It’s municipal polls
Father Christmases
Paid us surprise visits
In our shaky homes
Heaving under bags
Loaded with hollow promises
As usual, queues zigzagged
Like snakes in community halls
As voters came to
Drop their pathetic votes
Into power hungry ballot boxes
Pinning their hopes on
Sticky tongued chameleons who
Once promised jobs, clean water,
Houses and better services
But our taps still cough
Out hot air,
Mosquito choir fly
From garbage bins
Into our houses to
Sing a painful song
As they administer
Malaria injection
Into our bodies,
An army of youth
Still fix their eyes
On tantalizing pregnant
Clouds hoping for
Job drops to drizzle
Down but to no avail,
Poor citizens still
Roam in load shedding
Where Eskom keeps
Shedding its old skin
Like black mamba
Leaving businesses
Crippled while Data
Continues to milk
Tax from them,
That’s politics of
The poor of the poorest
Where nepotism rules
Job market and tender
Business,
We were disillusioned
To think that politicians
Are colour blind,
But these ones precisely
Dissect rainbow colours
With racism scissors,
We’re barb wired rainbow
Nation pointing forked
Tongues and spitting at
One another like a scared
Cobra seeking escape route
Racism dissected our
Rainbow skins and
Pinned us on barb wired
Future to dry the last
Drop of our hope
For democratic diversity
Without any animosity
Phahunye Amos Tebeila is a published poet.