Night Echoes
Night creeps over the liberated country.
Silhouettes push dark and fathomless cells,
and with contorted faces
of political conspirators
are scattered
into the darkest hues imaginable,
concealed from each other,
each with his own private agenda.
In Congolese music
from vibrating speakers, and beyond
the ghetto, a sign pointing to the Capital.
Fathers of fathers sitting
on plastic Chinese chairs.
What stories we tell:
that you arrived
in the mouth of a lion;
that freedom is truth,
that orphan boys scratching in the dump
may one day be leaders.
Free, comrade, FREE, FREE, FREE
(the grammar of our days is ill defined)
And the gods cry:
Comrade, Comrade, you liars.
And all night, the lies
lunge into the rumpling
African Sculpture of the wind.
Copyright © Edward Ndopu | Year Posted 2017
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