Harare
The midsummer sun hangs flaming
over the capitol city
which is painted white,
(the same colour as the graves)
in a country
stripped from the white man’s might,
stripped from providing
and exporting food, minerals
and products
where the value of the currency
changes faster than the billion dollar number
printed on the worthless bills.
Just here and there a car moves
as the country is without fuel
and even the traffic lights
are not working
(and neither are most people)
as the electricity is down.
.
The rural farms stand stripped bare
with primitive peasants
living there in utter poverty
and the fertile soil is vacant
as everything has being taken
by the people
(by force from farmers)
and now nobody has anything
and nothing has being planted
on a commercial scale
and famine is getting
to chaotic lengths
and the people
have returned to the land
to find a resting place there.
Children play under flowering jacaranda trees
in a light hot breeze
with stomachs swollen from hunger
and slime running from noses
and flies wandering over their faces
and some men urinate
against the nearest tree.
The street is filled with fear,
poverty, hunger, pestilence and death
and soldiers stand around idle
smoking cigarettes
longing back to the days
[...] Read more
poem by Gert Strydom
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