By Learnmore Dzvairo| Where are women of this city
That in stark nudity
Yawns still?
Where are those frilly garments
Under clothes that on windowsills
(like half smoked biltong)
eternally hung?
Where are men of this City
Zealots who heroically
And with stubborn stoicism
Built these archaic structures?
What with near- eternal abandon,
It’s walls crumble and fracture
Like sandcastles.
Where are children of this city
Kids who graciously
And in near-eternal nudity
flew anaemic kites to rooftops
Innocently and ingloriously
hurling stones on stubborn whore houses
scaring into scurrilous flight
wicked husbandmen.
Where are cops of this city
Sons who with grandeur and chivalry
Hoofed it on sacrilegious pavements
And like soldiers behind battlements,
Bravely pounded doors
waking inanimate Robinhoods
Whistling brave chases in streets.
Where are elders of this city
the wizened city father’s
Who through rotten teeth
Smoked favoured shamrock pipes
And with borrowed hype,
Struggle with futilities;
Reminisces of past ages
And long lost virility.

Where are we then
Neighbours of yon Citadel
While vandals within and without
Seize,plunder and pillage
Ceaselessly with thunder and outrage
Drugging themselves senselessly
in political cocaine?
Elders have passed
Men their homes abandon
Mother birds to virile neighbours have but fled
While ducklings into foreign homes have chameleoned,
As cops have but
joined Robin Hood’s band.
Who has the strength
Who has the zeal
Who has the confidence
And,
Who has the attitude
To build crumbling Jericho?
is Nehemiah in captivity?