*** was transmitted from chimpanzees to humans,
Eating chimp meat in Africa they thrived,
Most not realizing the sanctity they destroyed,
And chimps got it from mangabey meat,
New SIV+SIV gave *** at the lethal end for humans.

NELSON MANDELA, NUMBER 46664 IS DEAD; EULOGICALLY ELEGIZING DIRGE FOR SON OF AFRICA, HOPE OF HUMANITY AND PERMANENT FLAME OF DEMOCRACY


Alexander K Opicho
(Eldoret, Kenya; aopicho@yahoo.com)

Nelson Mandela, South Africa's anti-apartheid beacon, has died
One of the best-known political prisoners of his generation,
South Africa's first black president, He was 95.
His struggle against apartheid and racial segregation
Lead to the vision of South Africa as a rainbow nation
In which all folks were to be treated equally regardless of color
Speaking in 1990 on his release from Pollsmoor Prison
After 27 years behind bars, Mandela posited;
I have fought against white ******* and
I have fought against black *******
I have cherished the idea of a democratic
And a free society in which all persons live together
In harmony and with equal opportunity
It is an ideal which I hope to live for and to achieve
But if need be, it is an ideal for which I am prepared to die,

Fortunately, he was never called upon
To make such a sacrifice
And the anti-apartheid campaign did produce results
A ban on mixed marriages between whites and folks of color,
This was designed to enforce total racial segregation
Was lifted in 1985
Mandela was born on July 18, 1918
His father Gadla named him "Rolihlahla,"
Meaning “troublemaker” in the Xhosa language
Perhaps  parental premonitions of his ability to foment change.
Madiba, as he is affectionately known
By many South Africans,
Was born to Gadla Henry Mphakanyiswa,
a chief, and his third wife Nosekeni *****
He grew up with two sisters
In the small rural village of Qunu
In South Africa's Eastern Cape Province.
Unlike other boys his age,
Madiba had the privilege of attending university
Where he studied law
He became a ringleader of student protest
And then moved to Johannesburg to escape an arranged marriage
It was there he became involved in politics.
In 1944 he joined the African National Congress (ANC),
Four years before the National Party,
Which institutionalized racial segregation, came to power
.
Racial segregation triggered mass protests
And civil disobedience campaigns,
In which Mandela played a central role
After the ANC was banned in 1961
Mandela founded its military wing Umkhonto we Sizwe
The Spear of the Nation
As its commander-in-chief,
He led underground guerrilla attacks
Against state institutions.
He secretly went abroad in 1962
To drum up financial support
And organize military training for ANC cadres
On his return, he was arrested
And sentenced to prison
Mandela served 17 years
On the notorious Roben Island, off Cape Town,
Mandela was elected as South Africa's first black president
On May 10, 1994
Cell number five, where he was incarcerated,
Is now a tourist attraction
From 1988 onwards, Mandela was slowly prepared
For his release from prison
Just three years earlier he had rejected a pardon
This was conditional
On the ANC renouncing violence
On 11 February 1990,
After nearly three decades in prison,
Mandela, the South African freedom beacon was released
He continued his struggle
For the abolition of racial segregation
In April 1994,
South Africa held its first free election.
On May 10,
Nelson Mandela became South Africa's first elected black president,
Mandela jointly won
The Nobel Peace Prize
With Frederik de Clerk in 1993
On taking office
Mandela focused on reconciliation
Between ethnic groups
And together with Archbishop Desmond Tutu,
He set up the South African Truth and Reconciliation Commission (TRC)
To help the country
Come to terms
With the crimes committed under apartheid
After his retirement
From active politics in 1999,
Madiba dedicated himself
To social causes,
Helping children and ***-AIDS patients,
His second son
Makgatho died of ***-AIDS
In 2005 at the age of 54,
South Africans have fought
a noble struggle against the apartheid
But today they face a far greater threat
Mandela he posited in a reference to the ***-AIDS pandemic,
His successor
Thabo Mbeki
The ANC slogan of 1994; A better life for all
Was fulfilled only
For a small portion of the black elite
Growing corruption,
Crime and lack of job prospects
Continue to threaten the Rainbow Nation,
On the international stage
Mandela acted as a mediator
In the Burundi civil war
And also joined criticism
Of the Iraq policy
Of the United States and Great Britain
He won the Nobel Prize in 1993
And played a decisive role
Into bringing the first FIFA World Cup to Africa,
His beloved great-granddaughter
Zenani Mandela died tragically
On the eve of the competition
And he withdrew from the public life
With the death of Nelson Mandela
The world loses a great freedom-struggleer
And heroic statesman
His native South Africa loses
At the very least a commanding presence
Even if the grandfather of nine grandchildren
Was scarcely seen in public in recent year

