Millar's Booths

AFRICA IS A CHEST OF DRAWERS Africa is indeed a highboy: a big chest of drawers of varying size, each Drawer so big and indeed provoking, treacherous size and ‘dark’ Thoughts, Provokingly insane is every drawer, so tough in Thoughts ‘dark’ you would gun the insane handle Of each drawer. But you are a mere constitute of one drawer, You are not the handle, what best can you do than Whisper in tears of blood, tears that dry the instance they exit The eye, whispers so mere That they are almost nonexistent. Now this Is the biggest problem: all the drawers are open, ready to receive blessings From above. A problem indeed. Drawers so open that only the spreading receive blessings, open that the Bottom drawers rot in need, no blessing they grasp. I know. I know what we need, a powerful weapon, so Big we need. To perforate every insane drawer, puncture every drawer, Bring down every handle, gun every Greedy handle so that even if the top ones are to close...

A survivor By Rodger Munthali & Kingsley Kapito I smelt the violence The stinking loneliness The Dark hours Of ordered hypocrisy Chopping our souls Am lost in thoughts as you see Why loneliness does smell stinky Why hours so dark Does it seem an ordered hypocrisy? Why do I feel our souls are chopped thus? We were called then To witness betrayal In my attempt To mitigate The possible catastrophe Had not to be an Authentic friend to anyone 't was an awful site if am to remember Memories betray much as that betrayal was But see, I refused to go To witness It And am here, confused. If I only went Something, somehow, somewhat… At last we exhaled The Dark hours shearing With the white ones Though I know Its deception Good a few knows Then that’s how it all came pure The confusion is Darkness The color of my skin If my thoughts are Dark Then why do others see me As I walk to church Ain’...

THE BICYCLE CHAIN Rodger Millar Munthali It goes round and round Knocking against sand particles With a little corrosion Necessitating erosion The same applies to life A cycle of life and death With a little famines and diseases Requiring food aids and medicines Leaves of a tree Fall one by one Till a time it becomes leafless Leaves fall to fertilize the soil And new shoots thrive But why do we not Like the leaves of the trees Offer the best to our fellows For even the parts of a bicycle chain Help each other up the cycle

WHISPERING WIND By Rodger Millar Munthali The chasm associated with language Blurs the indignation Incorporated within Stony hearts Awaiting sentencing Though far the cyclone May appear Its destructive whispers Haunts the victims ‘The Plague of the White Cyclone’ A rope running round The neck of the so-called sinner The other end to a car Cruising on the black rocky road ‘Yes, another Golgotha!’ But still the sinners fly To the place To face the tragedy of a lifetime Death lying In the hands of the White cyclone Ravaging the black child ‘And so goes the whispers’