A Black Woman's Poem

Electors' Roundtable

2010-09-04T11:58:00.000-07:00

Mr. Mheshimiwa,
Bwana Mkubwa,
are you as honourable
as your title suggests?
Would you readily pick up

your spear and shield to
defend the downtrodden and forgotten?
Do you keep your word, Mheshimiwa?
Do you build schools and hospitals,
do you provide services for taxpayers?

Are you a taxpayer, Mr Change Bringer?
Are you familiar with guilt and grief?
Does the injustice of your voters' poverty -
their hungry wails and worn rags-
turn your insides with guilt-induced acidity?

How much do you pay your hauzi, Bwana Mkubwa?
Do the laws you pass apply to you?
Would you rape a 17 year old girl,
leave her with a swollen belly and HIV
and walk away scot free?

Is justice partial to you, Mr Law Maker?
Would you kill a man,
if you could get away with it?
Have you ever killed a man?
Would you steal a woman's land,

raze her house to the ground?
Would you displace a family,
a clan, an entire nation?
How many wives do you have, Mheshimiwa,
how many boyfriends?

Would you demonize homosexuality in public
but keep a secret love nest for your male lover?
Were you ever a child?
Did you wet your bed, Mheshimiwa?
Did you climb trees, graze cattle,

lie on the grass to stare at the clouds?
Did you spend hours in the bathtub
dreaming of being a scientist,
of that one discovery
that would change the world?

Did you bring your mother joy
and your father pride?
Did your family genuinely
like you before you had money?
Did you have friends

before you had sycophants?
Did you ever make a fool of
yourself over a woman, Bwana Mkubwa?
Have you ever been in heart-wrenching,
spine-tingling, insomnia-causing love?

Did you ever employ
seduction instead of force?
Did you ever know how to love,
how to laugh, how to dance?
Did you think your life

would turn out this way?
Are your eyes hard and

dry like the desert

or do you shed tears

when no one is watching?

Were you a different person in your past life -

were you gentle, were you kind,

were you human?

Or have you always been
this empty, cold-blooded shell?

N.L. 2010 (c)

Daddy, by Sylvia Plath

2010-08-30T15:54:00.000-07:00

You do not do, you do not do
Any more, black shoe
In which I have lived like a foot
For thirty years, poor and white,
Barely daring to breathe or Achoo.

Daddy, I have had to kill you.
You died before I had time---
Marble-heavy, a bag full of God,
Ghastly statue with one gray toe
Big as a Frisco seal

And a head in the freakish Atlantic
Where it pours bean green over blue
In the waters off the beautiful Nauset.
I used to pray to recover you.
Ach, du.

In the German tongue, in the Polish town
Scraped flat by the roller
Of wars, wars, wars.
But the name of the town is common.
My Polack friend

Says there are a dozen or two.
So I never could tell where you
Put your foot, your root,
I never could talk to you.
The tongue stuck in my jaw.

It stuck in a barb wire snare.
Ich, ich, ich, ich,
I could hardly speak.
I thought every German was you.
And the language obscene

An engine, an engine,
Chuffing me off like a Jew.
A Jew to Dachau, Auschwitz, Belsen.
I began to talk like a Jew.
I think I may well be a Jew.

The snows of the Tyrol, the clear beer of Vienna
Are not very pure or true.
With my gypsy ancestress and my weird luck
And my Taroc pack and my Taroc pack
I may be a bit of a Jew.

I have always been sacred of you,
With your Luftwaffe, your gobbledygoo.
And your neat mustache
And your Aryan eye, bright blue.
Panzer-man, panzer-man, O You----

Not God but a swastika
So black no sky could squeak through.
Every woman adores a Fascist,
The boot in the face, the brute
Brute heart of a brute like you.

You stand at the blackboard, daddy,
In the picture I have of you,
A cleft in your chin instead of your foot
But no less a devil for that, no not
Any less the black man who

Bit my pretty red heart in two.
I was ten when they buried you.
At twenty I tried to die
And get back, back, back to you.
I thought even the bones would do.