Media and politicians are vying
To outdo one another with their tributes
To Nelson Mandela, who himself disliked
The personality cult
That's one of the things
That made him unique,
Nelson Mandela was no saint,
Even though that is how the media
Are now portraying him
Every headline makes him appear more superhuman
And much of the admiration is close to idolatry
Some of the folks who met him
Say they felt a special Mandela karma
In his presence.
Madiba magic was invoked
Whenever South Africa needed a miracle,

Mandela himself was embarrassed
By the personality cult
Only reluctantly did he agree to have streets
Schools and institutes named after him
To allow bronze statues and Mandela museums
To be built
A trend that will continue to grow.

He repeatedly pointed
To the collective achievements
Of the resistance movement
To figures who preceded him
In the struggle against injustice
And to fellow campaigners
Such as Mahatma Gandhi, Albert Luthuli
Or his friend and companion in arms
Oliver Tambo who today stands in Mandela's shadow,
Tambo helped create the Mandela legend
Which conquered the world
A tale in which every upright man
And woman could see him
Or herself reflected,
When Prisoner Number 46664 was released
After 27 years behind bars
He had become a brand
A worldwide idol
The target of projected hopes
And wishes that no human being
Could fulfill alone,
Who would dare scratch?
The shining surface of such a man
List his youthful misdemeanors
His illegitimate children
Who would mention his weakness for women?
For models
Pop starlets
And female journalists
With whom he flirted
In a politically incorrect way
When already a respected elder statesman?
Who would speak out critically?
Against the attacks
He planned when he headed the ANC
Armed wing Umkhonto we Sizwe
And who would criticize the way
He would often explode in anger
Or dismiss any opinions other than his own?
His record as head of government
Is also not above reproach
Those years were marked by pragmatism
And political reticence
Overdue decisions were not taken
Day to day matters were left to others
When choosing his political friends
His judgment was not always perfect
A Mandela grandchild is named
After Colonel Muammar Gaddaffi
Seen from today's perspective
Not everything fits
The generally accepted
Picture of visionary and genius,
But Mandela can be excused
These lapses
Because despite everything
He achieved more than ordinary human beings
His long period of imprisonment
Played a significant role here
It did not break him, it formed him
Robben Island
Had been a university of life for Mandela once posited
He learned discipline there
In dialogue with his guards
He learnt humility, patience and tolerance
His youthful anger dissolved
He mellowed and acquired
The wisdom of age
When he was at last released
Mandela was no longer
Burning with rage,
He was now a humanized revolutionary
Mandela wanted reconciliation
At almost any price
His own transformation
Was his greatest strength
The ability to break free
From ideological utopia
And to be able to see the greater whole
The realization
That those who think differently
Are not necessarily enemies
The ability to listen,
To spread the message of reconciliation
To the point of betraying what he believed in,
Only in this way could he
Serve as a role model
To both black and white humanity
, communists and entrepreneurs,
Catholics and Muslims.
He became a visional missionary,
An ecclesiast of brotherly love
And compassion
Wherever he was, each humanity was equal
He had respect for musicians and presidents
Monarchs and cleaning ladies
He remembered names
And would ask about relatives
He gave each humanity his full attention
With a smile, a joke, a well aimed remark,
He won over every audience
His aura enveloped each humanity,
Even his political enemies,
That did not qualify him
For the status of demi-god
But he was idolized and rightly so
He must be named in the same breath
As Mahatma Gandhi, the Dalai Lama
Or Martin Luther King
Mandela wrote a chapter of world history
Even Barack Obama posited
He would not have become
President of the United States
Without Mandela as a role model,

