Tanzia za Afrika..

Chants and rants I hear,
That ruin, herein, tranquility.
Teachers, medics, whores and cane-cutters...
Afar, frail and hungry,
Carry forests and placards--
Ravenously chorusing,
Anthem of the oppressed:

... solidarity forever,
Solidarity forever,
Solidarity forever!

So our state they irritate,
As its balls they tickle...
From sweet slumber, owners awake--
After decades of loud silence:
Our wine gulping; venom spitting,
Thus loosen grip on heavenly dreams,
As voices grow hoarse, and sonorant:

... Haki yetu, tunataka!
Haki yetu, tunataka!
Tunajenga, kwa gharama,
Na kihali tumeinama...

Itakuwaje tumesoma, na tumesota!
Mapato duni, maisha noma,
Twataka usawa, tuache kulalama...
Haki yetu, tunataka!

Tu! tu! tu!
Rusty riffles sing;
Butts spit bullets,
Arousing tension thus:
Feet shuffle, a stampede!
Some bodies fall,
Groan, thence into silence veer--
Eternal silence.

Ah, here comes boys from Kiganjo!
Engorged with fury and distaste...
They are here to riot;
They are here to provoke violence,
To outlaw lawful demos!

Oh, run brother, run!
They are here to issue death:
To whoever is bored with life--
Thus dare toy with their father's testicles;
Thus dare hit their hand against the wall!

Whoever is bored with life,
With noise, degrades the environ...
Town criers, fish mongers, petty rebels...
Incite partriots to distabilise,
Our otherwise stable state,
Now are hunted like antelopes,
To feed angry and hungry prisons all over!

Come brother, let's run!
Vacate these filthy, and rowdy streets.
For pigs and vultures leave them,
Tired we are, sniffing glue,
Courting disaster,
And serving the devil.

Come brother, let's run!
Lest drugs abuse us to death.
Let us gather the only pieces remaining,
Of our lives wretched,
And flee, thus colonise the cool countryside,
There we could get pastures greener,
There we could get many Irokos, thus perch on,
To ourselves sustain...

Angels of death,
Have our abode invaded.
The city is under siege,
Moans and groans anywhere,
Are anthems of the departing everywhere!

So medics are adamant,
To at bay keep death.
In streets they're scattered, like locusts on poor crops,
Basking,
And with police, playing hide and seek--
Amidst blasts of tear gas,
And raining stones, abuses and rungus...

We've no lambs,
We could our doorposts paint with their blood,
At bay keep them thus...
So poverty and diseases,
War and crime,
Fear and illiteracy:
Are busy killing us,
On the morning of our death...
(c) Wafula p'Khisa.