Thompson Charlie was born in 1968, in Highfield, Harare in Zimbabwe. He grew up in Mufakose Township where he attended school at Mufakose 1 High School before joining the teaching service in 1986.He has taught in a number of schools in the Mashonaland East province of Zimbabwe.He also contributed poetry and short stories in the Tsotso literary magazine in Zimbabwe, Karibu magazine, a publication of Khanya College and the Afrikan wright-us magazine, a publication of the Afrikan Writers’ Forum of which he is an active founder member. Thompson Charlie lives in exile in South Africa where he is also the founding chairperson of The Zimbabwe Heritage Foundation, an organization working with unaccompanied foreign minors, orphans and vulnerable children.
Truth Be Handled
the blind feeling erupts
against the muscle of its prison
bursting the lids of its bated sight
it mutates in cotyledons of sin
the sin of a murdering regime
they raised a gun to my lip
that i should not expose their sin
but i saw my silence was the bigger sin
like the cholera in the puddles
waiting to claim us all
now each day the faces grow long
battening the tyrant’s appetite
the struggle, the feelings, everything
captured in heaven’s white light
sigh a glorious bloom on the retina
yes the fiery flower red-hot
like a dry parched tongue
peeled and taste buds scorched
it writhes like a skinless worm
heart and soul immortal
but we kneel at the alter of blood-clots
the story of our life a flower
whose petals lip the butchery of rape
broken bones and roasted flesh
torn wombs and rivers of blood
The Hararean Exile
fling out like a butterfly
the trophies of vast earth
bloom all over the land
into lands tragic to others
walk and love the earth
let dust caking your weary feet
be the icing of ageless wealth
cross the river of bitterness
harare’s flood of hegemony and hate
rise above spirals of broken hearts
like an eagle come out of hades
knowing one day you will return
a man intimately reborn
let no mountain before you rise
i broke the fat border patrol voice
with the roar of my fiery poetry
echoes of what was human
converging in what was rare
the intimacy of experience
and the bare unsparing shock
exploding in the clock of light
purchase not the tragedies of history
sold in the pawnshop of obituaries
quake not the bubblegum fangs
of the faithless serpents
for the world awaits to give
to those who never tire
go seek and love
gather up your self-hood, go
and write what none ever saw
The Suicide
i have lost
all the fire
in telephonic wires
i am the seeker
who lost sight
the guide
who can’t pick
the spoor
this wire on my neck
the only that cared
my pants soiled
with the shit promise
of a false dream
i have lost
all i had
my heart
my mind
my soul
i have lost
all that can be
i wish not to face
all that must not be
i leave, you face…….
The Cynic
now i see
it was no revolt
born against
the trite wisdom
of our elders
it was
not an assault
upon the
common trust
of our custom
it was
an open assault
upon the
common habit
of our failure
Thompson Charlie was born in 1968, in Highfield, Harare in Zimbabwe. He grew up in Mufakose Township where he attended school at Mufakose 1 High School before joining the teaching service in 1986.He has taught in a number of schools in the Mashonaland East province of Zimbabwe.He also contributed poetry and short stories in the Tsotso literary magazine in Zimbabwe, Karibu magazine, a publication of Khanya College and the Afrikan wright-us magazine, a publication of the Afrikan Writers’ Forum of which he is an active founder member. Thompson Charlie lives in exile in South Africa where he is also the founding chairperson of The Zimbabwe Heritage Foundation, an organization working with unaccompanied foreign minors, orphans and vulnerable children.
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