Pariah in Paradise

By Blue Diamond Publishers

Pariah in Paradise is an anthology of pooled efforts by a new generation of poets coming to the fore with a host of contemporary issues emanating from their resonating voices. This anthology is a gorgeous thematic embroidery by twenty first century Zimbabwean poets who are so much poised to depict the Orb the way it is without even the slightest of reservations. This anthology has new voices whose echoes twitch one to descern life differently. Themes behind the poems relate intimately to everyday life experiences. The robust artistic zest and ambitious objective of the poets in this anthology is substantial. Poetry as a distinctive form of art is a candid mirror of life if it is not life itself. In this collection, the leverage of written word is apparent.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Blue Diamond Publishers
• Release date: Aug 1, 2021
• ISBN: 9798201814120

Book preview

Acknowledgements

We are indebted to the coordinators, editors, proofreaders, sponsors and publisher of this project, for their diligent guidance, tolerance, backing and encouragement throughout this project. We are also beholden to all the contributors for making this project a success. Without writers, this project would have been a failure. Aluta continua; Game on!

-Kudakwashe Simbi

Preface

This anthology is a collective effort of upcoming and seasoned poets coming to the fore with a host of contemporary issues spewing from their resonating voices.  Pariah in paradise is a beautiful thematic embroidery by twenty first century Zimbabwean poets who are so much poised to portray the world the way it is without even the slightest of reservations. This anthology has new voices whose echoes twitch one to see life as it were rather than otherwise.  Overtones behind the poems relate intimately to everyday life experiences. The robust artistic touch and ambitious intent of the poets in this anthology is considerable. Poetry as a unique form of art is a direct mirror of life if not life itself. In this collection from determined poets the power of the written word is resoundingly evident. Pariah in Paradise predominantly spews the political and economic injustice of an unequivocally rich African society on its citizenry. More than many poems in this collection hammer on the theme of wretched citizens in a massively endowed paradise.

-Blessing M Dube

Blessing Dube

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Blessing Dube was born on June 20 1983. By profession, he is a secondary school teacher & by birth is a writer who is so anxious to change the world through the power of words. He so much believes that all the ills of modern day society can be dealt away with through literature, the most beautiful artistic science. He is literary explorer and Communication scientist who profoundly values creative writing.

Incarnation of the soulful

Who smacks off your cogitation

Battering your valiant soul

To mend the broken ceramic pot,

The essence of African existence?

Who makes your tomorrow?

Never come when you declare:

Freedom will come tomorrow?

Who keeps shifting your tomorrow

Into the deep guts of an unyielding posterity?

When you tell your inner self:

I shall not remain the same;

Who keeps you far,

From your marriage with sandwiched realities?

Where is that valiant propensity?

And inherent instinct

To declare:

Enough is enough

Who really fools you

To vent out your anger?

Into your innocent armpit

And shy away

From directing it.

To the impious recipients;

The unsanctified deities!

Who can only be deposed

By a damn holy putsch?

Hard Times

I am in Nervous Conditions,

Without even A Grain of Wheat,

As the Black Sunlight maintains its tight grip

Exposing me to a lethal Mind Blast.

Thus the Devil should be put on the Cross,

With his Ancestors making Things Fall Apart

Barring The Grass from Singing,

Yet l have so long been Waiting for the Rain

Desiring to build a Castle in my Skin;

To paint my destiny Color Purple,

To beat Hard Times before the Twelfth Night.

Unlike the Mayor of Casterbridge,

I will write So Long a Letter

To avoid Anthills of the Savanna

In this House of Hunger.

l am No Longer at Ease

Having a Harvest of Thorns

Like Oliver Twist.

Melancholy truth

Every day, all day long, burrowing into unrelenting soils

With a cursed womb, mocked by an indignant sky,

We plod home with empty scathed hands,

Always vainly vacillating between here and there like gallivanting safari foxes.

The meadows have turned lifelessly brown

And no slight semblance of a grasshopper in sight to hunt down

For all and sundry to satiate bereaved bellies

Stunting our country into ‘kwashiokored’ debris and a generous graveyard.

This hypnosis

No one has the guts!

To boo and heckle

The protagonists in this bizarre wagon.

Albeit we traverse thorny territories

With our silk naked feet.

The seed we are planting in this garden

Will keep the flute and xylophone beyond proximity,

Continue sending hearts stone cold,

Rendering clocks, stopping dead

Churning out mazes of cobwebs into our chimneyless huts

Plundering all the sunshine,

Painting everything ebony black

Sustaining our perpetual infancy.

The tempest

Instagram avenues

WhatsApp roads

Facebook highways

And Twitter streets

Are 9 months pregnant

With a simmering

Tempest, a