Tears for Amama

Tears for Amama

I know why my tears run down  my face now;

I know what tears they are that speed down my jaws.

For one of the names of great weight now needs a grave

And a shelf in the museum of our political archives.

For let’s face it:

When a large tree finally fatally falls,

Its thundering thud thickly thumps the earth;

We all feel its vibration. Our bodies vibrate. Our breasts wiggle.

And we all know – we all should know,

No wind blew it down. No blast caught it off guard.

It must be some machete that crushed its limbs,

It must be some lumber saw that cut away its trunk.

So there lies

Our John Patrick Amama Mbabazi

Mister honourable,

For up-side-down and down-side-up

Has his ex-right honourable name axed overnight.

How horrible it now sounds

In the ears of its ex-ardent admirers!

How abominable it now is abused

From the mouths of its ex-praise singers!

But clever man of Kinkyizi,

Formerly mistaken for clever  brain of the movement,

I will showcase to you the true colour of my tears

For now is the hour for true revelations

I weep scorn. I cry no pity. I cry ridicule.

And by each drop of my tears

Goes with it an elegant laughter.

For how so far from soon will I forget?

The gait of your majestic pride when you had the right to laugh;

The memory of your conspiracies is still fresh in my mind,

Plus the straight face with which you understated the fraud

Approved and improved by your  self satisfying  hand.

I can’t forget the art of oppression you indifferently designed

And the science of political suffocation you systematized,

And that it was your lips, broadly smiling  

that denounced Lukwago’s mayoral name.

Hell now! That the same cameras that screened you then,

Now cover your compound being depopulated of its guards.

I’m now lost for words but, surely, not lost for memory,

The memory of your intrigue, dirty and malicious .

But poor you Amama,

You know better than I do, how you devotedly and excitedly

 Sharpened the very arrow that now stands in your chest;

How you wove the very net in which you now pitifully hang.

Poor you … Amama … here is the generosity of my tears.

I will shed more in your honour. Poor Amama!

Rest in peace. For peace will no longer rest in you.
                                                                           Rurekyera Geofrey