Zimbabwe - The worlds shame

I know I said that I would not post any more poems, but the ongoing scandal of what is happening in Zimbabwe needs to be addressed.

Poetry is sometimes more powerful than mere news reports, as poetry allows a picture to be painted in the mind of the reader that connects them to the event directly via the imagination.

That is the power of poetry.

The UK should have sent in the SAS to deal with Mugab and his henchment long ago.

We should be working with the opposition to set up a new Zimbabwe which we can trade with.

The UN authorised the attack on Iraq, but of course their is no oil in Zimbabwe - just black people and white farmers.

The lion in the poem is mugaabe and the revolution - the antelope the people and the nation , which is also the symbol of Zimbabwe.

The great stone house is the translation of the name Zimbabwe, the four witnesses and vultures are the four nations that surround Zimbabawe - south africa, botswana, zambia and mozambique.

The gold and ivory refers to the ancient trade between the phoenicians and the bantu empire in the 10th century.





The Lion and the Antelope.


The world is watching as an old lion,
Stalks an antelope through the bush,
Only its hunger for the kill keeps it alive,
Its life now has no other meaning.


For there is no oil in Zimbabwe,
Only blood spilt on its earth,
No wells to pump for riches,
Just graves to dig in the dirt.


Once laughter filled our mouth’s,
Now hunger leaves us hollow,
Death haunts us in the fields,
And darkness drapes the city.


Around the killing grounds they gather,
Perched like vultures in a tree,
Four blind and silent witnesses,
Each complicit in the criminality.


The lion bolts from cover, swift as a bullet,
As the antelope runs from its thunder,
But the ground around is hard and hostile,
And so its talon torn body surrenders.


Democracy fled long ago,
weeping through the wires,
Liberation lays broken in the gutter,
Violated by a laughing mob.


The panga and the pistol rule here,
And the police are now the criminals,
For a world that once rushed to war,
Now gives succour to the enemy.


The great stone house is now a tomb,
Its cells are filled with bones and bodies,
Once kings traded gold and ivory here
Now our children starve in famines.


The lion shakes the antelope by the throat,
Its life leaking away, slowly choking,
Its soft eyes darken and all hope fades,
As the revolution devours its children.