MBIZO CHIRASHA - POEMS

​Mbizo Chirasha is  a  Creative Communities Expert, Opinion maker/ Contributing Writer/Columnist{World Pulse/www.worldpulse.com/mbizo chirasha,Bulawayo 24 news.com/www.bulawayo24.com/mbizochirasha}, Blogging Publisher/Writer/Editor, an internationally acclaimed Performance poet, Creative /Literary Projects Specialist, Mbizo Chirasha is the Resident Coordinator of 100 Thousand Poets for Change-Global in Zimbabwe. He is also the Advisory Council Member of ShunguNaMutitima International Film Festival in Zambia, an Advocate of Girl Child Voices and Literacy Development .He is the Founder and Projects Curator of a multiple Community, Literary, and Grassroots Projects including Girl Child Creativity Project, Girl Child Voices Fiesta, Urban Colleges Writers Prize, and Young Writers Caravan. Mbizo Chirasha has worked with NGOS and other institutions as an Interventionist [using creative arts as models of community education, information dissemination and dialogue].The interventions include HIV/AIDS Branding Project [Social Family Health Namibia 2009 - 2010], HIV/AIDs Nutrition Project [Catholic Relief Services 2006] , Arts for Drought Mitigation[Swedish Cooperative Centre2006] He is widely published in more than Hundred Journals, Magazines, and Anthologies around the world. He Co-edited Silent Voices Tribute to Achebe Poetry Anthology , Nigeria and the Breaking Silence Poetry anthology,Ghana.His Poetry collections include Good Morning President ,Diaspora Publishers , 2011 , United Kingdom and Whispering Woes of Ganges and Zambezi,Cyberwit Press ,India ,2010. He was the Poet-in-Residence from 2001-2004 for the Iranian embassy/UN Dialogue among Civilizations Project; Focal Poet for the United Nations Information Centre from 2001-2008; Convener/Event Consultant This 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 2010 Chirasha was invited as an Official Poet in Residence of ISOLA Conference in Kenya. In 2003 Mbizo Chirasha was a Special Young Literary Arts Delegate of Zimbabwe International Book Fair to the Goteborg International Book Fair in Sweden. He performed at Sida/African Pavilion, Nordic African Institute and Swedish Writers Union. In 2006 was invited to be the only Poet /Artist in Residence at Atelier Art School in Alexandra Egypt. In 2009 was a Special participating Delegate representing Zebra Publishing House at the UNESCO Photo –Novel Writing Project in Tanzania, Mbizo Chirasha also work as a Performing Poet for Educational, Diplomatic, International, National, Media and Cooperate organizations .He also works as a Proof Reader/Editor , Poet /Writer in Residences for Institutions , Media Relations Strategist for projects, GirlChildVoices /Talent Advocate, Literacy Development Activist and Creative/Literary Projects Advisor/Specialist. Credentials Member - Zimbabwe Writers Association Member- Creative Writing Group Zimbabwe Member of the Jury- International Images Film Festival Resident Coordinator- 100 Thousand Poets for Change Global Contributor – Stellenbosch University Literary Project/Slip net Member /Contributor- World Pulse Graduate- Chitaqua Reading Project/US Embassy ,Certified social media practitioner-Young Nation/ US Embassy, Prize winner Aids out of Africa Project- United States, Founder- Creative/Literary and Girl child Projects Producer/Curator- Girl child Voices Fiesta Member/Mentor- Writers International Zimbabwe, Mentor- Zim talent Hunt, Former Volunteer Poet in Residence- United States Embassy, Harare.

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                           I am the true song


​
The song sleeping dead in the hospital bed of my mind
Song suffering from poetic hypertension
Song heaving from poetic chronic fever
 
I am the song of holy tongues and sacred whirlwinds
Iam  song ,the language of mothers
I am the song in the womb and steel breasts of mothers who survived the wind
I am the song whose darkness sit in the granite hearts of villages
 
I am the song once tuned in the military vests and bullet proof helmets of war skeletons in night vigils
I am the song of June nights and empty streets
 
I am the sacred song and the holy tune of mothers incubating more dreams in the warmth of generations.
 
 
                                          Empty Dream

Bring me the undergarments of the state and vests of
Parliament
I see rains of hatred pounding the face of juba
Socialists and mongers breakfasting human delicacies
Political drunkards lolling feeble voters to night mares and empty dreams
New born democrats buried without traces of memory under the hot hard granite of politics
Souls drooping in misery
When will sunlight cast blessings to these cemeteries?
Green lives decomposing in concrete corridors of history
The feet of history dragged in this grief laden earth.


                                            Our Madness

Gossip the passion of broken cities
Silence sacred literature unknown
Where babies are tired of condom balloons and generations stolen by lunatics
Hope and rain evaporating in the cloudiness of horizons
Dreams drowning in dysentery, visions erased by malnutrition
Child soldiers drinking soft eggs and cockerels in nights of nostalgia
This earth bear scars and blood stains of years under the regime of rubbles
Scars of poetry and epitaph written in blood, scars of bones and shadows buried in the womb of this earth.
 
 
                                     Contradictions
 
Baby professors weeping for MacDonald’s and pizza in city colleges
Gangsters fanning plumes of branded cigars reading from the green money that have become the ritual and the prayer
Martyrs and poets killed in their prison of their minds
Rifle sputum erasing memories of prophets and griots
Griots that sing songs of lives roasted in millet and coffee plantations
 
Griots who planted songs in intestines of this earth pregnant with memories of Hitler and contradictions of Osama
The earth that carry the sweat of kunta kunte and the beauty of shaduf and pyramids
The earth sagging with the crude mind of Menelik and bones of Shaka Zulu.