Crying in Hiccoughs

No Past, No Present, No Future

5 No Past, No Present, No Future Africa south of the Sahara, Only in verse her glorious past, In reality, a haunting emptiness, Not a word in print nor a stone upon a stone But decaying thatch and mouldering wood Bruising my pride with endless questions. Did those Heroes in song live, Did they dwell, did they reason, Did they make war, did they scan the skies, Was there a Pharaoh or a Confucius? Look round and turn to a witness, No, there’s none, no witness. To know the past, scan the now, And ask of a Washington or a Churchill, If there’s one, hail by name, If none, seal thy lips with a magic band, For, dare it, and the beasts of Maidanek (Nyerere apart) Will draw their swords and slaughter, And drag thy bones on the old sands of fate. As of now, was of old, The vampire empires south of the Sahara, Slug in moral crises, radiating – Social, economic, and political crisis. What caused that, but saliva turned hemlock? The worms go for the buds, And so, posterity destroy. The future is bleak, 6 There is melancholy, As modern blowpipes now and again, Spew red rain upon the land Once liberated, now plundered By patriots turned traitors. So, restrain thy borrowed code in song In chastising and castrating the lender For, the evils that men do live long after them, These evils are theirs and ours only; From patron to matron, of past and present. The African Press The firmament opened And under the heels of the almighty; Moses Fettered in barbed wire, Panted Tasting the broth of freedom struggle. A wand rose, And in the hand of the almighty A tourniquet Turned anti-clockwise, Shut The valves of freedom struggle. The firmament closed, And in the delight of the almighty, Moses Battered and matted with blood, Leads ...