But they pulled me out of the sack,
And they stuck me together with glue.
And then I knew what to do.
I made a model of you,
A man in black with a Meinkampf look

And a love of the rack and the screw.
And I said I do, I do.
So daddy, I'm finally through.
The black telephone's off at the root,
The voices just can't worm through.

If I've killed one man, I've killed two---
The vampire who said he was you
And drank my blood for a year,
Seven years, if you want to know.
Daddy, you can lie back now.

There's a stake in your fat black heart
And the villagers never liked you.
They are dancing and stamping on you.
They always knew it was you.
Daddy, daddy, you bastard, I'm through.

14 Kilometres From Africa

2010-08-19T15:34:00.000-07:00

(First published on protestpoems.org)

Old Fisherman Mamadou

was informed that he was an 'illegal'

for living in Nouadhibou

instead of Senegal

He was surprised to learn

from the sneering uniformed men

who guarded the land he had called home

since he was a pimple-faced boy

that his was a ploy

to walk the Sahara

and cross the Strait of Gibraltar

in pursuit of the European El Dorado

They bunched old Mamadou up

like a piece of paper

and threw him in detention.

They brought to his attention

That the law frowned upon

those who mistook Mauritania

for a convenient stop-over

while journeying to the land of milk and honey.

They spit out the word immigrants

wrapped in phlegm

We are nothing but parasitic vagrants

feeding on their taxes, so they condemn

us to their five star prisons.

They build high impenetrable walls

and fortify their army-

ready to confront the Euro-tsunami

They sign agreements with our blood

And tell the African Big Men to prevent the flood

As if man's basic need for food

Can ever be stopped by a piece of paper:

Restrict, return and definitely do not re-admit!

Did those who die at sea, while dreaming

of the promised land do so in vain?

The fire's burning, can you hear them cry in Calais?

Black Beauty

2010-08-10T09:59:00.000-07:00

For Makandi, and all the world's black girls

She longs to be a snake,
so she can shed off her skin.
She wants to scrub her face with stone,

and watch the colour run into the basin.
Tomorrow she will buy a blue crayon,
and change the shade of her eyes.

She'll spend her life savings
to have the blacksmith craft her a perfect nose.
She aches to be buried,

to resurrect on the third day-
reborn as a white goddess, with a curtain of straight hair
that will tease her back, with every step she takes.

She will be stunning, like the women in Hollywood
and boys will finally notice her.
The magazines tell her so.

Her own god must agree that she is inferior-
For if the God in her church is a blonde, blue-eyed white man,
what is she not but the devil?

Copyright (c) N.L. 2010

Warrior

2010-08-06T11:09:00.000-07:00

Come. Sit.
Let me take off your shoes.
Here, some aloe vera for your sun-kissed skin.
Tell me, what lands have your tired feet walked upon?
What horrors have your hollow eyes seen?

You say they took away your pencil and replaced it with a gun,
that blood is red in Iraq, Darfur and Afghanistan.
You say a woman's raw, red-hot yell
is like a sharp knife plunged into a man's heart,
and a child's dry and exhausted wail

can make a soldier forget his own hunger-
his yearning for home, repentance and redemption.
This is what shame looks like:
a man filled with a fear so thick,
it oppresses and represses.

This is what shame looks like:
a man whose tears and dreams fall as freely as rain.
Could anything be worse than the sight of a grown man wetting himself?
Perhaps the humiliation of seeing
the wizened naked body of one's own mother

You say you want to tear your eyes out of their sockets
for the things they have seen, and
rip your arms off their shoulders for the sins they have committed
But son, even blind men see, dream and remember
and life goes on with or without limbs

Tell me, whose war were you fighting?
Was it democracy you were fighting for,
Out there in Somalia, DRC and Afghanistan?
Can democracy be achieved with enforced anarchy, and
terror be fought with more terror?

