Rooster wakes me wondering
probing what defeats me.

Is it the King Crocodile image
that stares back at me
when I look in the cracked mirror?

Is it my frame, so weak and hapless
like the proverbial Oliver Twist step?

Is it the palace Demoness that encircles me
with her contagious greedness?

Is it the thorn harvest that haunts the State relentlessly
every day and every night?

Is it the ballot fever
Or the bullet fear?

Is it the tear marks on my cheeks
the wooden trophies of my past agony?

Is it our time wasted to nothing by aqua reptile
not even attempting to benefit humanity?

It is how we’ve failed ourselves
By suffocating in the Crocodile’s armpits!

It’s how we’ve allowed them to define me
Through their harlots petticoats!

The scarffed have killed God
For greed of wine and gold!

By Collen Kajokoto

* The author is a Zimbabwe persecuted poet and human rights defender. He writes from an undisclosed location