Rice and Mirrors
 
If you substitute rice for potatoes
you would have my version of
growing up in America. When I
was thirteen and had high blood
pressure the doctor said “no gravy
on your potatoes,” but we didn’t eat
potatoes that often and to make
a difference in my diet it would
have had to be less adobo juice
on my rice or less salty soy sauce.
How, exactly, do you tell a doctor
when you’re thirteen that the example
he gave is a bad one, that it may apply
to him but not to me? Then there were
the things we used to do like cover
all the mirrors in the house with blankets
when there was a thunderstorm, practices
that carried over from the old world
that took decades to fade from our lives.
I don’t remember the first time we left
the mirrors uncovered during a storm
but I imagine my mother and father
felt tense, wondering if our house
in America would get struck by lightning,
that maybe the old superstitions
were still right after all these years,
and after all the things they left behind.
I wonder about the first time
my mother and father had a dinner
here without rice.
Did they still feel hungry afterwards,
did they feel slightly lost, standing
as tall as they could on uncertain feet,
in this strange, exotic land?

The unwelcome addressee - A case against hunger
An Epidemic gone rogue, to enormous proportions
A scourge unfolding without therapy
Unattended for several years, to our future medics
The cure is a must find now than late
Or our funeral of endless burials grows stubbornly
Like episodes of a horrendous movie series
Watched by elders yesterday, youths today, albeit…
None posing it. Twice, fingers jittery at pressing the stop button.
 
Cdes, hands on decks. Set sail to hunger`s confrontation
Head on! A combatant Africa, mood is to rise
And cease to be attacked offensively like an unarmed battalion
Unable to repeal a death penalty leading us to slaughter,
Yet gazetted by a mass murderer
We did not deserve to die in mass graves
Or our skeletons won`t heal.
 
Placement of us;
The prosecuting populace, in docks – IN ITS STEAD.
This is.
Like an underdog outsmarting an overrated opponent
In a swift reversal of roles, but cheated.
 
The address:
Ladies; eh gentlemen too. Needed – `s food on the table!
Basic.
Our draught power is well alive, but
Reckon if you may, our cart is before the horses.
Imports galore of Cere vita, from coffers of cereals` underproduction
Indeed yes, our spendthrift is swallowing necessities gentlemen;
Esteemed ladies.
 
Primaries second ranked,
Scoreboards read of record buys of mealie meal from mealie-cob less, a farmer
Then a throat clearing reminder
Of jet legged begging visits.
Ours are manymore! Armed with shiny` colourful` collecting bowels for luggage
 
Leaves wondrous givers in awe
…..did we not say “famished” at the door`s knock?
A hand extended anyway, in expression of neighbouliness
Pitifully knowing we shall be back
Out of the terminator`s sake, not as terminators of a fate
A cause unresolved that being hunger, not famine`s
 
Any greedy mother feeds self-first
What follows – ‘s elaborate displays of her malnourished child
For a few more drops of well-wishers` bags food full
Not a tag for Mother Africa
She is too beautiful
Hunger cannot rob her irresistible stature
She`s self-provision able-bodied
A moment`s chew is worth the juncture.
 
Natively ‘that which gets into the ear;
Sits in, attentively for re-addressing’ – chawaridza bonde
Perhaps a re-thinking of Zunde raMambo
Seeing not th command of it, rather the commendation: families fed
Possibly, cessations from subsistence will SOS
Out of surpluses to threshing floors my Africa
 
A food surplus world shall prioritize the struggler. The vision
Undoubtedly, present day`s food shortage has fed;
Graduates, in dark suits and navy neck ties
The enlightened, of an impoverished mother land. The case
Honouring of agronomists with first aid – oh food aid!
At the expense of the under privileged,
A hungred provider of hard labour. The lesson
 
Until we out do hunger`s contestation
Non-bickering with the other
Save for, all hand on decks
We set sail and act solving, an endangered tomorrow
Hunger`s address long unknown
Is not anymore unsaid at last!
Least it had evaded our past.

*Hunger and disease torn*

There ai'nt honour in hunger
Add a Black Swan, 
Twin evils suffice.
Here is when disease squats us
Just as Covid has requisited
Whilst a terrible hunger knocks on
As has gone on and on
Hunger already had us 
On a gruelling exercise. One without 
Any physical fitness outcome.

Things haven't augured well
For our trapped world
With Novel Corona viruses
Choosing to stay.
In quarters already food insecure,
Both of natural 
And man-made causes.
What will vacate premises
Are highly likely us people.
For a terrible death knocks on
In queues for food
Food first then 
We distance socially next
It is supposed to be the plan
So he or she thinks
Unfortunately, he or he die
First before the food queued for. 

Zimbabwe sits perilously
All Southern Africa faces one more time
A double barrage of hammering 
Hunger sits judging
In our chambers,
While disease sits prosecuting.
Both not offering bail-outs
We all are 
Guilty before conviction
For hunger wants awarding us
Cumulative deaths 
As the paid penalty.
Disease on the other hand 
Wants us to die anyway,
As if our lives are overdue.

Malnutrition, from famishes
Frail frames from Covid uncertainty
Health has pressed the exit button
What with natural disasters
Coming thick and fast
One after another.

The employer is in a quandary
To employ.
A socially distant workplace
Comes at an off budget penny.
The employee equally is in a quandary
-To rather not be employed
When next is glossary quarantine.
-To rather be employed
Where next is household hunger.

