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STORM OUTSIDE – A Poem

June 6, 2020 7:13 am / 1 Comment on STORM OUTSIDE – A Poem

STORM OUTSIDE

Storm outside
Not of atmospheric pressure variations
Rage of the people
Rumbles through
Earth’s atmosphere
Turbulences the world
From pole to pole

If you circumnavigate
The globe
Precise as a
Substandard complication clock
Marching against time
The people’s rage
Will entangle you
Every minute of the way
In the 21^st Century

It is a ferocious storm
It’ll embroil your insides
In degrees
Immeasurable
Unpredictable

It’ll obliterate
Your comfort zones
You’ll run into your bunker
You’ll find it full of your shit

You puke
See
If you can breathe now

Were you ever to
Come out of your delirium
You’d find that
There is order
In the heart of
The storm outside

Rage of the people
Has a cause:

Bullets
Knees
Nooses
Strangleholds
Denying oneness
With the atmosphere
Must cease

I can’t breathe

You kill me
I glide into
The valley of death
My body joins
My ancestral spirits
In the soil

In an instant
My soul trajects
Into outer space

There is no peace here
There is no rest here
All souls I find here
Are floating non-stop
Bouncing on to
Bouncing off
One another
All crying

Where is the love

They say that
We were coerced here
Far too early
When we arrive
Prematurely
Into
The kingdom of God
We land into hell
This is zombie land

This place here
Has no room
For our pains
For our tears
We are far too many
Arriving one after the other
Some souls arrived
Multitudes upon
Multitudes-in-one-at-a-time
Over time
Spanning six hundred years

God cried
Storms rumbled
Across the universe
Ancestral spirits
Hold center of
The earth together

Rage outside is
The people
In the eye of the storm
This is
The mother of all storms

If you thought
Hurricane Florence
Was a tough one
Wettest ever seen
Yes, in your words
From the standpoint of water
If hurricane Dorian scared
The wits out of you
In yet another bizarre display
Of your delusional
State of being
You ain’t seen nothing yet

This time around
The storm is called
George
In this name
Pulsates heartbeats
Of slain Black lives
In your vain pursuit
Of
White supremacy
Dances with the devil
Over six centuries

In
George Floyd’s name
The people say
Time has arrived
To say
Enough is enough
Gianna’s words
Aren’t empty words
When she sang
Daddy changed the world
Either you are with us
Or you perish

Look into
The eye of the storm
The order
In there is simple
Valid for all times
We want equality
We want freedom
We want justice
We want peace
We want solidarity

Let’s breathe!

Do you wan’ to pray

Go down
On our knees
On the ground

Ever danced in a storm
Play
In the name of love

Hate is subdued
For life

Breathe
Man
Breathe

END
©Simon Chilembo, 05/ 06-2020
In memory of George Floyd, MHSRIP

Simon Chilembo
Oslo
Norway
Tel.: +4792525032
June 05, 2020

38 YEARS AN EXILE: XVIII

April 8, 2015 10:50 pm / 2 Comments on 38 YEARS AN EXILE: XVIII

HOME AT LAST! Part 18
DEPRESSION IN THE DIASPORA – It’s Over Now

SPECIAL NOTES:

This article must be understood in the context of the entire ‘38 YEARS AN EXILE’ series thus far. Dedicated with unreserved love to my Dearest Uncle, Family Patriarch, Legend-In-His-Own-Time, Mr OB Chilembo, in Lusaka, Zambia.
It is with never so small humility that I emphatically declare that my African culture in the 21^st Century is one of the most prolific breeding grounds for Depression in the world. This, for purposes of only this writing, from the point of view of family and social relations dynamics that are outdated, and have remained static since the onset of European domination and subsequent colonialism from towards the close of the Middle Ages in the 14-15^th Centuries. Who, for example, is more prone to Depression than an African family patriarch, or matriarch? … (Continued in the book: “MACHONA AWAKENING – home in grey matter”. Order book on Amazon).

Simon Chilembo
Riebeeckstad
Welkom
South Africa
Telephone: +4792525032
April 05-08, 2015

eKASSIE THABONG

February 13, 2014 9:21 pm / 2 Comments on eKASSIE THABONG

THABONG, KASSIE YA KA KA 2014

On Monday morning, walking the breadth of my old Kassie, Thabong, Welkom, for the first time in 40 years, by way of pungency in the air, nothing has changed. After 2-3 weeks of torrential rains, there is stagnant water in many places.

The superlatively built storm canals are clogged; green sediment/ moss and wild vegetation growth all the way. Burst sewerage pipes here and there; long, open canals of slow-moving, if at all, shit created as a result of slow and/ or erratic maintenance.

As if ordered, there’s a carcass of a cat on the edge of a busy taxi street. Indications are at the cat hasn’t long been run over by a vehicle. No doubt, there is also a dead dog nearby, perhaps somewhere in the messy storm canals. No need to confirm. Dead dog eKassie? I know it when I smell it. Just keep on moving straight ahead. Nose getting blocked. Getting a headache. Feeling queasy.

How did I grow up in these conditions? How do people, how can people still be living in these conditions in Mzansi, the golden land of milk and honey for sho? No wonder old people seem ever so tired, and “ugly” here. Been away too long … (Continued in the book: “MACHONA BLOGS – As I See It”. Order Simon Chilembo books on Amazon)

Simon Chilembo
Welkom
South Africa
February 13, 2014