Editor-
This year marked 20years after Zimbabwe White farmer, Martin Olds’ brutal murder by war veterans.He was the first of twenty or so slain farmers. I dedicate this poem to him.

SLAIN FARM
A stroke of good luck
With the arrival warmth of a son,
Debt, starvation traded for gin and rose,
The frugal introspective tiller’s sun,
To the bleak past of loss in full bloom.

There under the Black leave
Of freedom and liberty to sow
And respect of law as a branch and leaf
Of the same tree loyalty passion
Flourishing on the banks of a sea,
Mother’s unmeaness to pass on
Fruit and wisdom to see,
Seeded he to reap gold.

The flame of good luck so odd
Flickered with tragic brevity for Martin Olds,
Of hatchet, machete poised upon him,
With chiming eloquency of a cathedral’s bell,
A soronous horse and dray murmuring a hymn
For martydom saint denied death-bail,
Through State clique’s apt commission
As angel death away whisked him in omission.

Callous thick brutal it messaged
As the dragon’s unbridled fiery tail,
Leading him with narcissistic massage;
Trading blood from lungs of laugh tales-
An equilibrium restoration to monster’s of war,
Who separate not pillar from wall,
Striking freshness panic to the spouse,
Her thorny avenue to widowhood!

Written by Collen Kajokoto
**The author is a Harare  marooned poet-