Poem by Martin Chivaku

Seven Years of Famine

Year one
 
Seven means perfection!
But is there perfection in trouble?
Like... Seven years of famine
Are equal to perfect years?
 
The sky is becoming more blue than ever
With excruciating pain like blue balls
Bouncing in the sack for a slam dunk...
 
The cloud has become so dry
And thirsty! coughing dust,
Like kids playing soccer in a dusty ground
Leaving dead birds, that became
Victims of the atrocities of asthma...
 
The snakes became as vicious as ever,
As they seek in vanity
The Adams and Eves to take
Them back to the garden of Eden
With greener pastures.
 
The lions confused themselves to
The lion of Judah and fasted...
Forty days, forty nights and died of hunger
In the seven years of famine.
 
This is the first year and hunger became
A hazard to the human life more than AIDS.
Like... If it was a disease, we would find a cure
In the form of pills, but hunger just needs a plate.
 
The orphans and the widows struggle,
Their bellies rumble, while the lips mumble,
The silent conversations of stigmatizing hunger
But only Joseph has a fat belly because he,
Managed to fill his silos in the years of abundance.
 
“Mama, I’m hungry, I need something to eat!”
The babies moan in the morning,
The babies moan in the afternoon,
They do the same in the evening, but in vain
Because mama got nothing but tears...
Tears to show sympathy to the baby _
But tears don’t fill the babies’ empty bellies.
 
“We’ve come up with a program, to feed
Every hungry kid and parent!”
And the people applaud the words of vanity
Coming from the hypocritical lip of politics,
But still the kids look like they are carrying
Guitars, with ribs showing off their frames.
 
“More than 20000 people die daily because
Of hunger!”
That’s the words from the stereo but...
What needs to be done?
 
 
Year 2
 
The fathers began feeding on their seed
And still found no fault in it
Because the land is overpopulated.
And they believe their faith
Can attract the Lord and
Raise the dead seed...
 
The land feeds on our plants like vampires
Everyday they're wilting like the twilight’s prey,
And we're harvesting feed,
For donkeys... But the donkeys
Were digested last night.
 
The male kids are working hard
And receive ugly rewards like Leah
Instead of their Rachel
And have to work seven more years.
 
The sun blazes like the hell fire
And the daughters now believe
Nakedness is the only way to survive
In the seven years of famine...
 
“We’re fighting diseases, war, crime, racism,
Gender imbalance...”, the president says.
“Sorry Mr. president, you forgot to mention
The battle we’re fighting with poverty and hunger”
A million dollar contribution from a hungry lip...
“Hunger is a result of all those enemies, and
If we fight them, the world would be less hungry”
The president says on the pulpit...
And you’ll begin to wonder whether we heard
The speech with stuffed ears or the president
Has no heart for the hungry?
 
How many people love fasting? Only Christians
But they love fasting when it is of their own will
Not fasting when it is mandatory_
When it is forced on human beings
Like some kind of appetite abuse.
 
I saw a moving hearse yesterday
I heard a touching verse yesterday
I heard a crying family yesterday
I read a hunger eulogy yesterday,
Of a boy who died hungry... And
The eulogy read, “rest in hunger”
 
We don’t understand anything anymore
Because in January it was a January disease
But now it’s December and instead of
Making merry as we say merry Christmas
We’re dancing to the sound of throbbing bellies
As we hope for a kid to cry in a manger
And turn a grain of maize into a ton.
 
Year 3
 
A hungry man, is an angry man
The world’s in trouble because of anger.
Hate has increased and love is getting extinct
All because somebody preached a powerful sermon,
“It’s the survival of the fittest!”
The less formidable became nobodys and...
Were kicked off from the domino table
To the ground to feed on crumbs like a dog or...
Like the Lazarus guy...
 
Sometimes they feed on crumbs,
Sometimes they feed on hunger
And the intestinal organs have become so twisted
Trying to improvise on the food situation.
The grinding mills in the belly have stopped working
As they isn’t anything to digest because the crumbs
Are being digested by the teeth,
Passing through the esophagus as liquid.
 
Initial abrasion causing sores inside like ulcers
Because the friction has to take place...
Leaving a situation of hunger and sickness
In the land and... People die regularly
And... The living ran out of fat and...
The way they walk you’d believe they...
Are, “the walking dead” cast and...
The young girls' and boys' desperation
Has brought about, “humanitarian AIDS”.
 
“We’re predicting torrential rains in this season,
And we believe the upcoming year is going to
Be a year of abundance”
The met department feeding the public with fables
But it’s like telling atheists to have faith in a god
Because the rain alone can’t yield harvests
When there aren’t seeds and farming equipment.
 
“Mr. President Sir, what is the way forward...
We need to know if hunger is our friend?”
The public needs answers... Who has the answers?
“The issue is we’re not having any humanitarian aid
From united Nations and all the organizations”
The president of the people, or of the office?
No “humanitarian aid”, he insists but...
Boxes printed USAID fly into the country daily
But... They aren’t evenly distributed
Because of the sermon that got preached,
“It’s the survival of the fittest!”
 
The world begins to wonder,
What the causes of hunger are:

1. Acts of God
2. Acts of Satan or
3. Acts of man?

 
 
 
 
 
Year 4
 
Principles became nonsense
Rules became violations
Fate was twisted in the,
Land by the empty bellies.
 
The public became followers
Of Michael Jackson's captivating songs
“Heal the world”, “Will you be there”, “The earth song”,
And became world anthems but...
The questions on the tracks aren’t answerable.
 
Everybody wants to gather at his grave
Maybe he has the answers... Or not
And music is the food everybody can afford
The food to the ears, there isn’t any food
To the stomach. Only if...
We had cow stomachs, we would store
Some food in them and chew again
In times like these of famine.
 