And so it is not so important
That Mandela is now portrayed
Larger than life
The fact that not everything
He did in politics succeeded is a minor matter
His achievement is to have lived
A life credibly characterized
By humanism, tolerance and non-violence,
When Mandela was released
From prison in 1990,
The old world order of the Cold War era
Was collapsing
Mandela stood at the crossroads and set off in the right direction
How easily he could have played with fire, sought revenge,
Or simply failed; He could have withdrawn from public life or,
Like other companions in arms, earned millions,
Two marriages failed because of the political circumstances
His sons died tragically long before him
It was only when he was 80 and met his third wife,
Graca Machel,
That he again found warmth,
Partnership and private happiness,
Setbacks did not leave him bitter
Because he regarded his own life
As being less important
Than the cause he believed in
He served the community humbly,
With a sense of responsibility
Of duty and willingness to make sacrifices
Qualities that are today only rarely encountered,

How small and pathetic his successors now seem
Their battles for power will probably now be fought
Even more unscrupulously than in the past
How embarrassing are his own relatives
Who argued over his legacy at his hospital bed
Mandela was no saint
But a man with strengths and weaknesses,
Shaped by his environment
It will be hard to find a greater person
Just a little bit more Mandela every day
Would achieve a great deal
Not only in Africa
But in the bestridden geographies
Epochs and diversities of man,

In my post dirge I will ever echo words of Mandella
He shone on the crepuscular darkness of the Swedish
Academy, where cometh the Nobel glory;
Development and peace are indivisible
Without peace and international security
Nations cannot focus
On the upliftment
Of the most underprivileged of their citizens.

Ebola

Ebola! Ebola! Ebola!
you are only hunting in the exhausted fields,
you predecessors have done evil  marvel in this land
Africa's sons and daughter were heavily taken away
in slave raid, colonial rampage two world wars ,cancer
and *** aids, Ebola you must be ashamed to come here,
are you as foolish as lioness that must follow the path
initially taken by her husband the lion?
Ebola Africa is dead tired and lain forlorn
by strange diseases not known by it
but only named in the land of their cradle
where *** was born in the Irish Laboratory
on trial and error to decimate Africa's populations
in the racially biased arsenal you have also come
you fangled teeth a bare menace to each of us
you make us bleed from out body holes,
blood oozing out like Nile water from lake Victoria
Ebola ! Ebola ! sympathy is not a vice , but heavenly
virtue, only protege of the Godly please be sympathetic
to Africa the orphan of the classic times with no succour
her wounds of Cancer are fresh and fresh as those obnoxites
from the nasty Aids aka ***, kindly empathize with Africa
you have eaten Mali and Nigeria after Congo Kinshasa
you are now in Kenya the  neighbor of Sudan
the last born of Africa already rendered forlorn
by the AK 47 and AK 74 , shot in the tribal tremors
O! Ebola Ebola ! my prayer to you is as brief
as that;  forgive me  for my weird mourning
of my brothers and sister in death mongering
mandibles so ugly and Abysmal like
Gehenna of Jesus Christ, Amen !

Shutting down,
My immune system fails,
Vulnerable to the germs that breed about the town,
One mistake,
Protection wasn’t used,
Vulnerable to the taunts that make my soft heart break.

Although my heart is broken,
Words only cut so deep,
I know that I am human,
Even as I drift to endless sleep.


For advice and help – please contact any of the organisations below:
Terrence Higgins Trust
Web: www.tht.org.uk
Helpline: 0845 1221 200
Offers free and confidential services for people with ***.

