Title: Tales of the dead man
Author : Doc Freezy
Scared to die alone
Breathing in the seams of loneliness
Wriggling in a shallow grave
Not enough time they murdered the sons of a innocent
Praying with witches and reading the minds with hypnosis
Dangling the life from the edges of cliffs and beliefs are as dead as the hollow fangs of vampires
Strange languages spoken by the spiritually hysterical
Spells cast before congregations and called miracles
Death an omen of the life after yesterday
Today a myth agreed on by the less common
Men walking around with no shadows
The lights turned off
Sleeping under a star lit sky
A home away from home
Nature kissing the feet of the evil minded human
The cold is a reminder of what is to come
Wealth and health we strive or die
Title: A SIMPLE STORY
Author: Khumbulani Muleya
Every breath that I take each morning that I wake is a step that brings me a second closer to the RevoLution
I live in the streets of life and I have come of age
never concerned with fame and fortune or the number of likes on my Facebook page
When I was young their wisdom left me in awe
Their wisdom of fairy tales, propaganda and man made law
In the gradual process of time I began to ponder and wonder as the voices in my head grew louder and louder
screaming500 years on the darkside of paradise we fed on the word at the crack of a whip and today our scars still bleed deep
So I began my journey of separating sense from nonsense
And realised that achieved greatness never came as a coincidence
I felt better when I wrote lines so I began to lift my hopes like I was lifting weights and gave life to these deep rhymes
I stopped looking at the skies and started walking miles
deep within into lands un corrupted by true lies
I walked alone far and wide
naked with no need to hide
I went back to the source
returned to innocence
And discovered every corner of my Universe
I sentenced fear to death so I could slay superstition wrapped in these books of illusion..
Title
Author: Chioneso
My heart gets tragic
my spirit loses all its magic all of me is static
I become worse than a raving lunatic
all because I can’t say what I feel
what I feel I can’t say I’m taken ill I’m undone clay
can I ever speak or cry or shall continue weak and die everybody’s superhuman
i grow weary because I’m just a woman
my inside I’m all pieces
mending by myself with uneven stitches wrung and wrung and wrung
mine name is the name that’s continuously sung take this mantle off of me let me take time and heal me everyone’s aunt every child’s mummy tired of being super I long to be the dummy but no now you gave me wisdom so I could light a way
i can never be the night, always I’m day never can I runaway no
demons and dragons are mine to slay
Title: LETTER FROM THE MILLION POOR
Author: Blessing Mukonomuwi
Do u know what it means to be poor?
To grow wheat and never eat the bread made out of it.
Do you know what it means to be uneducated?
To have rules and directions written all over just for you
Because you the only one who can’t read
So to get rid of you, they write what you dont understand
So when you try standing for a half price you are told “sir it’s written in black and white, No standing passengers”
Do u think you have been poor enough?
The pastor will tell you, “everyone has to suffer to get better”
And you become comfortable in your suffering
Do you think you have been hungry?
Then try eating one portion of a meal in three days
Have you been poor
To the point that you so comfortable with it?
You don’t care what you will eat that night
And the pastor says only the poor will enter heaven
And you so poor to believe it
And when it rains it pours
And when it pours somebody tells you that being poor is a state of mind
And you start to think that you poor
Because you thinking that you poor
Poor that even you
You yourself can’t notice
And you live everyday with the feeling that you not poor
So listen to my story if you never been there
Hey Mr Politician don’t you dare
Dare think that you are a God
Check your birth date again
I said don’t you dare
Dare put me in a semi-recumbent posture
To believe humbling myself before you will give me a life
You have never been poor to hell with your experiences
The fake stories you create just to identify with
You always blame us
Blame us for not voting
Do u consider yourself talking or vomiting
You no different to the guy in the taxi rank touting
“One asara, one mari, one ari ega, one kombi isingamiswe nemapurisa”
For all that you don’t know
You are the only one
“One asara”
Thinking that we still buy-in
You can’t buy us like chicken-inn
Another franchise you own
This time we are not here as a political party
We are here to party
Party parting with you
The letter from a million poor people
Serves to inform you that
“poor or not
We coming to your door step”
Title: SLEEPING BEAUTY
Author: Biko Maximus Martini
Sleep nana sleep
Sleep nana sleep
Wake up the master
The tempest is rising
Weeping widows wither in the willows
Its a dictartors world impatience is brewing
Heads of state seal their fate
Speeches of hate fail to motivate
Schools of miseducation fool them young
We are ancient souls so we are never sprung
Sleep nana sleep….