Infant mortality rates are at their peak
Can a hungry mother feed its baby?
Only two options we’re facing at times,
A dead infant or a dead infant and its mother
If I’ve to choose between the two options,
I would choose option three with...
A breathing infant and its mother.
 
Hunger has left people with a few choices
Nobody chose responsibility and...
We’re living in a land with fatherless kids
Because the father thought they were
The fittest enough to survive and left
But hunger made them a coward.
 
“Mom, my stomach is rumbling”
With tears streaming down the cheeks,
A baby who’s being deprived of her right
To eat... A baby being enslaved by pain,
A baby being tormented by starvation,
A baby who knows how to adapt
To harsh conditions like they are cactus kids
Surviving on the sun and a few grains of food.
 
The mother is also a victim of hunger
Like... The law may not even legalize cannibalism
Before the mothers begin feeding on them
Like... Hannibal is now getting more fans by the day
Like... The world took a wrong turn and got fed
Like... Mother nature is becoming less friendly.
 
We were hungry from year 1 till now
And we’ve tried being the fittest
But rebelling on the state is like a solution
And let them deal with purge anarchy
As we’ve always dealt with hunger anarchy.
 
 
Year 5
 
The love of food became the root of all evil
To put food in your mouth, just be cynical
The humanity in us just left in a radical
Manner because we are hungry and wrathful.
Only if our stomachs could be full
We would’ve been less fools
Selling our pride just to grind on grains
And hunger managed to manipulate our brains.
 
Marked territories in different regions
People act possessed... It’s a land of legions
Satisfying ourselves with food thrown to the ground,
Nature must have confused us to pigeons.
And that’s how the civil strife is funded
Hunger in the midst of it all like it’s the blindfold
That left us all blinded.
 
CNN, BBC, Aljazeera, Sky news and all TV stations
Are all eyes of the world witnessing the tragedies
Waiting for action to be the loudest voice
In the zero hunger world movement.
 
It’s the fifth year and statistics show that
More than 20000 people die daily from hunger
And the mathematical calculations show
Figures which can give us a heart attack.
 
The difference between street beggars
And those who don’t live in the streets,
Is the term street... Because... We’re all
Beggars who are hungry like hunger
Is a curse... Like... We’re all almond
Trees that were cursed by Jesus
And our land can’t produce anything.
 
This hunger made us feel like dead sea
Residents or... The land was hit by a plague
Like Egypt when Moses was...
Trying to free the Israelites from Pharaoh
To Canaan, purported as the land...
The land of milk and honey and...
Our land doesn’t have cows and bees
To produce the milk and the honey.
 
The cows died of hunger
The bees are becoming fewer by the day,
Because of deforestation as people seek
Firewood to sell and get some cents
To buy mealie meal and feed their
Families in the uncomfortable years.
 
The uprisings are inevitable
And nations have been divided
Requiring United Nations to work more
And unite the nations that are being
Pushed to the edge by hunger.
 
 
 
Year 6
 
Hunger is a virus!
A virus that spread to everyone
A virus that has destroyed innocent consciences
Leaving us in a state of desperation
And that bred hatred in us
And wars for food.
 
Thieves came more alive
And they not only visit in the night
But whenever there is an opportunity
To silence their grumbling bellies.
 
The voice of hunger became
More loud than even the voice of love...
Love thy neighbor, as you love yourself...
“Aah... I’m sorry Mr. Preacher!
I can’t love him when I’m hungry
It’s like the plate is our trophy,
And my neighbor is competition
And the best way to win the trophy...
Is by eliminating competition!”
 
Those are the atrocities of a hungry man
Or of hunger... Or of hunger games and...
We don’t have the keys to unlock the
Previous level of hunger or maybe...
We can try using the cheat codes...
And... If it continues like this...
We’re doomed!
 
Six years of hunger
And it’s no longer hunger for the belly
But hunger for the body and mind
To satisfy our own personal desires.
Because we’ve been crippled internally
By something which came to us
Through ignorance or being slothful
Or through issues of climate change.
 
Hunger is a bad thing to our lives
But it’s the worst thing when
It is no longer about empty bellies
But becomes about empty hearts.
 
Killing each other everyday like wild animals
But killing each other won’t get rid of it
But it’ll definitely get rid of our existence
In a quest to satisfy our satiation.
 
Mothers now no longer have the resources
To feed their babies because they’re...
They’ve nothing... Even their breasts don’t
Obey the child’s lips when it begins sucking
And the songs of pain are put on repeat
By the children, but mothers can’t
Reduce the volume of the stereos.
 
 
Year 7
 
“No pain, no gain”
Does that mean “more pain, more gain?”
Or pain is subjective... Or
Maybe the hunger feeling is just a tickle
And pain is just being underrated by
Being associated with hunger?
 
“My people perish because they lack knowledge”
People need to be taught how to deal with hunger
And in the seventh year, we begin witnessing
Different platforms, different programs
Dealing with issues of hunger.
 
Different organizations joined hands
To tackle with their mutual enemy
And the future carries a torch
Which shines for all to see
The defeat of hunger
Once and for all.
 
We’re all waiting for the Armageddon...
The Armageddon of hunger!
The day abundance will dwell
In our midst and manifest inside
Us through fully stuffed stomachs.
 
They spoke of fighting the good fight of faith
We preach the good fight of abolishing hunger
A zero tolerant world against hunger
Means everyone gets a food on their table.
 
The seventh year can change everything
Hunger need to be fought head on
Like we don’t need to be afraid of hunger
The fear of hunger is the beginning of starvation.
The Genesis of death like the revelation
And a step in the abundance direction
Can wipe away hunger!
 
The motto is zero tolerance to hunger...
We aiming for a zero hunger world.