Blantyre by Frank Chipasula

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Rusty grey roofs, stunted white-washed walls,

the city wears a borrowed Scottish accent,

and hides behind a clump of mango groves

and bluegums neighing like stray abandoned horses,

bathing, like shy maidens, in the early summer showers.

When the moon awoke, with bags under his eyes,

I knew the long vigil the night had kept in my mother’s eyes

that had searched for her prodigal son far afield

in Timbuktu, my ancestral city, now unkempt, while

History stood still here as they shaved the city’s head

with a blunt razor, broken bottles, leaving

tufts where red ants grazed with assegais and pen pistols:

Chilobwe still reeking blood, chaotic Ndirande stuck

in mud pools, Zimgwangwa shivering in the chill

Under the gaze of bungalows, mansions and palaces

built on plunder, ringed with barbed-wire fences

walled into personal prisons where fear rules.