ANTHILL WORKMEN

Collaborative Poem by:

Stephen Mupoto [Ngugi Wamkiri]

Norman Mwale [The PenPusher]

Clad in these fatigues,

That are a memory of our

Remonstrations,

We labour in vain,

For a miserly pittence,

That sustains not our progeny.

We are chattel to a rogue system,

That applauds us with a barrage

Of insults,

And still render us im-potent,

Like an infame,

Bound on a social wheel chair

Where the only benefactor,

Is a knacker,

Who takes a pound of flesh,

From the very troughs of our

Suffering.

Padded in the most bottom;

Absorbing the sweet sweat

Of the precipitous wartorn soldier

Whose freedom not allowed

In the cushion

Whose dream confided on the

Queen’s welfare

And surrender the looty to ward

The Queen from impact,

With little remuneration twinged

On their pale cutis

In this quag of turmoil and crisis

Where she surfaces once

In the long moon

But hidding herself from the direct

Sun

Shying away from conflict crisis!