Refugee

I was born in the African horn, In a village, that was always warn torn, Tired of my life, on a gloomy morn, I took that fateful decision alone. Without telling my loving family, I left them behind, sleeping happily, I knew, later, they’d cry and mourn, When they’d find out, I was gone. With a few pennies and old clothes, Daring the Sirocco, as it blows, Through Sahara's blazing sands, I reached the shores of Fezzan. Five hundred more were jostling for a chance, Tired n hungry, yet fighting with their hands, To find a tight place on that boat to France, or Hungary, Italy, Spain or England. My turn, it only came past day twenty, By then, they branded me a refugee, Was I one? But they always told me, You will only go if you have the money. Screaming in fear on that dinghy, As it tossed around in the Mediterranean Sea, Holding onto dear life in the melee, What a terror it was, the journey. It brought me to the camps of Lesbos, Dirty and grimy and hopeless and morose, In that flailing broken tent, I froze, My wounded sanity, I began to lose. That is when someone told me, Lovely Australia is the place to be, You will have to make that trip, risky, To live a life of joy and peace. I put my life into his greedy hands, The human smuggler, he took me thru’ badlands, But the guardians of the sea, down under, To Manus, they screamed, after my surrender. From the violent and dusty Horn, A long way had I come, forlorn, Through the unrelenting Sahel and Lesbos, To the hell of Manus and its chaos. In 93, they’d invaded the Horn, The Americans with their super-six four, And the desperate firefight for Aideed, A few days later, they had to concede. Today with a rose, I’m on my way, On a plane, to the San Francisco Bay, I’m a poor refugee and I silently pray, ‘Show me some mercy and don’t turn me away’.