Now you are back, yet you feel empty like a dry well,
all torn up, confused
and lacking faith in the power of your humanity
Today, I'll sing to you the song of my youth:
real power is in the pencil lead, not in the lead of the ammunition.

Copyright ©, N.L., 2010

A Pause...For Fiction

2010-07-18T10:24:00.000-07:00

(In a first-time attempt to write fiction (as compared to scribbling it in my head), I submitted a short story to this year's Commonwealth Short Story competition. If I ever had a chance to meet the judges, I would ask if my not winning had something to do with the plot OR the grammar OR the writing technique OR simply, if it did not do to enter a story whose theme touches on colonisation and British elginism into a Commonwealth competition! So I will break from tradition and include fiction in a blog that is dedicated to an apprentice-poet's poetry, and let you be the judges.)

A STORY OF ONE’S OWN

Mary M. Maina had a decision to make. Her faux Casio watch indicated that she did not have the luxury to mull over the ethics of her decision. The museum would be closing in about half an hour.

Still, she gave herself a few minutes to sift through her feelings. She was alone – and gratefully so - in the History and Antiquities section of the newly refurbished Nairobi Museum, surrounded only by poorly-restored artefacts and the pungent smell of cheap floor polish. To be without emotion is to be dead, this belief Mary held dear. So she stood still, all 5 foot 4 inches of her, and allowed the anger in her to slowly simmer and burst open like a lid on a boiling pot. When the red-hot rage finally dissipated, leaving behind only its embers, Mary let her big brown eyes travel once again to the object in front of her. There, a few inches from her pierced nose, was her entire history summarized in one grainy black and white photograph.

The caption beneath the 8x10 photograph read, ‘Field Marshal (FM) Maingi with the legendary Kimathi in Aberdare forest, 1953’. In the photo, the two warriors wore long overcoats (Kimathi’s, with its army stars on each shoulder, presently lay inside a glass case next to the said photograph) and their hair in thick dreadlocks. If one knew or cared to look closely enough, they would notice two small protrusions in the chest area of Maingi’s loose coat. A sign, if any was ever needed, that Field Marshal Muthoni Maingi was in fact a woman.

There had been no mention of Maingi in the civics books Mary had crammed in school or the numerous volumes on nationalism she devoured as an adult. No road, street, lane or panya route had ever been named after Maingi. Yet, grandiose monuments had been erected to honour her fellow freedom fighters, including those that she had bravely led at the peak of the struggle for the nation’s independence from colonial chokehold. Not surprisingly, those whose names were immortalized in the annals of the nation’s history were all male. Within these deeds lay the irrefutable truth: history would only be kind to those who wrote it.

As Mary pondered over this fact, she shifted her body to face the gallery’s door and the sign that was next to it. The sign, big and proud, informed her that the artefacts in this particular gallery – all of them originating from Kenya – were on loan to the Nairobi Museum from the Museum of Great Britain.

“Is this what you fought for? So they could…so our belongings would be loaned to us? What good is freedom if…if our heritage remains buried and unknown to us?” she suddenly barked, pointing a stubby finger at the photograph.

It was in that moment, exactly twelve minutes before closing time, that Mary realized she and FM Maingi had not been properly introduced. If they were going to live together, it was only proper that they should get acquainted.

“I’m Muthoni,” she begun the introductions and reached for the black photo frame that hang unsecured on the wall. “Mary Muthoni Maina. They named me after you and raised me on a diet of mukimo and tales of your escapades. What a pleasure to finally put a face to the name, ntaagu!”

Ntaagu. Namesake. Grandmother.

Mary silently repeated these three words as she walked slowly past the bored ticket-vendor and the unsuspecting watchman, her bulging bag slung casually over her right shoulder, into the warm embrace of Nairobi’s chaotic streets.

