Poet Mbizo Chirasha with Three Poems

I am posting three poems by the Zimbabwean Mbizo Chirasha. I have read and enjoyed Mbizo's works and it is not out of place to feature some of his works on this blog. Read, enjoy and comment. Though this is not going to be a regular feature, I hope to once in a while bring you 'new' poets from Africa as part of my vision to Promote African Literature.

1.

Children of Xenophobia

Children eating bullets and firecrackers

Beggars of smile and laughter

Silent corpses sleeping away fertile dreams

Povo chanting new nude wretched slogans

Overstayed exiles eating beetroot and African potato

Abortions and condoms batteries charging the lives of nannies and maids

Children of barefoot afternoons and uncondomized nights

Sweat chiselling the rock of your endurance

The heart of Soweto, Harare, Darfur, Bamako still beating like drums

Violence fumigating peace from this earth.

2.

Kalinga- linga

A daughter of revolution fed on rich political nutrition

With a smile bandaging scars of the streets and falsehood by political demons

Fingers burnt in pseudo democratic pans of West, what a political humor

I see you smelling love through the thick dew of corruption and robots

True heroes and heroines swallowed up in the deep silence of chingwere and uzambwera

[Cemeteries of the poor]

Leopold hill shadows faking dances to the throbbing rhythms of vumbuza drums

Kalinga- linga- your rising sun will soon spread the beauty of its fingers in the skies of Afrika

3.

Dream of Rain

This is the land that fed our dreams

Wind suffocated in the yellow smoke of wheat

Our fields' crimson red and clouds gray with millet sheaves

Pans hissing with oil baking bread

Gleaming thighs of our days sweating under the rain season sun that bloomed,

The flamboyant flowers

Weeds of hunger already been exiled.
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About the Poet: Mbizo Chirasha is an internationally acclaimed performance poet, writer, and creative projects consultant. He is widely published in more than Seventy-five journals, magazines, and anthologies around the world. He was the poet-in-residence from 2001-2004 for the Iranian Embassy/UN Dialogue among Civilisations Project; Convener/Event Consultant THIS IS AFRICA POETRY NIGHT 2004-2006; official performance poet Zimbabwe International Travel Expo in 2007; Poet in Residence of the International Conference of African Culture and Development (ICACD) 2009; and official Poet SADC Poetry Festival, Namibia 2009.

In 2003 Mbizo was a delegate of Zimbabwe to the Goteborg International Book Fair in Sweden. He performed at Nordic African Institute and Swedish Writers Union. Mbizo Chirasha is widely profiled in both local and abroad media institutions. His poetry books Good Morning President and Whispering Woes of Ganges and Zambezi.

Mbizo Chirasha the Founder and Creative Director of Girl Child Creativity Project, the newly founded Urban Colleges Writers Prize and Curator and Producer of GirlchildVoices Fiesta and 100 thousand poets for change program in Zimbabwe.