Justice was hung and buried under genocides in Tsholotsho
Reconciliation in this place is to rule by fear
Judgement near let the propaganda smoke clear
To reason is to vote with a gun in your head
Keep a chosen few rich and loyal
Curse the majority and spit on their demands
Sleep nana sleep
They watch over you sleep
They feed your ego and stroke your pride
93 Not Out whose counting the wickets
As the great dragon sleeps the dogs loot
Sleep nana sleep
We are not your people
We are just your neighbours
We do for self like ants in a colony
So sleep nana sleep
We are not your Zimbabwe we are FREE
To dream that you rule over us is a myth
Wakey wakey sleeping beauty
The sun is rising
Title: TEMPTATIONS
Author: Biko Maximus Martini
Ambassodors of chaos
With PHDs of illusion
Make first class flights with brand suits
Looting the souls of men
Cunning as serpents with toungues dripping of seduction
Their Occults of charity decieve the dogma
Yet our Ancient scrolls remain hidden like Noahs Ark
In the depths of our souls
In dreams and caves of wisdom
In solitude we master TRUTH
They feed the hungry souls with white lies
And of white gods with black spies
Who call our identity and origin sin
And clothe our nakedness with bloody and tattered robes
Tell it to the mountain
The seers are blindfolded
Their eyes are glued to a box
Magic and propaganda dwell there
They market feelings of guilt and shame
Of need and demand
And render you dependant of their seduction
Old habits die hard
Now the whole world is stuck in their mud
Temptations temptations…
To kill or be killed
Only TIME will survive this war.
Title: SCARED TO DIE ALONE
Author: Doc Freezy
Breathing in the seams of loneliness
Wriggling in a shallow grave
Not enough time they murdered the sons of a innocent
Praying with witches and reading the minds with hypnosis
Dangling the life from the edges of cliffs and beliefs are as dead as the hollow fangs of vampires
Strange languages spoken by the spiritually hysterical
Spells cast before congregations and called miracles
Death an omen of the life after yesterday
Today a myth agreed on by the less common
Men walking around with no shadows
The lights turned off
Sleeping under a star lit sky
A home away from home
Nature kissing the feet of the evil minded human
The cold is a reminder of what is to come
Wealth and health we strive or die
Title: AFRICA
Author: Clessy
She has been crying all along
Finally she sings the songs of joy
Laughter echoes from deep within her heart
Children now sing along to the songs of their mothers
No more shall they sing the songs of woe
So much talent and wisdom
The power of a black man
The mountains smiled
The rivers tell of the stories,
When it used to rain blood
When the birds were silenced
Never to sing again , for the cries of a woman in labour became the song day in and day out
Painful the cries of Africa
To drink from the springs once more
To drink from the living waters that bring nothing but happiness
Never shall it rain lava that burnt you beautiful dark skin
Never shall you be troubled by the fleas
For the dark shadows have been seized at the command of the man who loves you so dearly
Title:
Author: Chioneso
If you keep holding your breath/your lungs will collapse and you will meet your death/easy smile a little /soften up your heart doesn’t have to be brittle /easily broken easily torn/ life is meant to be beautiful do not be forlorn /days come days go/let it all flow /sadness and tears joy and laughter /things we only witness in this life not in the hereafter /shall you sit or shall you dance/one life one death this is the one chance/shall you run or shall you ride/choose how you will live or hide/taste it all sweet or sour/ you’re still here till that dark hour/that moment of fate when death comes to power/shall you in these waters bathe or shall you shower/frozen blood or hot blood its all blood/ some rains are little showers some are torrents but not all cause a flood /after this life /there is no other life
Title: MY VICTORIES
Author: Iris Pain
I’ve grown up living in filth
Eating dirt
Breathing toxic fumes
Surviving on garbage
Being called a street urchin
Others preferring bastard
Washing in human waste
Crying acidic tears
I wasn’t made for the dust bins
In this purgatory am surviving the flames of my unfavorable fate
For the last time l wince at the loss of another child to the streets,
Having refused to be the next one in line,
I have seen my victories flashing before my soot-covered lashes
Brushing off dust from my pungent flesh
And the forgiving raindrops washing away the smell of rot
For where there is a will l won’t have to get laid
I will labour with these, my black hands to get paid
I didn’t need a sanctuary to get saved
Just a little ray of sunshine to assure me that I
I’ve seen my victories even when the war hasn’t begun….
