Dividing Calabash (Poem)

The calabash unites

It never ever disunites

That’s why it is round

Like the football that unites

Players and fans and nations

But in my village

But in Mbesa

A calabash divides

Like an unbridged river

And mercilessly kills

Like a provoked python

It must have been misused

The calabash unites

It never ever disunites

That’s why it is round

Like the egg that harbours

Yoke and albumen and chicks

But in my village

But in Mbesa

A calabash divides

Like an unbridged river

And mercilessly kills

Like a provoked python

It must have been misused

The calabash unites

It never ever disunites

That’s why it is round

Like the world that hosts

Blacks and whites and reds

But in my village

But in Mbesa

A calabash divides

Like an unbridged river

And mercilessly kills

Like a provoked python

It must have been misused

The calabash unites

It never ever disunites

That’s why it is smooth

Like the cemented floor that accepts

Parents and children and visitors

But in my village

But in Mbesa

A calabash divides

Like an unbridged river

And mercilessly kills

Like a provoked python

It must have been misused

(Mbankolo, 29 March 2013)

After the Coup (Poem--Following Francois Bozize’s Overthrow in March 2013)

Before the coup

He was always right

In his gun-point might.

When he shouted like thunder,

We, in slum-huts, had to chunder

In fear of venomous grenades and bullets.

But today he is without amullets,

After the bloody coup.

Before the coup

Bozize was the hard rock

And could carelessly mock

Us behind dark-glassed limousines

When escorted to cut-throat French cuisines.

Limousines in long, long queues

No longer parade him in this curfew

After the bloody coup.

Before the coup

He made countless flights

Leaving us without lights.

He owned and ruled the state,

And we were the state.

An earlier coup gave him this mission,

But now he cannot even rule a subdivision

After the bloody coup.

Before the coup

Bozize was king of elephants

Trampling us like road-ants

While impregnating his wallets.

He pitilessly used us like mallets,

But today he has lost the game

And has crumbled till we‘re all the same

After the bloody coup.

(Mbankolo, 27 March 2013)