A non-elegy to Uganda: stability without tranquillity

By David Sseppuuya

            
Our Uganda! Oh Uganda!
How God upholds thee
Was an election ever so worthy
To split a people yet asunder?

Faces still long and blue
Who will bring back the glue?
When subsumed by yellow
That's not nearly so mellow.

Boda cyclists ever ferociously angry
But ‘tis not like '56 Hungary
How, when Mambas are so hungry
To mince all and sundry?

Elites, middle class, they quietly mumble
But cannot afford to fumble
Dare not will they grumble
Given they are so humble
So Facebook goes in limbo.

What's trending now, oh Uganda?
What's up, fellow Waganda?
WhatsApp's gone offline
What's going to happen down the line?

It's gone, it's closed, is Twitter
The chattering classes now bitter
Anonymous determines when to tweet
Life's no longer so sweet
For where now shall they meet?
With cyberspace in retreat?

Ministers, yes, they did bite the dust
Historicals to survive so they must
One General is all aghast
In jail, fighting for the past
The Colonel, retired yet restrained, bellows ‘pakalast!'

It's time for the future
But who in it will feature?
Bavubuka, vijana, minyeto!
It's the young, repeat, the youth!
Promises to you are not uncouth
You aren't long in the tooth
Energy bubbles ‘neath your booth.

Youth were out with a bang
Where now do they hang?
So we don't waste youth on the young.

Promises, promises. Ah, the promises
You will swim in milk, Ms Headmistress
You will, Mr Headmaster, wash in honey
But where is the money?
If at all it is not so funny.

Jobs! Employment! Jobs!
Take them from the snobs
Ensure there's no one who fobs
The boys lest they become mobs.

Some have a mighty lot
The rest mere have-nots
What'll we do with this lot?
So little have they got!

Winner-take-all
Is a limited call
First-past-the-post
Limits the country most.

Who then is willing to placate
A nation we cannot vacate
So much is at stake
Make no mistake.

A peace there is in the city
A tension taut reigns in municipality
Do not snap it, this normality
A stability without tranquillity.

Uganda, o ye altar nation
Heaven will hear your petition
If you will bow down in contrition
For sweet incense spares perdition
For God and my Nation.

© David Sseppuuya     

dsseppuuya@yahoo.com

Twitter: @DavidSseppuuya