Silence shall not Calm the waters nor free us. Silence shall not Prosecute nor stop them. Silence shall imprison us Enslave our souls. Silence shall tie our hands While they strip off our clothes Please their hands in our lions. And even then Silence shall not Let us moan in ecstasy. Link to the Italian…
A Nation in Labour
The Republic is in labour Screaming pacing the political ward cursing the colonial midwife for telling her to push. Her head is spinning vision blurred mind inside out. She drinks a cup of counterfeit morality and blubbers a prayer of hope for the stillborn baby. The Republic is a headless chicken with a body that…
(Blue) for Sudan
(1) Clutched my heart a terrible invasive grief. One of my father’s calling my skin its own, as it shed cries of mercy. Of a divine pardon. Of an outpouring rahma* to reach the lives lost to the march. Mourning settled in the veins. Of a country that bled in each corner, wounded dreams of…
Dear African Woman
Dear African Woman If I haven’t told you that you are beautiful, you are If I haven’t told you that your smile is lovely, it is If I havent told you that your dark skin is more beautiful than the night sky, it is Dear African Woman Only you can understand what it means to…
Black Photosynthesis
Deforestation isn’t just the cutting down of trees. It’s the cutting down of black women’s self esteem. It’s when you turn us into pretty furniture to sit on. Make textbooks out of our bodies And then use our broken spines to bind them It’s when you pull us out of the earth We were so…
This is not a feminist poem
This is not a feminist poem This is not contorted metaphors with neither punch line nor chorus This is not a feminist poem It is a woman learning to trade possessions before her lover takes his last breath. She will never get the chance to say goodbye because those final hours are one match-point away…
Forgive to be Forgiven
If forgiveness had a formula I would pursue a whole course just to master it. It’s not that I’m in love with the whole concept of forgiveness But I need to learn it and become it. See I’ve been searching for forgiveness for a while now. Singing praises and turning my life into worship just…
Take me to the river
We say “take me to the river”but what the river wants is the body of a stonethe kind of stillness that can be worn.It runs from its destructive natureand we run to its healing waters. What the mouth wants is wetnessa torrent of forgivenessto baptise flesh with abandon. We sing of the rivers of Babylonand…
Ruddy Morfaw
Ruddy Morfaw is a Cameroonian jurist, writer and spoken-word poet. For over a decade, she has worked with institutions in the area of human rights, peace, development and corporate litigation. She has been a researcher and human rights activist with the Cameroon National Commission on Human Rights and Freedoms (NCHRF), Southwest Region, and she currently…