An African's Indictment

You asked me to out write self and yet speak For some other met from the home To which all humanity belong. What would you seek Beyond our common bond of misery in the dome? Did not the same oprression that killed my father, Shaka Also killed my brothers, Marcus, Martin and NKrumah? And did you cry for Lumumba Did you cry for him with my inward hunger? Meet me first, brother, sister, come to the baobab tree And sit in the eveing drum and song and hear Me, for I am malcontented in your tent of history And puzzled at your whimpering and fear To undo the shackles of the new universe of deceit. I had two friends in Sombethely, grandsons Of Selassie, kidnapped by a black car from the street Murdered in the stinking sham of revolutions. They were gentlemen, no different blood nor dream Some imported ideology with muscled dark hands Stiffled them in silence, separated me from their scream O but look now, the kingdom swirls like sands Drunken on the wind. Is this enough for you Shall words build us bridges to love? Shall I same Erect a monument to human diffeences so untrue While indifference is the canker and the shame? Forgive my rage upon a page, it is all my world But more than myth of mankind that we make To gulf us, and then engulfed assagai hurled Across the void, litter with pain the brief mistake Eternally glorified. I shall not forget Lumumba though I shall cry until the Serengetti is dry as chalk Africa did not just lose a son, mother lost a hero The children are not dancing now, brother, let us talk.