The Vampires of Kazomba - a poem by my friend Benedicto Wokomaatani Malunga

The vicous and vociferous vampires
Of Kazomba are pathetic desperadoes
Who can miserably no longer
Overrate their waning marketability
As they languish in bitterness
On the rubbish heap of neglect
Created for them by the harshness
Of changing times they never foresaw
Now lashing at their swollen egos
Deflected by decent men who dropped them
Like Pharaoh's hot bricks due to their
Despicable moral bankruptcy and rottenness
Springing from contemptible self-deceit
Emanating from naked malice
Of unscrupulous impatient gold-diggers
Stuck in debts carelessly incurred
With their delusion of grandeur
Only fools entertain when
In the company of showy braggarts
Pretending to be rich when they
Call the political shots only to become broke
When their time of temporary glory is over
The stinking vindictive vampires of Kazomba
Pray at St Michael's in the morning
And drink human blood in the evening
With cheering home boys hoodwinked
By tribal solidarity bordering on naivety
They function like typical ruthless whores
When they meet naive journalists
Willingly vulnerable to manipulation
When a bribe like a carrot
Is enticingly dangled before them
The slanderous vampires of Kazomba
Are shameless blood suckers indeed
Wanting to reap where
They never sowed
Desiring to milk a cow they never fed
They turn green with envy and red with fury
When they see those they blindly despised
Rise to the acme of society gently and majestically
With a cornucopia of carefully honed God-given talents
Meticulously nurtured with sweat and diligently cultivated
With patience, practice and wisdom accumulated
Over the years when others were loafing stupidly
The uncouthed vampires of Kazomba
Are empty attention-seekers glorified by fools
Overwhelmed by paper qualifications
That do not mean much beyond the rhetoric
And the ink with which they are written
The vampires of Kazomba are social misfits
Falsely occupying a stage meant for solid luminaries
Capable of enlightening a nation with erudite
Views enriching a country wishing to move
Forward steadily and constructively
They do not understand why art is created
They do not differentiate between fact and fiction
Like the animals they are the vampires
Of Kazomba comfortably ride on the backs of idiots
Masquerading as intellectuals in borrowed robes
Failing to see beyond their short african noses
As they get used and abused by bitches
Who have nothing to lose even when they
Think and behave like dogs on heat
When I meet the vampires of Kazomba again
I shall spit scorn befitting their harlotry with impunity
And hope that their protege scribes will go back to school
To learn how to be humane humans with a conscience.