Positively Women
Web: www.positivelywomen.org.uk
Helpline: 020 7713 0222 (staffed by *** positive women: Mon-Fri 10am-4pm)

Aidsmap
Web: www.aidsmap.com
Information, news and resources for people with *** and AIDS.

I dedicate this poem to all those who are suffering from ***/AIDS, those the world has loved and lost through ***/AIDS and to all of those affected by ***/AIDS.

I tend to get stares... Looks... The occasional "are you gay?" With a quizzical look of disgust.
Well, to answer your question, no, I am not gay.
In a society built around judgment and stilted above common sense,
Being gay would mean that I'd have to find women utterly disgusting, flick my wrists, speak with funny and awkward inflections, right?
Do you think I speak with funny and awkward inflections?
Good! Because I'm so not gay.
Being gay would mean that I love to shop, well I hate it!
My fashion sense does not exceed that of a box of colorful crayola crayons melting away in the blistering Las Vegas sun because you see, I don't live in San Francisco, or New York,
or anywhere "gay" people live.
I am not gay.
Being gay would mean that I am immoral but I can assure you, moralistically speaking, that morals are what keep me routinely from listening to Lady Gaga, who I've heard, despite her catholic upbringing, is a devout devil worshiper and I sure as hell don't worship Satan!
Oh no, I am not gay.
My father once told me, in his manliest tone that if I ever became sweet
or my tank profusely filled with sugar
that he'd disown me and rid me of his home.
However last time I checked,
I don't have a tank
and one lick of my tanned brown skin would reveal that I am in fact quite salty!
Salty, as defined by Urban Dictionary, means to be ******.
Bitter. Angry.
Well father, there aint nothing sweet about my wrath.
I'm infuriated.
I'm angry not because I'm not able to fulfill the holistic criterion society has built in order to be gay,
No, I am more upset that there is actually a set of rules dictating whether or not someone is gay.
Now listen to me when I tell you,
I am not gay
I am not gay because I have yet to inject myself of substances with an unsterile needle for all purposes of getting high.
No, I have yet to discover my last ****** partner was diagnosed with *** and that I may very well have the virus.
No, I have yet to interiorly decorate my bedroom with the warm crimson fluid that is my blood because some punk at school thought it was cute to label me a queer.
I have yet to be gay because being gay in today's society means I am reckless. I am promiscuous. I am a *******.
Well, guess what society,
I am not gay.
I am, in fact, a man, who is not your personal show dog for your fashion approval that you can tote around in some cute Gucci bag.
I am a man, who can still appreciate the beautiful magnificence that is a curve when he sees one no matter the person's gender.
I am a man who, despite what you may be expecting,
is a man who, no matter how hard you try to box me in a confined image,
is a man who, will fight to freely be in love with who he wants to be in love with,
who is a man who is not gay
but a man who loves men.
I am not gay.
..

Abortion

A screaming baby yelling
“Mommy! Please don’t let me go!”
All because it wants to see this world
But Mommy happens to have regrets and a mind filled with shame
All because nobody knows about little James or Joyce
Mommy isn’t ready for mistakes to happen
A screaming baby yelling
“Mommy! Please don’t give up on me!”
All because it wants to see Mommy smile
But Mommy happens to head to the clinic
All because she’s thinking about abortion
Mommy isn’t ready for regrets to happen
A screaming baby yelling
“Mommy! Please don’t do this to me!”
All because it wants to see its first birthday
But Mommy happens to grab for the scissors and then panics
All because she finally realizes life’s a blessing
Mommy isn’t ready to fall down the same path as last time
A screaming baby yelling
“Mommy! Please make the right choice!
All because it wants to know its gender
But Mommy happens to suffer from ***
All because she was ***** by a unknown man
Mommy happens to give life to a healthy
James Denzel Roberts
But…
A screaming baby yelling
“Mommy! I thank you!”
All because it misses its mommy
But Mommy happens to give James up for adoption
All because she doesn’t want James to suffer
Mommy happens to die 2 weeks later
As…
A screaming baby yelling
“Mommy! You’ll always be in my heart!”

By Zyanneh Frazier