WHEN DID FREE VERSE GAIN ITS INDEPENDENCE?

The dead are buried with
Their eyes/their tongues
They can shed their own tears/ sing their own dirges,
I will not!

My mouth harbors things
That may grow wings and fly
If I part my lips in song
When the time comes;
And my eyes want to mirror
Fire and water mixed with salt,
I'll bend my palm and rub it
Over my face
And tell myself not to wear loss
Like perfume.

The wind may hum,
The leaves applaud the wind
As it does. I will not!
My fingers are laden with fragile
Memories that might break.
The dead are buried with
Their hands they can clap
To their own songs.

They can shed their own tears, sing their own dirges,
I will not! 

PRICE TAG
How much does it cost to buy a country?
A handshake? A treaty? An oil field? A battlefield? A heart? A gun? Death?
Someone buy this one
Before it slips from our hands…

Sit at the Berlin Conference
And a trace throbbing spot, spelt
U.G.A.N.D.A
And give me a report on what you feel
Do you feel the page vibrating with thuds?
Of marching armies?
The Nile trying to run away?
The head of state sneezing
And sneezing out a lie or two or more?

What is worse?
Having a home and not belonging to it
Or a body that you don't own?

Hold the map to your ear, what do you hear?
("If you vote for me...")
Do you hear school children rubbing?
Their bellies to make them quiet

Do you hear bullets and tear gas canisters?
Making a choir as Makerere University
Grows into a war zone

How much does it cost to buy a country?
Maybe a bucket of blood?
Maybe the intestines of women in Entebbe?
A cabinet larger than the sin of corruption?
Peace, Stability
Someone buy this country
Before it slips from our hands…

BORN AGAIN
They crippled you with blows of slavery
Nailed you on the cross of their religions
Like you were a sacrifice to all the gods
They carried in their minds.
They buried you in the graveyard of
Colonialism, placed apartheid as your
Headstone, you were too stubborn to die,
They unearthed you, shook
The dirt from your stubborn curly hair,
Bathed you in scented independence
And proclaimed you brand new, now free.

This is how you were born, again
This is how you became.

Your name wasn't your name anymore
It grew heads and
Became an example, a lesson,
A metaphor, a pun, a question.
It became a prayer, a plea,
A song we now play with
Our hearts leaping, our palms,
Chest to chest, our eyes
Closed.

This is how you were born, again
This is how you became.

This that you have believed about yourself
Is not who you really are.
There are things they don't tell you
About yourself.

 WRITTEN BY: IVAN AGABA TUMUSIIME.

The writer is a member of the National Christian Students Association (NCSA Youth).