Africa
Africa! The land of culture,
favored by nature,
filled with human mixtures,
but with odd creatures;
who their brothers they torture,
and feed on like vultures,
Why not face the adventure,
and venture to brighten her future?
Brothers, please take this lecture
and improve our mother land's picture
before the invasion of the rapture.
Africa! Why should you be called the white man's grave?
When their wealth it was you who gave;
in that era; when you were a slave.
Africa, you ought to be brave.
Please leave the lonely cave
and walk on the road of development; which you must pave
your sovereignty you must try and save
from all ambitious colonial wave.
Africa! The most influential name,
burning with influential flame.
Oh yes, you are the giver of fame;
yet the receiver of the blame.
Before Mr. John Bull came,
there was no need to complain.
A community of people with a single aim,
working hard for all to gain,
working on their farms and asking the gods for the rain.
Indeed, a community free from all pain.
But this man's arrival was but a stain
to our traditions and customs we once vowed to maintain. Violating their provisions became a common game.
In short, nothing was ever the same.
Ever, as I may claim.
Africa! Name me the wage
of placing civilization on the earthly stage
just to be called a savage.
Your contributions in the gone age;
written and unwritten on historic pages,
brought you nothing but bondage.
Your distributed vintage
makes you a sponge to their sewages.
You are free; free in an unseen cage.
Africa must engage her rage from the gushing spillages
of her bottomless brain gauge.
You must mend the breakage,
cure the damage and become the Africa I envisage.
Africa! It is not time to mourn.
Not a time to walk, but to run.
Yes! A time to take a new turn
and be a servant to none.
See it not as fun
and mind you not my pun,
because I your son,
shall walk in the sun
and will be gone;
as the battle has begun
not with a gun;
as we have already won.
To see this day I was born,
when we shall all blow the same horn:
announcing we are world number one! |
Self-Exiled
The trees have abandoned the forest,
And the birds have forgotten their nest.
The baby ignores its mother's breast,
For the dirty fingers of a guest.
Tears more than the chin can arrest
And pains, more than the heart can digest
Now bursts forth in an untamed protest
For the patriotism lying unexpressed.
There is too much here to harvest,
For this land still lays blessed
With more in which to invest.
But the workers are all on a quest
In search of foreign homes to rest
Like a perpetrator of incest.
Nearest is said to be dearest
But those who remain are obsessed
With thoughts of living in the west.
Irony is indeed at its best,
For while Africa is said to be the richest,
Her children still congest to the west
To be oppressed or as they say; to be a pest.
Africans no longer beat their chest
Against contemporary foreign conquests,
Instead, we've turned Africa into a jest;
Running to small boats to be compressed
In search of fulfillment for a vain interest.
If we do this, we are called the smartest.
Those who die along, are mourned as the bravest,
And the survivors are celebrated as the luckiest.
Hmm… what a survival of the fittest. |