"rwandan" poems
April 5th 1994- Kurt Cobain dies
April 6th 1994- The President of Rwanda Dies
April 7th 1994- Kurt Cobain's body is found
April 7th 1994- A genocide begins.
Neighbors take arms against neighbors
People he once shared a sandbox with now hold a machete to his neck
Heads roll- literally
Babies cry out to their mothers who lie there choking on their own blood
Girls who 2 days ago were playing house with their dolls, now take care of their whole family
Screams of pain from girls who's innocence is taken from the man who used
to bounce them on his knee.
Gathered in the place where God is supposed to be
Hundreds are murdered ruthlessly.
Guns not pointed at their heads
But clubs that smash them in.
Achilles' heels slashed
These men drink and feast and sleep
Over the screams of their victims
Babies born 9 months after these men took something that was not theirs to
take
A physical representation of all that is evil and hatred and pain
She tries to love them anyway
But she sees him in them
He has daddy's eye
She has her fathers nose
She sees them in the way he looks at her when he's hungry
As if she is just there to quench that thirst with her body.
The whole word is split in 2
Nobody is Rwandan anymore
You are Hutu or Tutsi
Short or tall
Human or vermin.
The dead among the living
Sometimes I can't tell which is which
Until I see it
That sparkle of hope in that one man's eye
Because the human spirit will never die.
The father of his best friend tortured and murdered his mother on their
front lawn.
Orphaned and afraid,
He cannot stop
He cannot slow down
He cannot give up
Because ***** Kurt Cobain
he has to tell the story of what really happened that day
Rwanda April 7th 1994
Jul 13, 2014
Jul 13, 2014 at 2:45 PM UTC
Read, watched, Listened for snippets
Wore the buttons,
Devoured anything…
Apartheid
Had my own personal
Bedroom Revolution...
Jumped high…In place… with the best of them
Little balled up fists…
Pumping…
Chanted the chants
Sang the song
Freeee-ee Nelson Mandelaaaa
Freeee-ee Nelson Mandelaaaa
And I meant it!
Oh My God I meant it from my
young revolutionary soul
Cried adolescent girl cries
For our South African brothers and sisters
All of the martyrs
Known and unknown
STOP APARTHIED!
STOP APARTHIED!
Free Nelson Mandela!!
To this very day
I love me some Nelson Mandela
Love the man he is
Mourn the man he was
Big Fine Educated Pugilistic
African
Man
Passionate
Compassionate
On that serious mission
Who, though technically still breathing upon his release, in reality
Gave his life
To promote the cessation of
An idea more merciless even than the Rwandan genocide
In that Death
Seldom came quickly
A system more sadistic even than the African Slave Trade
In that it was not based economically
Therefore ALL the
“Kaffers”
Could be maimed or die
And it wouldn’t cost a thing…
Monetarily speaking
A society wherein
Each Black death
Someone’s Job… or
Someone’s Entertainment
Every atrocity’s purpose to serve only to
Douse fuel on the already
Brightly burning fire of
Hate and torture and hate
I love Nelson Mandela
For making like David
And having the *****
To take on the Goliath
Apartheid
Satan is creative
His minions resourceful
We will never know the indignities;
Can only imagine the violations
My Nelson was forced to endure
Imprisoned for 27 years
I love
Nelson Mandela
For having the strength
To keep living
When so many others couldn’t
Still able to put
One
In front of
The other
Albeit gingerly
But still locomoting
Out of hell
On his own two feet…
That alone makes him a hero
To me
In my heart he will always be
The
Big
Fine
Educated
Pugilistic
Passionate
Compassionate
Hero
That the young revolutionary in me
sings about…
Dec 7, 2013
Dec 7, 2013 at 6:29 PM UTC
At his little hippie college
he shows me a *** that looks like a wall
in a Rwandan museum, all skulls, he
learned clay in the Rift Valley
boarding school, on a kick wheel,
still his favorite
My brother is a potter
multicolor plaid shorts
little goatee
Banjo
Japan dreams
girl from Mozambique.
When we were little in Loiyangalani
we made tiny huts out of obsidian
while our Rhodesian Ridgebacks
sniffed the ground for cobras
sand vipers
scorpions
while twenty camels
walked by in a row
followed by tiny replicas
My brother is a potter, says to me
'When I am doing this I am
doing what I was created to do'
He makes a green and blue
candleholder for me which he calls
'The Islands,' light escapes through many holes
which look like sea turtles
pockets of air and
an atomic bomb just gone off
we turn off the lights
in my room in the hood,
snorkel in candlelight
My brother gives me
Rumi, incense, peace flags
We walk the silent night
smoke a clove
look at stars
like we used to do in the African riverbeds
Mar 22, 2013
Mar 22, 2013 at 6:50 AM UTC
Hot Durban nights.
Naked in the pool.
The Blue Waters.
Ebbing.
Next door, my grandfather tried to hold on to. His wife. Thirsty for oxygen. As I slide off the tilting roof, holding its water as it cast me off.
Into the nearby sea.
You muffled my coughs. The taste of Vicks still won't leave my mouth. But it's one of my fondest memories.
(By the bar where the Rwandan directors smoked dope.
Late night discussions the foolish call art.)
You, me and &*^%.
Your tattoos and little *******
I thought were perfect.
Modelled after martinis we'd never drink.
(My broken phone kept calling Kote.
Kote panicked with this unknown.
Suspicious of coups.)
The hand cloth towel slipped off your body.
The pool water dripping onto the sheets.
(Our saviour in the township on that night we tempted fate, re-enacting rapes, the terrifying 12 left us, and her girlfriend tried to kiss me, alone in the car)
You walked into my hotel room.
Fourth floor.
You took the bible from the draw.
Fourth floor.
You threw it with a flick.
Fourth floor.
Then you ****** my
Fourth floor
And I fell
Fourth floor
asleep.
Feb 23, 2016
Feb 23, 2016 at 1:33 AM UTC
Rwandan orchid
I will not let reality
Take over my positive imagination
In all seriousness
Logic and peace
We must rebel
Against our own desires
Of manufactured comfort
With smiles
Budding sweet tears
Affirmative genocide
Apathetic anonymous
Apr 22, 2019
Apr 22, 2019 at 2:40 PM UTC