13. Messed Up Broken Home
This kingdom is a messed up broken home
Where indigenous people travel and live
As foreign slaves in their own native land,
And my people's dreams are like castles built on sand
To be eroded and washed by rains of corporate greed
People of this place struggle to meet their basic needs.
Four decades of independence are meaningless
To people who can't have their views openly expressed.
This kingdom is a place where my people are sold to Asian states
Lesotho is a rut that releases stenches of putrid democracy
Progenies of this home flinch from the truth because
They are scared of being whipped with iron “kopere”.
Lesotho is a messed up broken home
Where dictatorship and aristocracy are synonyms for democracy,
And this place is a global joke and a comic relief
As it fails to feed only 1.8 million people!
You can’t comprehend this poem if you are not
Compelled by major forces of life like HIV
To be a head of a family at the age of twelve
You can't relate to this unless you’re a child who lost one parent
During the 2005 textile industry workers massacre,
Or a parent who went through a loss of child
In the 2009 brutal shooting of NUL students,
Or breadwinners that sell sweets alongside
Maseru streets and get chased by MCC guards.
This kingdom in the sky is a loose broken home
Where freedom of speech is locked up in slavery archives
Freedom fighters are frightened with fire and brimstone,
So don't tell me to vote, if I do, what will it be for?
To vote for people who will only masticate the cake’s cream
Right before my eyes while I’m licking my desiccated lips,
With my stomach humming a sorrow-filled chorus of hunger
I can't vote for an indirect concealed colonialism!
© Knowledge Mpoba Monyeke
