![]() | The African Saga (FEMRITE Publications, 1998, 102 p.) |
![]() | ![]() | Poems of Protest |
I
I hold a thousand tears
In the cup of my skinny hand.
I carry ten thousand wails
In the deep hollows of my ears.
I host a million bloated babies
In the deep brown of my eyes.
I house ten million graves
In the curls of my thinning hair.
I have stored pouches upon pouches of pus
In the blisters of
my heart.
II
So we do not talk about them
Those others wrapped in rebel
and state cross fire.
We do not sing about them.
How can we sing of things
we do not know?
How will we sing about old men's guts eaten out by
hunger,
Old men's eyes closed for fear of watching axes tear the heads
Off
their grandchildren?
How can we explain missing ears, lips, noses,
Lone limbs
traversing the land
Without their owners?
How can we ever talk about these
things
Without tumours of bitterness
Teeming in our hearts?
No wonder
we are silent.
III
I will not talk about them
I will talk of other things
Of
the man who hung naked
On the tree and sweated sorrow for us.
I will sing
only of water and blood
Flowing out of a side and a voice
That whispered "
it is finished".
I can think about glory
Wrapping darkness in a
shroud
And storing it in an eternal grave.
I will think on love of a
heavenly prince
Clothed in earthly tatters fighting
Swindlers in the
temple of God.
I will think of a little child talking
To bearded men about
his Father's Love.
I will sing about a risen Son
And transcending
peace.
I will sing of the victory
Of love embracing love
That is the
only way I can ever walk
upright.