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.

---

                              Forty years after dawn


​We burnt drums and exiled the drummers
Still holding cows for other villagers to milk
Undergarments of the banks stink like garbage
Forty years after dawn
State plans still dressed in torn overalls of the parliament
Bullet speak louder than ballot
Forty years after dawn we discovered no totem of truth
And flowers of freedom never bloom
Forty years after dawn
Blood smells more toxic than pesticides in the lungs of the cities and nostrils of the villages
 

                                 Diary of the Povo


Another whistle from election fervent fathers
Another ululation from slogan drugged mothers
In chimoio we roasted bullets like mealie cobs for breakfast
In  nyadzonia we boiled grenades like cassava for lunch meals
In magagao we munched parcel bombs like tropical fruit
In gorongoza, we  learnt totems of war and syndromes of propaganda
Today, our ears are deaf with sediments of slogans
We are the povo
 

                       Stomachs belong to the state


Kalanda , we are raised through the smoke and stink  of dumping sites,
In dusty broken streets of dingy shanties
Chilling culture of poverty whipping our backs and slapping our scarred faces
Kalanda , we passed through rough fingers of the state
Purity of sisters corrupted by bowls of spaghetti in district light cafes
Kalanda, their smiles plant want than wheat on our doorsteps
 

                                   Exiled pauper


Patriot of home in the squalor of my exile
Pauper who brewed the revolution and never drink from the gourd of freedom
In this exile, power is the game of bullet than the ballot
We built water tanks  but we still buy water
Peasants have no cassava to feed babies but helicopters to fly them to propaganda stations
 

                                   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
 

                                        Guyana


Raised through the bowls of sweat in millet acres
Through the forests of bullets shells and wounded earth
Guyana is not the mist of forgotten and tired centuries
It is the petal whose scent perfumed the stink of revolutions