ktravula – a travelogue!

Like Mubarak, Like Gbagbo, Like Mugabe

Tyrants stamp brash feet on winding paths on of wide open lands

and laugh on fart cushions in cabinet meetings of fellow fawning hands.

They mouth verbs at protest noises from the warm comforts of palace bedrooms

on one hand a full plate, and on the other soft triggers of their imported dooms.

Tyrants dance around dials of outside help, counting losses like currency notes,

swapping allies like the last statuettes of their long tortuous days and rotes.

They sing lullabies of aftermaths, of threats and tears, against a glory so long lost

and o, they fear. They dream of dreary wings across the windowpanes of frost.

Tyrants languish on the frail chairs of their vain vacuousness. They stink.

They drawl in the slime of impotence, a dour fire of an eighty year old wrink.

I look through the fog of emptiness, and see dead multiples of power tenths

and all that remains of a gentle tug into bright new days of different strengths.

Tryants live so that they may leave, gracelessly, in a baggage of seasoned trash.

No other way remains but will, bold and strong, and despots’ dicks ash to ash.

(c) Kola Tubosun

PS: Feel free to share with friends and acquaintances who share a distaste and spite for despots.

Like Mubarak, Like Gbagbo, Like Mugabe was published on January 30th, 2011, with the tags , , , , under the Observations, Soliloquy category. There are currently 10 comments on this article so far.

Campus Students Protest

Yesterday, in a temperature of about ten below zero, Egyptian students and friends gathered at the Free Speech Quadrangle on campus to lend a voice to the protests in Egypt calling on President Mubarak to acquiesce to the demands of his citizens, turn mobile phone connections and internet back on, and stop visiting violence on peaceful protesters, and resign his position as president if he is unable to do so.

A reporter from the campus paper The Alestle came around at some point to interview the protesters. It was during this time in protest that we heard that President Mubarak had dissolved his government – an insufficient concession that doesn’t address any of the demands nor take the blame for thirty years of misrule. Among other hopes of the protesters on campus is that the United States which is Egypt’s biggest ally takes a stand with the people rather than with a dictator that has misruled a country for so long. History has shown that ambivalence in situations like this always benefits the oppressors and not the victims.

More protests are planned for St. Louis at the weekend, and at Egyptian embassies around the world.

Campus Students Protest was published on January 29th, 2011, with the tags , , , , , under the Observations category. There are currently 1 comment on this article so far.