The graveyard of those who forgot to live
Here lie the nine children she never had,
She tried to hatch the eggs but they rotted
Over here lies the huge white wedding,
ice, chicken, coleslaw salad and coke.
She was going to send a big bus for the entire village,
But time, true to its nature, ticked on
Faster than a marriage proposal that never came.
This tombstone reads: drive, passion and willpower,
They died together, slowly and very dramatically,
After that, she was never the same,
Withered away like harvested pumpkin leaves,
Unredeemable, she soon followed them all,
She lies here too as you can see,
Right by the entrance to the graveyard,
This graveyard of those who chased,
Then forgot to live.
Listen
Learn to listen to silence too,
It screams, pushing because it is pregnant with messages for you,
Tongue swallows pride into silence so the ear can hear.
Bastard
Spent an entire youthful lifetime,
Afraid of having an illegitimate child,
Surely my mother would have buried me alive,
Now that youth is gone, smiles and life soon too,
She barks at me for a grandchild, legit or not.
Three Musicians
We used to beat twenty litre cans of Olivine cooking oil,
Jessie holding the coca cola bottle for a mic,
Jusie, a whole big mortar in hand playing the guitarist,
We used to chase planes we knew we'd never catch,
Shouting 'Ndenge! Ndenge!'
We used to sing for the rains to come so we eat rice,
We used to sing about what to do if a security guard hit you,
'Dzorera! Dzorera!'
Because he was wearing a toilet seat on his head, we'd sing,
There was no way we weren't going to grow up to be musicians,
One sings Township Jazz, another Hip hop, the other Mbira.
Hope Masike is a musician and dancer. She is known as "The Princess of Mbira" and her music has its roots both in traditional and modern African culture. She initially studied Fine Art at Harare Polytechnic.