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Poetry

Tyrant

Why cry
for the wingless spirit bird?
Why cry
for the honeybird?

The king attends a funeral
and dances with his eyebrows,
his naked words smelling of sand
and gunpowder.

The polluted wind
only smells of lost dreams,
some kinds of amorphous declarations
about blood mixed with dance songs.

Our royal king
smokes a tired cigarette
and eats biscuits with a fork.

He lives in volcanic tempers,
sniffing the wind for armed insurgency
in all locked places.

The king,
he wears necklaces of bullets
his lips stiff with pronouncements.

Tomorrow’s funeral
is banned,
the corpse
detained
for further
questioning.

Copyright 2008 by Chenjerai Hove. By arrangement with the author. All rights reserved.

English

Why cry
for the wingless spirit bird?
Why cry
for the honeybird?

The king attends a funeral
and dances with his eyebrows,
his naked words smelling of sand
and gunpowder.

The polluted wind
only smells of lost dreams,
some kinds of amorphous declarations
about blood mixed with dance songs.

Our royal king
smokes a tired cigarette
and eats biscuits with a fork.

He lives in volcanic tempers,
sniffing the wind for armed insurgency
in all locked places.

The king,
he wears necklaces of bullets
his lips stiff with pronouncements.

Tomorrow’s funeral
is banned,
the corpse
detained
for further
questioning.

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