Title: FORGET ME NOT
Author: Thobekile
my past came knocking and I opened the door
its not a second chance he was for
he came to explore
the pain I can not ignore
but the vengence I seek is not for the weak
I will not hurt you like you did
I will greet you in the street
my vengence is my growth
my ability to love myself in the ways you failed
do not dispare somethings are not meant be
like the betrayal kiss that was assigned to Judas
you were sent to give me the kiss of stupid
I was meek you were sleek
a pat on the back for a jolly good show
but I still love you
even if you hurt me so
but dnt let it fool you
I am not your fate
Title: NEAR THE STAINED GRAFFITI WALL
Author: Takudzwa J Mukwambo
A dead living man squatters there
Clothed in tonnes of dirty clothes
And dirt that has accumulated on his skin
Near the grafitti wall
They are posters everywhere
No towing zone
No Hitchhiking
No loitering around
And those of a prestigious prophet
Who is clothed in taylor made clothing
Underneath the prophets portrait
There is a line that reads
The prophetic hour
Come and join us
I have passed by many times
I have seen the same movements every time
Those of people passing by
Staring at the man who resides at the grafitti wall
Dancing to the holy hymns from the temple
He seems to attend the service spiritually
Or it is madness that has taken him
Who knows
but I’m waiting for the day he will be noticed
By those who sing melodies that make him dance
and by the men who has prophetic eyes
He is a member of the holy ones
All he needs is to be clothed in a dignified way
and be given a place to abode
A soul will be saved if that happens
Title: GOOD GHOSTS
Author: Tongoona
Pull, red, fade to black,
Pull, red, fade to black,
Exhale all up in smoke
Banish fools off the block
Set ancient gods free
Smoke, smoke, smoke
Sure thing fire burns in hiding
Purifying base things to gold
Those wise men of old
Were but fools in their age
Caged within their knowledge
They raged and raged
So it’s is to this day
As they did to the wise
Many poor Socrates
Any lie can be poisoned with Truth!
(ad hoc 1815-1822)
Title: VASELINE
Author: Tongoona
I got this thing called fear
It’s all around like a pungent stink
I feel it everywhere it’s real near
Like death you sometimes don’t see it but it’s everywhere.
For everything I thought I knew
They said class here is free, and made me learn anew
Somewhere in winter’s sky
And up on a wing so high
A clan of crows sing
Flying in a dark secret ritual
They perform a manner of prayer to Heaven
Groaning and crowing as one
As if in graceful repentance before God
Locked here beneath them in this crowded cell darkness
Their song sounds like a funeral dirge.
I have been here just a year
So they all laugh and say I’m still here!
The hammer fell and I got here for five
It matters not now that all was a lie
It’s too far back to even try.
Now like all them newbies
I already got me a boss
And he’s one of those here for life
For him if they throw you in Hell
It’s quick sell your soul and make yourself at home
They said we get visitors today
It’s about time all the cons say
It’s getting late but the doors are still locked
Till at last the jangle of keys and thud of brutal boots speaks a promise,
Says the guards will keep their word this time
For even when wrong they are always right
But today they’re our saviours
Come to take us out to see the light.
Coming out is always a fond hope
I hope today it is her that has finally come for me
I hope my boss gets visitors
Hope they bring him more vaseline
We been out for three weeks score
And now I’m all sore
Inside these prison pants my bottom is in shreds
Even with vaseline I’m just so raw
With many calendars still to hang on this grey wall
I don’t think I can take this no more…..