Something is amiss!
The question on food provisioning, 
Has gotten too late to address
The question on health.
Has gotten less and less cure.
Today,
A vendor's resistance is 
About the stomach.
If he stay indoors 
There is militant lack
If she goes outdoors
There is the face of death
But Husband and wife
Just won't watch children die.
Someone has to risk a face off
With the pandemic's jagged edge
All odds against him or her
Just to survive 
From hunger first,
Then disease second
Death the midway snare

It pours down than rain
When someone erases
A family he or she is
After feeding.
A family he or she is
After surviving.
From a militating hunger
Alongside a cheeky pandemic.

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.

Used to be
The growl of my anger
Was always louder than
the growl of my stomach
But not today
He looks at me in fear and wonder
This stranger at the terminus, must be thinking,
why is she so angry 
is she that hungry? 
My stomach was shaming me.

I smile in apology
I'm just tired, I suppose
But I'm truly just hungry, I know
Used to be
A working woman could eat
Used to be
A working woman could sustain herself
Used to be
A working woman never got into stupid fights with strangers
Just for the reason they were eating and she hadn't in almost a whole day
Used to be
Usisi osebenzayo (a working woman)
Would better spend her daydreams on futures of success instead of a good meal
Okay 'a good meal' was too much dreaming
"Maybe just some bread"
All that was gone now
What used to be had changed.

What is, is her hunger equaling to her anger.
It’s the scraping at her stomach
Leaving a hot and acid pain in her tummy
Making her wish she didn't have a bloody stomach
The uncontainable panicked confusion of her mind
As her brain tries to reason out why the body is going for so long, unfed
The rising rage of emotion as she tries to convince herself to be at peace with the lack in her stomach
The hot anger that arises when she thinks how 
It used to be at such moments she would go buy a scone
Oh wait, all that used to be, is gone.
We are talking about now.

Now,
Going home
She remembers
The day she spent trying to not look at others eat
And anticipates
The night she'll spend
Try to find sleep
After a supper that's
Too ugly, too small, too unsatisfying
To wash from memory the past day's hunger
Tomorrow she wouldn't go to work
How could she manage to
So hungry
I mean working all day without sustenance
But not going would mean being fired
Sitting at home to starve
To watch children turn from thin and scrawny to just ribs and bone
One works, one can't eat,
Nor can her family, her kids,
Used to be
She could feed them just cause she worked
All that's gone now

Zolisa Gumede is a Zimbabwean poet and story writer from the city of Bulawayo. She is driven by a passion for giving life to stories that speak for the lives of everyday heroes, the marginalized and all human beings, for we all need a witness to our lives. She loves a good laugh and a good story.
​

​Taku famously known as VaChikepe is one of the best writing poets from Zimbabwe. A two-time featured poet at the Bridgewater International Poetry Festival, he believes that poetry is a calling and he uses different states of mind, music and spirituality to define and express poetry.
 

Throbbing Belly

​When I was six,
I appreciated everything they did
Honestly... I appreciated!
 
It was probably by design, or
It was probably by default...
But I appreciated everything...
They did...Honestly!
 
Now my belly throbs like a growling bear
I honestly enjoy every moment of being,
Rebellious...Divided we’ll learn how to stand!
 
Meditating on the last night
I made my jaws dance,
I become as angry as a fasting lion in the jungle.
 
But a few years ago, I appreciated everything
Honestly...I appreciated everything they did!
 
They could tell me Jesus represented
A certain race,
Like what!? Isn’t that racism? But my belly was full
So I understood where they came from
But now my belly sings the songs of
Kunta Kinte heading to the west,
I comdemn everything they do!
 
Cutting nails with my teeth isn’t a hobby
But a poor man’s way of feeding...
Call it what you want, cannibalism or
Something but a man’s got to survive!
They call it, “desperate times vis-à-vis
Desperate measures”... Who’s got the ruler,
To measure the intensity of the desperation?
 
I appreciated everything they did
Honestly...I appreciated!
But my token dropped into the manhole
And I no longer appreciate!
 
I’m starving but...
It started as a means of staying healthy
Until my health began falling into the same pit
That dinosaurs fell and became extinct...
I’m hungry...Like I could join the Lord
In his forty days, forty nights fasting
And still find no food to break the fasting!
 
What option do I’ve, besides listening to Lucifer
When he tells me to turn the rock into bread?
A no! Is the perfect answer but my belly is empty
A yes! Is selling my soul, but my belly is empty!
 
I got food on my mind and how
I’m going to get it
Doesn’t matter, as long as I’m not hungry...
They said, “be careful what you wish for...”
What? I wish for food in my mouth
And how I get it is my business
And none of your business!
 
I used to appreciate everything they do
Honestly...I appreciated!
But I don’t anymore because I’m hungry
And hunger will kill me if I appreciate them.
 
Playing hunger games and I’m losing,
Only if I can get her to dig my ways.
I’m hungry to know her...But
How do I get to know her when I haven’t met her
And how can I meet her when I don’t know her?
Like fifty shades of grey are my hopes
And fifty shades of black are my chances...
So it seems like, I’ll always stay hungry.
 
I appreciated everything they did
Honestly...I appreciated!
But a hungry man is what I became
From appreciating their prodigality,
So please pass me a plastic plate,
With fruits, even the forbidden
Is now unforbidden because I’m hungry.

​Martin Chivaku, his birth and stage name, believes that poetry is a means of communicating with the world and as a poet, he considers himself a messenger or a tool to address issues that affect us on a daily basis. He has also written more than 250 poems and is still not stopping. He lives in Harare, Zimbabwe.