Broken Skulls
(for: those who fell on the hills of Liberia)
I hear a song from my hills
I hear it sound from afar;
And towards my homestead
Near those aging banks of the Niger
I feel the disturbing songs
Of drummers announcing with cannons
The ravages of Monrovia
Like ancestral funeral men
But these drummers are different:
A shadow of their ancestors?
Is it something beautiful
For Doe’s ever-haunted soul
That Sulima should breathe of
Blood-fouled air?
Does it touch the heart of Taylor
That St. Paul’s river should mirror
The dying souls of pregnant mothers
On forced premature delivery mats?
The guns are eating
New diets in broken skulls
Everywhere!
And all my kins
Are traded for the mean
Prosperity of war
The smell of their black blood
Slapping the face of our dignity:
And does this dunghill of skulls
Touch on the human side of Johnson
And those other warlords?
How long would the orphan’s bones crack?
When would a man walk freely
Across the streets?
Tell us! you noble warriors, tell us:
When the guns would stop singing;
When would fear stop celebrating?
Here as I sit in my hut
Fully fed-up with homicide news
Of thousands and countless of my kins
Dragged into early and tombless deaths
I dreamt of slow-walking hunger
Load-bend of the souls of my kins
Like ants in a dry season:
Would you tell me the number
Of black skulls cracked
On the top of every hill?
Tell me the quantity of black blood
Spilled each day along those currents
Of Mao and Sherbro rivers
And the quantity of children’s bones
And ribs ript open near Monrovia:
Would you be brave enough
To tell these and more atrocities
To the deaf ears of the world,
O! strongmen of noble Liberia?
Copyright © Canny Amah | Year Posted 2010
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