Mama

2010-07-13T22:47:00.000-07:00

(A work in progress)

Pray for him, she said
Your baba,
Don't forget-
Pray for him
Everyday, she said
Everyday

Our small palms together
Our humble knees on the floor
We scrunched up our eyes
Believing, always believing
That our supplications and negotiations
Held the power of change

But the gods
of absentees and might-have-beens,
of fools and drunkards, and
the gods of small children
must have been busy
because papa never came back home.

Copyright ©, N.L., 2010

Sukuma Wiki (Or, Ode to the Labourer)

2010-04-08T21:11:00.000-07:00

Ant, you rise
before the sun peeps
sleepily out of its luxurious
blanket of clouds, like
a coddled child.
The cock
dares not crow:
You have put
that living alarm clock
to shame.
Your weeping feet
have walked this road
a thousand times,
You have marched
till days have turned into nights
and nights have given birth to days;
Until the boots that sheath your feet
Have become reborn:
transformed into thin sheets of rubber,
like butterflies metamorphosing into larvae.
Your world revolves around suns named
Limbs, work and bread:
Symbiotic triplets that can only survive together.
You have learnt to ignore the aches
that nag your muscles like a bitter wife
and the yawning hole in your belly
that even a mountain of ugali cannot fill.
So you drill and build,
dig, bury, clean and guard.
Only when you have
lifted and carried the nation
can you then join the slow procession at dusk,
and break into song.
Boom, boom, boom, this is the work man's dirge.

-------------------------------------------------
Dedicated to the hundreds of thousands of Nairobi's informal workers and labourers who walk tens of kilometres every day to earn a living.

SILVER

2010-03-29T12:08:00.000-07:00

You will wear a smile, a promise on your face,
your special linen shirt,
I will wear my silver dress,
and a purple feather on my hat.

I will dig my bare feet into the sand, and
pay no mind to lurking dry cleaning costs
when my silky dress sweeps the ground
with a swish, like the palm trees around us.

You will hold my hands with both of yours
and read the truth in my eyes -
Tell you simply what you already know:
I will, I do.

and I might shed a tear or two
for the blue of the ocean in front of us
and for the empty seats behind us
That could not and would not be filled.

The Married Women's Club

2010-02-21T09:15:00.000-08:00

There must be a manual somewhere,
I've searched for it with a fine-toothed comb
In despair, pulled out my hair
I've looked from Cape Town to Rome.
See, no one in this life
Ever taught me how to be a wife

Mama, she was too busy praying
calling my aunts up and saying
talk to your niece, please
tell her it's not all doom and gloom, she's
going to let a good man go.
So I married my beau

and Mama went back to her prayers
this time, to thank the forebears
that her errant daughter
with the restless spirit of a Berber
had finally traded her running shoes and bloomers
for a pair of blue house slippers

When I woke up
from the dream that was my honeymoon
dressed up and got down to being a grown up
I wondered what it all must mean,
This business of being a wife,
of letting an alien person into one's life

Your bedroom is sacred, they chanted
Don't let anyone else in, not even the maid
Otherwise she will be bedded!
Change the bedsheets and towels, said the marriage brigade
Everyday without fail
Marriage is a woman's grail

Don't say no when he wants it
and if you want it, please don't show it
(or he'll wonder if you are 'outsourcing')
Don't even think about divorcing
him, it is always this way with men
If nothing think of your son, then

Sister, being a wife
means living contentedly in strife!
Let go of this foolish talk about 'individuality',
A woman is either a wife or a mother, that is the reality
Learn to keep mum, else you'll be snubbed
from this married women's club

©, N.L., 2010

A Family Affair

2010-02-21T07:47:00.000-08:00

The night's silence is pierced
by the sound of a woman howling at the moon
There are other sounds too:
rib-cracking
bone-breaking
mercy-begging
manic-laughing
sounds

It is chaotic
An anarchic situation

He pauses
Then curses,
Hits, kicks,
and spits too, for good measure
(Oh dear God, he's going to kill me)
Grunts, and leaves the house

A loud knock on the door -
(Oh no! He's back!)
She wipes her bloody face,
braves the pain in her body
and crawls to the door

Two men in uniforms,
Concern etched on their faces
(Thank heavens it's not him)
-Your neighbours complained, ma'am,
- Is everything alright?
She smiles, wincing at the effort
(Some tea, officers?)
- No ma'am, thank you ma'am
(I have some freshly baked cakes...)
-No ma'am, thank you ma'am
- Where is your husband ma'am?

