Poetry for Africa

Poetry is dangerous,
Subversive.

It’s that so often talked about
Double edged sword
That cuts both ways.
It’s more lethal
Than Zuma’s Umshini Wami,
More deadly than the now ubiquitous
Post election violence panga
More than Rwanda’s genocidal machete.
It’s deadlier than Sierra Leonese, Sudanese child soldiers,
More powerful than the Shona-Ndebele, Majimaji, Mau Mau wars put together.

It can bless you
Or curse you
Deliver you to your grave-
Ask Pushkin.

It can build continents,
Empires, kingdoms,
And just as quickly,
Tear them down.
Ask Africa

Be careful how you use your words,
What you confess,
You will, without a single doubt
Soon possess.

So let’s sing dangerously progressive
Subversively possessive
Poetry for our motherland,
Africa.

Africa will arise
Not by Zuma’s Umshini Wami,
Or the P.E.V.’s menacing panga,
Rwanda’s machete,
North African child soldiers
Or Shona-Ndebele, Majimaji, Mau Mau resistance ire.

Africa will arise
By our dreamy
Amazing words,
Our outlandish prophecies,
Our ridiculously zany confessions
Of a better beautiful, peaceful, abundant Africa
Whose reach
Is within
Our possession.