Title: HORNS OF A DILEMMA
Author: Tongoona
Confined to my own unhappiness
The moon’s reddening nail
Like the crescent of death’s
Vengeful mandate,
Like Robespierre’s guillotine
Hovers over the neck’s hiding voice.
Suddenly we are all filled to the itch
With the real fear of absolute belief!
Great Napoleon paces his cold tent
On the outskirts of frigid Moscow
Who clings tight to her skirts and vows not to yield
To the keen attentions of the libidous general.
The General insists that Josephine alone cannot
Remove the burden of his fly’s will.
In faith’s ardent passion duels are spermy and slippery
Mysterious men shrug each other off
As they jostle for the egg’s heaven
Where one to his surprised homecoming
Discovers there is only one hairy passage
To paradise’s slippery ecstasy
And he must to the dark exit return
And submit to passion’s eager suck.
And Napoleon sips on Napoleon Brandy
The brandy that warms frozen spirits to victory
And urges men to the waterloo of lost dreams;
Of elusive hope; .till he trips on a hole in the ground!
And his maggots fattening multiplied.
Napoleon being consumed the hapless creatures
Extincted themselves by impaling their scaled identity
Unaware that the Ghost had by some miraculous exercise
Divested himself of the scaled mask.
Truth faced with certain discovery
Argued he was a relation of the gods
And should not be trifled with.
Weaning a thoughtful experience
Napoleon’s ghost tip-toed through the graveyard
And woke the sleeping Josephine
Whereupon like the ardent and health regardless
Lover, with a sticky smack of his skeleton’s lips
He sucks and sucks Josephine’s wine
On nothing’s wrinkled udders
Whose sight offends feelings’ tight balls.
And hope doffs all to the lust’ exigency
Whose skinny-dip urgency
stitches buttock and purse
In the solitary dire straits of grievous labour,
Discreetly heralded as giving birth;
As if there were anything charitable
In the staff prodding with incessant
and insatiable grunts
Deep into Sheba’s coveted purse.
The bound man enquires worriedly:
Are you certain your husband
Is gone to war in far-off lands and his return
Is yet months of passion’s groans away?
Yes! Gasps she with abandon.
Ensnare me with your treacherous
And sticky amour!
But the man climbed down from the blossom of his stiff flower
Perched there on naked fear’s tits he enquired yet again:
Are you sure he is not returned;
For I swear someone is breathing down my arse,
And I smell his bad breath through
My buttocks worried nostril,
And squint my sphincter’s eye
Against the lecherous lash of his amorous tongue!
I fear I may not be the true object
Of his thirst and ardent quest!
And the grieved King watched all
Perched painfully on Dilema’s sharp horns,
Murder building a nest on his brooding mind.
The most noble reputation
Once soiled becomes irretrievable
Is there a vaccine against this sweet vice?
Dilemma’s invisible prick
With spec…
Title: YOU ARE
Author: Iris Pain
Winds came and blew at you
Tore off the bark,stripped you naked
But even so
In the heat of the moment
And pain’s stubborn lingering on your flesh
You nursed your wounds and proudly carried the scars
You’re my gorgeous priceless smile
Although negative thoughts threatened to eradicate you,
You stood your ground and turned up at the darkest hour
You were always there to break the ice when the world was sour
You ain’t really gigantic but your presence shows possession of power
That no difficulty could uproot you
You’re my beautiful dream
Hunger and suffering and pain fight to gag you
Yet, your persistence comes alive at night when you come face to face with me
They have called you useless but you are adamant to prove a point
You’re not a candle flame to be blown away by the violent winds
You’re my sunshine
Seeping through the little vents
Bringing with you a tinge of happiness
You wipe off the clouds of winter and uncertainty
In your absence you’re the silver lining on the grey could
You are the massive force behind every broken heart
Behind every yearning soul you’re the colorful beacon
Don’t let the pain in your path shape you
Storms raved and left you standing
You won’t be fazed out
Never…
Title: A SIMPLE STORY
Author: Khumbulani Muleya
Bulawayo I’m coming to suckle on your breasts
The prodigal son is back in time for a Kings feast
How I long for my feet to carry me swiftly towards that direction so I could inhale the sweet scent of herb burning in the ghetto streets
Though we miles apart I feel your heart beat as if I’m strapped to your back
I’m coming to the city of Ancient Kings and Ancient Queens where the golden sceptre is in full rotation in every ghetto location
I have grown to be a man of simple nature
Only smoking weed with a filter
Darkness my habitation as I sit under these stars that have watched me rise
Sparkling brightly as if to say life is not all about pain poverty or struggle
I have carried the miseries of centuries but every day I turn a page in the holy book of reason and live long
Don’t weep when I live.. I walk the talk like Biko Maximus on a Kings walk
I run things like Usain Bolt and the gods applaud
With a bag full of greens I got lucifer on a leash while my black fist is clenched around the future like a vice grip..