A child wails -
(He hit mummy!)

She stares at them -
the smile is gone
(Everything is fine, officer -
it's a family affair).

©, N.L., 2005

Mister Sun

2010-01-17T18:45:00.000-08:00

The sun is unreliable -
always coming unexpected,
in the company of bright things and light hearts
and disappearing when needed,
with pregnant dark clouds in its wake.
Sun, you bastard, you must be a man!

©, N.L., 2010

Barter Trade

2010-01-17T04:56:00.000-08:00

i, too,
offer you
this broody body-
with it, my unborn children
and the children of their children.

though not so noble
as Muthoni Nyanjiru,
i donate it in whole, from forehead to ankle
i give it to you
like a wedding vow,

take it now
with all its good, and
all its bad
(for better, for worse)
expect no fuss

take it, it's yours
take it
a
gift
unwrapped

in exchange, and
in exchange
i demand only release -
uncage my enslaved heart;
let it breath

free it to fly high
and sing with the birds
let it bleed
let it beat,
in bloody defiance.

you may
rip my reddened clothes right off
to fall and lay
with the forest-green rags of
Wangari Maathai

but you, sir,
must leave behind
my mind
and all its songs
and all its thoughts

all its thoughts
both private and exposed
these blessed
thoughts, and thoughts of thoughts
are mine to keep.

leave me nude
when the sun is at its most crude
in down town Rongai
surrounded by gasps of 'Ngai!',
if you dare

but i should make it clear, dear
though you may
have this body,
i intend to keep its soul, so
take it all, but leave it just so.

©, N.L., 2010

See How They Stare

2009-12-29T17:56:00.000-08:00

See how they stare
See how they stare

See how they dare
Stand there,

and without a care
eye me, with

that mix of fascination and disgust
only preserved for

the one-eyed ogre,
the two-headed monster,

the three-legged man,
the four-breasted woman

See them stare,
with bulbous noses up in the air

Watch how they look
at me,

their mouths agape, and
eyes wide like saucers

As if am some mammal
that is extinct, like

that lioness that adopted a dik dik
Ready to click click

their cameras
Like it is their first safari

Or, they have just seen a rastafari
in deep meditation

See how they stare
Heads bobbing side to side,

like puppets on strings
Amazed, as if

a prodigal son has returned
Stupefied, as though trees grow on the pores of my skin,

and mountains sprout out of my head,
instead of hair

See their chests puffing with self-importance
See them point

See them shriek
See how they laugh

At this skin,
That is two shades darker than theirs.

©, N.L., 2009

Her-Story

2009-12-08T04:13:00.000-08:00

The women in my
family,
For five
generations
Have lain with men
Who have given
them daughters
and no sons

Because of this,
and
because we have all
somehow
managed
to outlive our men,
They, who know nothing about genetics,
but claim to know it all,
call us ngirani:
The cursed women

They say we walk naked and
survive on a diet of human flesh and blood
like vampires

When
We disagree with their opinions
And raise some of our own
They look at us contemptuously
and spit out
"feminists!"
Making it sound like the dirtiest word on earth

They say that we,
like the witches
in 17th Century Europe,
must be cleansed of evil
and destroyed

But we refuse to be held in chains
we choose to write our own history
we will chart our destiny

So here is to you, Mekatilili wa Mwenza
I pour libation to you, Wangu wa Makeri
I salute you, Mary Muthoni Nyanjiri

©, N.L., 2009

Untitled

2009-09-02T02:04:00.000-07:00

Come to me, you say

And with heavy heart,
A smile painted on this tired, old woman's face,
Struggling not to fall apart
Yet,
Hoping for a coup de grace
I drag my broken limbs -

I come to you
And come undone.

