Struggle Poetry from Zimbabwe

Two radical poems recently published by the Toyi Toyi Artz Kollektive, Zimbabwe.

Raise Your Fist

If you are warrior Raise Your Fist High!
Are you a warrior Raise Your Fist!

A Bobo lion Babylon won’t give me a visa
Coz I’m a toyitoyi teacher, pro-zapatista
Anti-capitalista, I’m the counter-culture
I’m rooted in the spirit like a Shona sculpture
Refuse to lose, used, fused to propaganda
X on the ballot so we struggle no longer
The shit-stem keeps on coming on stronger
Uncle bob, uncle sam
Or another uncle tom,
We remain the same
Poor and we’re unemployed
A black president, a woman head of state
Another window dresser seals the working-class fate
The democratic right to choose a new slave-master
Cosmetic changes make the slave work faster
So until the power is in the hands of the people
I’ll be in the streets chanting change still a rebel
I’ll be in the streets chanting change still a rebel

If you are warrior Raise Your Fist High!
Are you a warrior Raise Your Fist High!

Ballistic

It’s the anti-capitalistic, anarchistic
Activists gone ballistic
It’s the anti-capitalistic, anarchistic
Activists gone ballistic

We represent the seven principles of kwanza
Toyitoyi is back it’s the lyrical bonanza
Babylon is searching me looking for the ganja
We are down on the wheels working on a tyre puncture
She Govanwa G.O.D.obori n’ Fati Kwako
Watching ghetto people scatter-fear of the po-po
Domain of the pharaohs is Fio-it’s the ghetto
Salads can’t come thru the section-it’s a no go
We have anarchist flags flying on the logo
In a land ready-made for bhinghi n’ the bobo
The tyre on the wheel plunges into the pot-hole
Watch me deal with the snitch - smack him with a bottle
We are writing on the wall, so I’m pressing on the nozzle
It’s letters that I’m good at- working in the dojo
But nowadays is hard coz the paints will cost you more dough
So they shoplift, liberate them from your top store

It’s the anti-capitalistic, anarchistic
Activists gone ballistic
It’s the anti-capitalistic, anarchistic
Activists gone ballistic