The Funeral of the United Nations
A Lament for Justice
They raised a flag of heaven blue
Over ashes not yet cold,
Spoke of peace with silver tongues
While selling souls for gold.
It was born from war, they said—
But did not end the wailing.
It stitched the wounds of Europe’s kings,
And left the South still bleeding.
In Congo, the rivers run red,
The earth groans with stolen veins.
A child cries out in silence—
But silence answers with chains.
In Gaza, a cradle turned to grave,
The sky forgets the sun.
The bombs fall with impunity,
And justice comes to none.
In Ukraine, the winter screams,
The soil weeps for sons.
But politics plays chess with corpses,
And dignity is undone.
The UN sits in its marble tower,
A theatre draped in shame.
Its halls echo empty speeches—
No one punished, no one blamed.
Where were you, keeper of peace,
When mothers buried hope?
When tyrants drank from power’s cup
And tied the world in rope?
You died not with a bang, but with a shrug—
A fading light, unseen.
The League of Nations whispered,
And you fulfilled its dream.
Not of unity, nor brotherhood,
But of empires cloaked in law.
Where war becomes negotiation,
And the victim bows in awe.
But now the Global South awakens—
Scars glowing like new dawns.
A justice born not of conquest,
But from wombs where truth is drawn.
A reckoning is rising
From the blood-soaked southern soil.
Where mercy won’t be bribed again,
Nor freedom bought by toil.
The United Nations is a tombstone now—
We lay flowers at its gate.
Not in honor, but in mourning,
And to witness its failed fate.
Copyright ©
Chanda Katonga
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