Mother dear whom everyone favors has a tree that bears fruits of labor. She takes the fruits before they even ripen to the waterside market to sell the way she takes children to the auction ground to be taken abroad to unknown households in Monrovia. She makes much profit and does not care. The seeds…
The River
The riverThe unlimited waterThe beauty of natureDark in the night, blue in the day but am colourlessHow well I have been shapedHow soft I have been createdBigger than water but smaller in quantityI conduce smaller things like pinbut carry bigger things like ferryI Am welcomingI create power but reject powerThe river is my nameThose that…
If My Heart
If my heart could grow You could have seen its seed Augmenting Pushing through the light Ready to produce fruits. If my heart could talk You could have felt the unfelt; The love, the fear, the insecurities, the hope, the anguish, the frustrations. If my heart could show You could have seen the…
I Am
I am Mixed Race, Half Caste, Half Breed and Colored. Any way you look at it His blood mixed with her blood Mixed with their blood To make our blood. And now all that blood runs through my children’s Tiny beautiful veins. We are the New bloods. African Bloods. We were colonized and reorganized yet…
Rebel Queens
Milky waters crawl down my fingers As I discover layer after layer Of flesh Of tightness Of beauty My garden wets as I gaze at her delicately sculptured folds Her fruit bursts with juices and flavor I snake lower charmed by her feminine aroma Lips plant kisses on petals Beautiful black petals, pink on the…
An Aquafer
I’m a solid rusty ground My chest A magma kind of rock But deep underneath it I’m an aquifer That runs a thousand feet deep Roaring silently Swirling quietly Like a tornado Waiting to come to surface An endless sea that takes off the land To evacuate no more Link to the Italian translation
Mother’s Touch
In the village compound which was cleanly swept and tidy a compound not easily accessible by road a group of old women sat huddled together. Sticks and pipes jutted out of their mouths which occasionally moved in unison. A sigh here and a look to the sky up here. Some sat with their chins in…
All the World
Several times a day the same play features in the recesses of a collective mind while shying away from the intended message: “Stop the carnage! Stop the carnage! Stop the carnage!” Psychobabble in the audio world where roadside preachers yell out random truths to the suspecting mob. They know, they know, of course they all…
Mothers Sing a Lullaby
(after the 1994 Rwandan genocide) Mothers sing a lullaby As the dark descends on trees Shutting out shadows. The sensuous voices swish and swirl Around shrubs and overgrown grass Hiding mountains of decapitated dead And the glint of machetes That slashed shrieking throats. In these camps without happiness Mothers maintain the melody of life Capturing…
River Styx
The Nile is a moving graveyard The ground is soaked up with blood The Nile has more skin than most The Nile? You mean river Styx, and what a price you have paid to cross it. The ground is shaking with grieve, The city is crying tears of blood, The streets are loud but quiet,…