Africa Has No Address

Africa has no address this is a place at war. Here are poor houses and poor people. The people live here like cockroaches, they've been here a long time. People no longer people, people deprived of hearts, minds, people without function for which an address doesn't exist worse: in whose name political conspirators are engaged in the looting of the national treasury The young leave quickly unwilling to know the wisdom of their estranged parents. Even the barking dogs would rather wrestle than eat-- while the roaming chickens play hide-and-seek with the smallest children. The old colonial farms have gone back to forest the new resettled farmer knows only the sun knows nothing of food or of farming The new doctor has borrowed the witchdoctor's face leaving his usual surgery to wander some dilapidated, half imagined hospital where experiments are performed on people I came to deliver a letter I came to save the damned, the scum of your society. And now: it is easy to forget what I came for this here's a world of losers and sinners and all I see is the darkness of your soul. I thought hard for us all--my only letter-- then threw it away into the darkness, and was overtaken inexplicably by sorrow. I had tasted the face of Africa. Africa has no address.