Her face looks out flawless her sexuality electric in a mini dress and sheer satin stockings the girls of the 1960s beautiful beyond belief. She is looking through the camera like her space is here and beyond enchanting and enchanted by the times when the dreams of freedom were young the fortunes of Uganda hot…
Lip Prayer
Your lips are mine and mine are yours. May my lips forever glorify and honour you. May my lips be truthful to you. May my lips calm your blazing brow and bring healing to your aching muscles. May my lips mop up your tears. May my lips dry the sweat of your toil, from your…
Marred and Mad
Every thought aches for a great reward From a massive heap of anxiety the cringing brakes stall Behind today’s chains of hustle in a young woman’s life As though it be un-enough she dared be seen and not just heard To fit in rugged spaces not designed for two Yet awaken tomorrow still judged for…
Good Morning Kampala
Clouds are racing above Kampala Sunrise peeps from the head of its hilly protrusions. Suddenly, rapid gun fire exchange invades our atmosphere Heavy feet scamper to find footing on our broken roads “Hooligans are demanding for change!” They say. Arrows of rain armed with hail stones join in the human pelting But you Rain where…
The sun e sons of Africa
They come here with empty faces Looking for the sun The equatorial sun rays hit their eyes, They blink and find the son, Poised, smiling at their wallets With a hot, hard, black, cocked gun. There is no argument to be had with such a gun between your legs. Between sips of badly brewed, black,…
Dear Daughter
Dear Daughter I have never loved myself enough To laugh through the rough times I have seen different colors Fading in the beauty of the flowers I have woken up to different nightmares Only to calm down through the power of a Prayer I know of those days when I needed someone beside me to…
If there had been an owl
My son died the death I should have died quietly – he went – in his sleep. On that morning the sun shimmered like it had showered in gold – I would have understood if there had been an owl – two hoots (one for each year he breathed). and no sun…
Poetra Ama Asantewa Diaka
Poetra Ama Asantewa Diaka is as a young and combative Ghanaian artist, living between the African country and the US. She doesn’t want to be boxed into the definition of “poet” or “writer” – she rather describes herself as a “storyteller“, since the term “encompasses all the ways she can tell a story” – as…
You Are Woman
For a season barely eons old Immersed myself in quietude Awaiting the day woman shall step into her own Trapped in this cloud of silent obscurity How does the world blithely pretend? For all the good there is out there Permit me to lay it bare How they sweetly make compelling claim Liberate the woman;…
Nusayba Alareer
You were a witness to a heinous atrocity of war, a crime against humanity Wildflowers in open spaces Wildflowers in closed spaces, in spaces that have been tampered with You lost a husband, your children lost a father, the world lost a poet I sit in my room and write this poem I, too, am…