Dear Family
Excuse me while I reign on your victory parade.
Pardon me as I feign in a mockery charade
Forgive me comrade
As i ignore your toxic verbal tirade
We’re in this together,
You t-shirt wearing
Vow swearing
fist pumping
Party card holding
Flag waving patriots
We’re in this together
With you slogan chanting
Stone casting
Opposition hating
Finger pointing
Hero-worshipping, idiots
We’re in this together
All you street marching
Property torching
Riot making
Loyalty faking
Rock throwing
Tribalistic, homophobic, bigots
What victory do you sing?
When you still suffer infinite blackouts
Random load shedding
Inexplicable power outages
Incommunicable energy shortages
Complimented by high electric bills
Do you still sing your victory salute?
When you still owe the authorities
For deplorable, unreliable utilities?
We are in this together
From within your candle lit room
Reeling from the feeling of doom
In a household that continues to welter in darkness
As you swelter in mugginess
While in possession of an air conditioner that functions, well
but cannot work, at all.
We are in this together
Even when the fumes of paraffin billows into the fabric of your possessions
Permeating your clothes, skin and hair
Burning embers of charcoal send wafting smoke into the air
that burns and blinds your eyes,
clogs your nostrils and chokes your throat.
How deep is your sleep?
Amidst continuous vibrations of your generator
We are in this together comrade
What victory do you still sing?
When even tap water is rationed
Deemed unsafe to drink
Retiring the faucets of your kitchen sink
We are in this together
As you bore holes in your back yard
Drill wells sending you in time, backwards
That urine stench,
Those feaces stained toilets
the lavarotaries
Remind you that flushing them has become luxuries
Within your suburban homes?
Creating breeding grounds for wide spread diseases,
Thyphoid, cholera, malaria …
What victory do you sing?
When you drive your pricey vehicles
Over roads ravaged by potholes
Springs and rings bending
Rack and pinion jamming
Shock absorber smashing
Tire slashing
Drive shaft shattering ditches.
…the death traps.
We are in this together
Even as we continue to grab, peg and own the land
Using it to bribe,
garner support for ballot favors
What have we grown from it?
since we seized it?
to till it
and feed our very own?
The rain has since reigned
The rainbow dissipated
The moon has shone,
The sun once smiled
But shied away
Beneath storm cloud
Our land remains barrenly ours,
Shriveled, ours,
aridly ours,
vapidly ours,
uncultivated, ours,
captivated, by us.
Shall we blame it
On the opposition?
The evil imperialists?
on our angry gods?
the unappeased colonialist’s ghosts?
or is it just one of our major mis-calculated odds?
We are in this together
As the security forces
Have morphed into uniformed crooks
Exerting authority over your hard earned finances
On the scene, road- side judge and jury
Granting unlawful liberties after a tip, dollar, and a bribe.
Police-ing the currency of crime.
We are in this together
As accountability, transparency and integrity
Is substituted by, indispensability, rife impunity,
When corrupt practices are condoned and
As lawlessness prevails
Political repression & humanitarian crisis avails
This economic decline.
We are in this together
Even as river banks are lined in shimmering baubles
That float and flow
In streams
spitting out glittering rocks
as deep wells erupt,
emitting precious pebbles
Glittering gems in blocks
It’s time to stop the clocks
And remind us that:
We are in this together
Like in the book of Revelations
We are plagued by false prophets
Who lay hands to deplete our pockets
In their gospel of prosperity
It’s their obsession with possession
That play on our fears
Screaming over you as if to ensure god hears
they pray not to deal with sin
But prey on you to steal the scene
When they predict gloom
And condemn us to doom
If we desist and remain gaunt
And resist in spirit to repent
From our inequities of poverty
We are in this together
Among the list of life dropouts
The unemployed, they scamper, they scavenge, they scramble to eke out
A decent living,
Others beg, borrow or deal
While, some dig, burrow or steal
Taking if no one is giving
We are in this together, brethren
As the country suffers, a severe brain drain
The economy shifts and shuffles in strain
Our professionals,
the workers,
the youths,
they continue to emigrate
Packing interrupted dreams
Stacking corrupted schemes
As they in droves migrate
For greener pastures afar
To grapple, scrape, dabble in all sorts
For an uncertain existence
An un-guaranteed return…. alive.
We are all in this together
When the health sector is admitted into the ICU
Efforts to resuscitate it back to life remain bleak
The weak and feeble, remain meek
Placing us amongst the world’s lowest life expectancy list
Lack of skilled professionals,
Eroded infrastructure
System breakdown
Are the excuses, besides our ownselves.
We are in this together
Even as we continue to muzzle the press
Licensing policies designed to repress
A deterrence to control independent media
Even when you and I can see it
We cannot report it
Can know about it
but not allowed to talk about it
when a mere utterance
leads to harassment, intimidation and detention
We are in this together,
Friend or foe
Love or war
As you and I continue to wallow in woe.
We are in this together
Because there is no winners….just losers
Fungai
10/27/13
