Shackled Hope
By Alfred Nyamwange
My whole being is wired
My whole DNA is wired to their deities
To their old intravenous injection
That feed my soul with their
Ancient old women’s tales
About their ghosts and broom wielding hags
And their hunting escapades, pogroms
And bonfires,their old tunes that sound idyllic and primordial
Lullabies that only hold to them mere memories
Of their primordial identity
And preserve their heritage and legacy
In a curious way of slaving me with hope
For the better future when everything present
Is torture by hunger, disease, depravity
And anger at everything around me, feeding me
With mental swings, bottomless hopelessness
My double edged and mouthed leaders
Are an extension of their hegemony
My reverends an extension of their hope choir
Merely talk about a bright future when they are destroying the present
They are feasting on the alms begged from their high tables
And cluelessly following the same imposition script
Laying off workers,bread winners in the guise
Of Sdgs masked as development
Confining families to hunger and destitution
Condemning generations to inconsequential burdens
When they are dining and dancing
With messiahs of yore turned present hyenas
Loading more burdens to a tired motherland
As they dine and wine in classy enemy capitals
Jet hopping, begging the last cent to swallow on our behalf.
We have lost it and we are bone tired
Craving for the last residues of our human
Conscience to stir in us a revolution to simply
Say No to servitude
Just sit down and fail to clap
Sit down and simply stop to comply