RUINED

2009-07-06T09:24:00.000-07:00

In this world

Where men make the rules
For the women to follow
and the men to break,

In this rainbow

Where white is gold
Brown is good enough
and black don't mean a thing,

In this war

Where small girls are mothers
Young boys are soulless old men
and sons slaughter their mothers

In this life

Where evil is good
and good is evil,

Do you wonder
that
am a ruined woman?

©, N.L., 2009

TRAFFIC ME

2009-03-21T12:08:00.000-07:00

He squeezes her flesh - testing
Like a woman picking melons,
Off a stand in farmers' market
Grunts,
Moves to the next one in line,
Then, drawn to her glistening skin -
the antonym to his colourless self -
He goes back.

She comes from an exotic land,
He can tell,
Far, far away.

He cares not if she came by boat
Or plane
If she speaks his language
Or not
All he cares for
Is the escape she will offer him
For 60 seconds or so
The way, without speaking,
She will make him feel like a man,
Powerful - like one who owns something, someone

So, he hands over currency
To the man who owns her
And buys the right
To
bite into her pillowy breasts,
squeeze her black generous butt
taste her salty tears
and plunge into her earthy softness
Over and over and over

©, N.L., 2009

-----------------------
The trafficking of African women both within Africa and to other parts of the world for sexual exploitation is REAL. THINK!

2 A.M. Souvenir

2008-09-06T18:20:00.000-07:00

My father,

After

enjoying many a bottle of Tusker
enjoyed waking us
in the middle of the night
with loud, thinly-veiled threats
of disownment
while
with authority proclaiming
that we, his girls
were not worthy to carry his father's name
and instead, belonged solely to our mother

But before

my pre-teenage self
could courageously attempt
at a retort,

Would say, again and again,

"You will come back to me, all of you -

crawling"

15 years have come and gone
I am yet
to go down on my knees.

©, N.L., 2008

Culturally Speaking

2008-08-24T02:34:00.000-07:00

Laugh at me all you want

But I

Refuse

To straighten my tough kinky hair,

To speak in your imported tongue,

To adopt a name that my heavy tongue cannot pronounce.

For I

Am N -,

Daughter of L -,

Granddaughter of M’Ndegwa,

Great-granddaughter of M’mirii,

Great-great-granddaughter of Kanake.

And I

Will hold my black head up,

And walk tall and proud.

Because I

Know where I come from,

Am part of the soil that feeds me,

Understand the ways of my people.

So you

Foolish women,

With your creams lotions powders

That lighten skins and straighten hair,

And you

Silly men,

With your nasal accents, foreign gadgets and superior ways

That illustrate your disdain for things indigenous,

Should know that I am deaf to your laughter,

For I

Embrace my background

And I

Belong.

Tribute to the African Man

2008-08-24T02:30:00.001-07:00

What you are,

Is sturdy; strong like the mugumo tree in my backyard

And like that tree, you are firmly rooted in the ground

A native of the African soil

What you are,

Is a warrior; fighting battles and coming out unscathed

And like that soldier, you should be recognized,

Valued and nurtured

What you are,

Is a king; deserving to be treated like royalty

And like that king, you are regal and wise

Your actions are just

What I would like to do,

Is to sit back for a minute or so,

And take in the very essence,

Of you

What I would like to do,

Is let my eyes feast on every inch of your silky skin

Admire that beautiful spot, where pelvis meets thigh

And celebrate your very blackness

What I would like to do,

Is to let my fingers worship your muscular body

From the tip of your blackened toe to the top of your dreadlocked head

Soft and slow, now

3,000

2008-08-24T02:28:00.001-07:00

What do you know about laws –
You who fall asleep instead of making them
Mouths wide open,
Legs spread-eagled,
Hands on bellies,
Bellies full of rich 3 course meals; threatening to pop out of 300-dollar shirts
Eyes tightly shut;
Dreaming, dreaming of more money to steal, more houses to buy, more women to fuck
A siesta at 3 o’clock…after a tryst with your 3rd mistress
Fat cats.

