Country Train of My Country
I see from a distance, its metal backbones disappearing into the blue haze of our day. It moans and vomit its human snort into the silent heat. Kacha kuchu ka……cha Kuchu……uuu Kachaaa Kuchuuu. Kweeeeeeeeee. The sound steps resonates with the echo of daylight doves and sudden laughters of gossiping pigeons down the quiet river. Kacha …a. a…a. Kachaaaaaaaaa Kuchuuuuuuu…..u . Kweeeeeeeeeeeee.
Country Train of my Country reappears again beyond the red hills, dancing again on metal mats now the steps are fragile and hesitant. It moans again, now for the death of time, belching out deathly fogs and foul sweat into the silent air Kacha a Kacha …aaaaa Kacha Kuchu Kuchu Kuchuuuuu Kweeeeeeeeee
Country Train of my Country, disappears again into the fabrics of mist. It cracks and breaks with broken hearts and tired souls. Souls travelled the earth since times sands were granite. Hearts exploded with the pain of every season’s funeral. Summer comes with hot tongs of hell. Spring brings fragile promises and wingless hope. Winter undresses us into utter nudity in front of our Gods.
Country Train of my Country is weeping again.
The cry echoes into the valley of bones and ripples the blood river. It stops for a season ritual and then thunders a loud fart, farting remnants of sorrow and atoms of poverty.
Air stinks with corrupted oxygen. It sleeps over here and my father’s sister was buried here and my brother too.
It sleeps over here on the debris of a dying country. Poverty is the black fabric of our times.
Jigsaw sound of the country train of my country is no more. Country Train of my Country slept over here forever.
Mbizo Chirasha is the Poet in Residence at the Fictional Café: www.fictionalcafe. 2019 Sotambe Festival Live Literature Hub and Poetry Café Curator. 2019 African Fellow for the International Human Rights Art Festival( ihraf.org), Arts Features Writer at the International Cultural Weekly, Founder and Chief Editor of Womawords Literary Press. Founder and Curator of the Brave Voices Poetry Journal and co-editor of Street Voices Poetry triluangal collection. His latest 2019 collection of experimental poetry A Letter to the President was released by Mwanaka Media and Publishing and is featured at African Books Collective.