---

Not in the dark, wondering

that there's load shedding?

 

I'm here to pour furious facts forth in drops,

I'm no duck's plumage shedding watery rocks,

I'm here not to please but to seize a moment,

& jog memories, since l see no development,

 

their promises were countless : like we'll 

construct sheds or shelter, yet it's all hell!
 

have the souls been shed from distress?

no, they steal & smile, shed blood and suppress,
 

people are put or housed in handcuffed shame,

they can't tame it, l proclaim: the economy isn't lame, 

have you seen shed-like structures they have build since

they usurped offices, or you wince at their rot or mince?

 

it had nothing to do with national development or protection,

but a divide of land: their shed, interests, a lust for accumulation,

understand that shedding can simply be a casting off of natural covering

like a caterpillar shedding its skin, yet it's still a caterpillar window-dressing!

shed your illusions & inhibitions since companies are shedding jobs and incomes,

shed tears for the jobless like pathologists shedding viruses in the faeces & dirty dams.

---

Ndaba has authored 26 published books and coauthored more than 100 published books. Sibanda is the author of Cabinet Meetings, The Immigrant With A Difference, Notes, Themes, Things And Other Things, The Gushungo Way, Sleeping Rivers, Love O’clock, The Dead Must Be Sobbing, Football of Fools, Cutting-edge Cache, Of the Saliva and the Tongue, When Inspiration Sings In Silence, The Way Forward, Sometimes Seasons Come With Unseasonal Harvests, As If They Minded: The Loudness Of Whispers, This Cannot Be Happening :Speaking Truth To Power, The Dangers  Of Child Marriages: Billions Of Dollars Lost In Earnings And Human Capital, The Ndaba Jamela and Collections and Poetry Pharmacy. His work is featured in The Anthology House, in The New Shoots Anthology, and in The Van Gogh Anthology, and A Worldwide Anthology of One Hundred Poetic Intersections. Some of Ndaba`s works are found or forthcoming in  Page & Spine,  Peeking Cat, Piker Press , SCARLET LEAF REVIEW , Universidad Complutense de Madrid, the Pangolin Review, Kalahari Review ,Botsotso, The Ofi Press Magazine, Hawaii Pacific Review, Deltona Howl, The song is, Indian Review, Eunoia Review, JONAH magazine, Saraba Magazine, Poetry Potion, Saraba Magazine,  The Borfski Press, Snippets, East Coast Literary Review, Random Poem Tree, festival-of-language and Whispering Prairie Press. Sibanda has received the following nominations: the national arts merit awards (NAMA), 2016 Mary Ballard Poetry Chapbook Prize, The Best of the Net Prose and the Pushcart Prize.