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Some things are best left unsaid, but allow me to have my say!

Wednesday October 11 2017
mugabe

Zimbabwe's President Robert Mugabe delivers a speech during a meeting of his party's youth league on October 7, 2017, in Harare. AFP PHOTO

By ELSIE EYAKUZE

Hey reader, I’m experimenting with a little venting Hamilton style. It might be delicious or you might find it vicious but either way thanks for taking the time.

See: He made his way down a stairwell, clutching at dreams all the way.

They done woke him up again, too early, to finish... finish or begin.

This is a poem for Robert Mugabe, try to read it in rhyme.

The timing, the timing is as bad as he was, but the timing this time is mine.

He walked to the podium to orate, and Grace was nowhere in sight.

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She might have held held her man closer, she might have held him upright. We witnessed the lion in winter, a shell of his former himself.

I felt a little bit bitter: to be represented by this old crooked elf?

His every step hurt my little Africanist heart.

He toddled, and not very well at that. He shook and he grasped like a dead-drunk.

Man back in his day he was a right hunk.

We might never have agreed but he did earn his first degrees
And at least he was a straight edge respectable punk.

He had been shocked out of his nap and all of his might.

His withered face and disappeared Grace
Indicted us all on that stage.

I’m tired of Africa being judged
On the basis of men of his age.

I’m tired of Africa being judged
By the failures of men of your age.

I’m vigorous, young and impulsive. The leaders I like are that too.

They fetch their dreams and bring us their force
They ride this whole world like an unbroken horse
They giggle and gaggle and bite. They challenge the thinking that might is always right.

They are silly and sad and sometimes quite mad but you know what? That’s fine by me.

Because how else do we get to be contemporary? The men and the women I know, with ambitions that add to their natural glow?

They are young and and impulsive and smart. And at least, to me, that’s a start.

I was minding my own business the other day, affirming some life-giving things.

Trying not to panic about the fact
That climate change is a science that nobody brings... to the table right here, where we live and we fear that we may not make it to be a factor in the next global chapter

No matter how loud we might sing.

Sing you say? What’s that got to do, with the holler and troubles and hullabaloo?

Not much.

Except for the part where Africans invented art
To speak truth to the king
And so in rhyme and hopefully in time
Let’s try to do something about it let’s spell it out loud.

It’s time for my generation to do something.

Old men in power, start quitting your jobs.

There’s a future out there to be part of, and we’ll bury you like the kings you were once.

Don’t make us all wait until you’re a dunce, a dotard, a shame, all the blame for why your grandchildren - hell, can you even remember their names - have to cower in fear instead of holding their country, their identity, their people near.

As for sons and inheritors: get with the mob. Go on out there and do your job. What’s your job? Not to be a word that rhymes with sick, bunt or lurk if you know what I mean.

Don’t be so neurotic, figure the robotics
East Africa’s going to need some real autonomy if we’re going to make it to any degree of economic Independence, so we can keep being residents of the best place on earth.

As for Robert Mugabe: to bring it back tight, this is not right.

Hate him or love him, there is basic dignity, parading him in this light does nothing for me.

But maybe that’s the point: we should really take ourselves more seriously. And make sure to politick much more righteously.

At ease. We can figure this tomorrow, even if tomorrow is a time we have to borrow.

In the meantime, take care something good, roam around your ‘hood
Give a kid a chance, experiment with romance. And most of all — remember to dance/chance/glance/advance.

#dropmike

Elsie Eyakuze is an independent consultant and blogger for The Mikocheni Report. E-mail: [email protected]

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