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Dream by Chief K.Masimba Biriwasha

Dreaming a different dream is hard,
A dream with eyes wide open, a dream
That makes blood within to boil with renewed passion,
A dream that weaves music like a butterfly's wings,
Fluttering and swinging against the sun
Filled with a hope of an unfolded morrow, a dream
That fills the Soul

It hurts to dream a different dream again,
To not expand the desire to become what they say you cannot become
Because of history and geography, as if dreams
Are only made in one corner of the Earth.

It hurts to discover a new dream, to clutch
To feel it, to dance with it, to ponder upon it
Like a lover's letter;
to dream and let go again and again.
It pains to forget the dream that filled your Soul with much vigour,
to squash it in your mind's eye,
to starve it of faith and hope of things unseen,
to ignore it, to dump it, to kill it.

I say, I can't do it.
This dream, born within my loins. This dream that I fed everyday, I can't do it.
I will fight until it glows like a flame-lily in the dark.
I will make it float - truly and conscientiously - like the Sun.
I will make it survive the hot and dark nights of passion

Until the rhythm of our bonding is heard across the seas.
I will hold onto the dream, because the ancestors bore it within me for a reason
That I shall find only if I hold on to the dream.

My Heart by Chief K.Masimba Biriwasha

Alone.
My heart grabs me in the darkness - and leads me on
Towards a narrowed doorway
Look. It says.
Look at the scorpions you've kept for so long.
Look at the light you've shunned for so long.

Convinced.
I take steps out of the shadows.
Then hide my face again
Relishing in the worms and vomit of past nightmares
Afraid to catch onto the flame of my glory

Silently.
My heart urges me in whispers -
It tells me to swing and dance in the wind of a rediscovered self
Like a morning butterfly - so sweet, so free, so there.

I try.
But the old cobwebs surround me
Darkening my sky of possibilities with the swiftness of
hungry skunks.
Drowning me in their murky and muddy stink

I weep.
I want to be free - I say to my heart
I want to be free - free from all the ghosts in my cupboard.