Civilized, we call us

In that neat well furnished room full of big files and big books in shelves,

Computers, typewriters and many other electronic gadgets,

The manager well dressed in his full suit, seated on his rotating chair,

Having his hands leaned on the expensive table in front of him,

With his computer on, three cell phones on the table,

And a land line telephone on his right hand side,

The hanging rotating stuff is at its highest speed that you can’t see its three wings,

Yet his handkerchief is wet,

His tie is so fitted that you can’t see his neck,

The client is waiting to be served as the boss is really busy chatting in his computer,

Picking calls that ends with, ‘love you swiree’ and others ‘the bash was hot, bye honey’,

I bitterly gazed at the president photograph hanging on top of his head,

Then I wondered if that is all that the so called Bureaucracy has brought to us,

Some years back, not many enough to be called a decade, just before his fate favored him,

To whom he is and where he is and converted him into a new being___

As my pair of balls landed on the structure seated in front me of that at first I thought to be a statue,

With falling cheeks, and a protruded belly people call ‘public opinion’,

I remembered the skeleton we used to see, the one people used to call ‘a walking stick’,

Back in the olden days in those construction sites I was a Manson and he was a causal worker,

Mixing sand and cement for me, I gave him order yes, but I never mistreated him,

And now am seated in front of him waiting for his help and he would never serve me,

The boss is busy now still chatting, am still waiting.

A poem by Tito John Msembi [2015]