You who dare arrest a woman
For buying a 30-shilling loaf off the streets:
An unthinkable crime!
Guilty: she, of wanting to feed her family
And the hawker, of peddling goods and struggling to survive
Illegal, you say
Selling goods without a license
Chaotic too:
Law and order are necessary in a civilised society!
A fine of 3,000 shillings for the crime of buying a 30-shilling item:
An amount that she can only dream of ever blessing her eyes upon,
Her salary for 3 months,
Not nearly enough to feed her family of 13 for a week,
Fools.

Yet you wonder why
Her sons grow up to steal from you, kill you
Her boys, they had so much potential
Could have replaced you and done a better job too!
Farmers, architects, artists, leaders: their future down the drain
Their euphoria short-lived, when they realise that you are all words and no actions
Where are the 300,000 jobs that you promised to create if they voted for you?
They still have no access to free education
So they join gangs and attack you
After all, a young boy is restless and can remain idle for so long
What other choice is there?
Felons.

Why are they so unhappy, when the economy has grown by 3%?
These 30 million people, living from hand to mouth
The rich getting richer, the sick getting sicker, the prices soaring high
Why would they care about abstract concepts like the GDP?
You congratulate yourselves and award yourselves by increasing your salaries
(Big men need big cars)
Draining an overstretched public reserve
That is replenished occasionally by your foreign friends
But nothing comes for free: your friends have their conditions
They will rape your women, rob you, run you out of business and erode your culture
Only then can you appreciate the extent of their generosity, their ‘aid’
They laugh at you behind your backs, you know
Your so-called friends, they laugh at you
They have many words to describe your country,
A country teetering on the edge, like a drunken woman balancing on high heels
Threatening to fall over any minute.

– All rights reserved. ©, N.L., October 2007

Once, We Were Men

2008-08-24T02:26:00.000-07:00

Once, we were men

We hunted

Our weapons crude, our clothing barely protecting us from the harsh weather

Still, we hunted,

Gathered

And brought home the spoils

Proudly, we watched

As our women roasted the wildebeest and our children shared the wild berries

We lived as one; my child was your child

My people were your people

Your home was my home.

Today, we no longer hunt game

Instead, we hunt each other

And gather dead bodies

In the name of love, God, country, tribe, race, resources, and freedom,

We crush each other, easily

As we would crush an irritating bug crawling on our skins

Ethnic cleansing, genocide, crimes against humanity

Sophisticated words for heinous deeds

Racism

Tribalism

Nepotism

Xenophobia

-isms and phobias

We focus on our differences and find a reason to shed blood.

Once, we were men

We tilled the earth

Ignoring the sweat and the pains from our exertions

We would dig, plant, weed, water and harvest

We coaxed and cared for the earth, gently

(Like we would a beautiful woman)

Until it bore us fruit

From sunrise to sunset

We would speak to the soil

And to the crop it bore us.

Now, we no longer work the earth

Instead, we steal

It’s a hard-knock life, we explain

So we take out our guns and rob our brothers, our neighbours and our friends

Our children, they walk the streets aimlessly

Begging

Pleading

Beseeching

For a morsel to still their grumbling stomachs

The light has gone out of their eyes,

The youth out of their limbs

They no longer run

They drag their feet instead, slowly like old men who have seen too much.

Kwashiorkor

Malaria

Diarrhea

Malnutrition -

Unwanted companions for our children

Our children are dying

Our women, they can’t stop crying

Yet, our only concern is pleasure, self-gratification

So we fuck indiscriminately – man, woman, child, and animal

And just for the hell of it, we rape our sisters, our daughters and our mothers

Cruelly, we bear more and more children

Only to subject them to the same fate

Once, we stood tall and roared like lions

Today, we crawl in our own shit like dreaded rats