Ancient Kings
Title: PLACARDS AND SLOGANS
Author: Red Dawn
weve become hippie generation marching for peace in a land of beasts
where doves are prey
from eagle who do not value peace
vultures who marinate you with lies praying that one day they feed of your carcass .
banners are flags of admission of impotence
real men dont get high of the meth crystalised by their delusions.
freedom is dead packaged and resold to its slaves
but righteousness never died and evil never prevailed
is just natures season on lifes calender
like goodness is a golden flame that begins everything
one that only sits back to back with its equal
weve become the drunk state of easily broken men.
where the resistors are called hungry traitors.
and revolutionary sellouts.
but men praise misleaders
give them status of gods.
man sit on earth thrones
and makes the free willed slaves to his cult.
but when i scatter these bones my spiritual hakata tells me
life is like the voice of the bones
speaking with the breath of the gods.
time is a mystery divined.
its arms are movers of fate.
born of both love and hate
Title: SCATTERLINGS OF AFRIKA
Author: Reginald Ruwende
Scatterlings of Africa,
Whatsits strewn on prickly terrains
Midsummer solstice
Brickbats raining souse
Subdues neighs never heard ,
Muted by soughing arid winds
Scatterlings of Africa ,
Scattered , battered by unrelenting cyclones
Albeit thoroughbred to acclimatise
Hence thenceforth the overt resilience
Scatterlings of Africa,
Trudging in a tragic trajectory
Truculently we wade into the mire
In the know like seeds sparsely scattered
Verily we shall sprout
Scatterlings of Africa,
Ticking time bombs readying to explode
Tamed Trojans trudging in a tragic trajectory
Albeit capacitated to adapt
Hence the heroic leap into the future
Scatterlings of Africa ,
Subtle saints assigned to be assailed
Foreordained not to be served but to serve
Predestined not to be loved but to love
Othered by others we accept unaccepted
Name us names
Brand us bastards
Call us ‘ Makwirikwiri ‘
Albeit smitten by a searing spell of malaise
We stand to withstand the heat
Title: There is no love where I come from
Author: Elizabeth Semende
Where I come from we sing “love is blind” yet our men marry the shape of a woman’s behind
Is love blind?
Or death is blind to stumble upon our saints.
Who are we to complain when a blind man hit where it hurts?
Death is like that whirlwind which blow your grains into dust. Who do you complain to?
Years ago I shoved my mother into ground,hoping her soul would germinate
But there is no sunlight beneath the earth
And no love where I come from.
Title: Gracious love
Author: Va Chikepe
Distance
Is our separation
I always wish
To be with you
All times
All times
With you
I enjoy
Looking
At you
Straight
In the eyes
Seeing
The mysteries
Of life
In it’s abundance
When
We hold hands
I feel the softness
Of life’s comfort
In the ugliness
Of rough
Perseptions
Of this world
You are
That beautiful
Flower
I saw
By the church
Gate
To
Instantly
Pluck you off
With my admiration
I thought
But
I
Eventually
Took beautiful
Pictures of your beauty
Just to always
See you
In appreciation
Of blessings of life
Smile
Keep on
Smiling
My dear…
Whenever
I am with you
In my own world I am
Reigning
With you by my side
Bringing love and joy
To this world’s
Fear and anxiety
Distance
Is our separation
I always wish
To be with you
All times.
Awesome work AVAC ARTS!