Abiku by John Pepper Clark
Coming and going these several seasons, Do stay out on the baobab tree, Follow where you please your kindred spirits If indoors it is not enough for you. True, it leaks through the thatch When floods brim the banks, And the bats and the owls Often tear in at night through the eaves, And at…
All God’s Chillun by Edward Kamau Brathwaite
They call me Uncle Tom and mock me these my children mock me they hate the hat in hand the one- roomed God I praise. Winds raise the flat- roofed house each harvest time each southern soft Se- tember. “Hey, nuncle! wanna see what God in heaven brought for me? One pink-ear’d rat, thick knuckle-headed…
New World A – Comin’ by Edward Kamau Brathwaite
1 Helpless like this leader – less like this, we met you lover, warrior, hater, coming through the files of the forest soft foot to soft soil of silence: we met in the soiled tunnel of leaves. Click lock your your fire lock fore arm fire – arm flashed fire and our firm flesh, flame…
Mammon by Edward Kamau Brathwaite
So in this tilted alleyway that roll in debris to the sea I kick my way among the wealth of fish smells, fish bones, to my father’s home. Around me, children’s feet still walk to school with swinging bag and nothing more. No face, no feature scrawled upon the whirling disc the needle gnawing into…
The Twist by Edward Kamau Brathwaite
In a little shanty town was a night like this girls were sitting down around the town like this some were young and some were brown I even found a miss who was black and brown and really did the twist watch her move her wrist and feel your belly twist feel the hunger thunder…
The Mesh by Kwei Brew
We have come to the cross roads And I must either leave or come with you. I lingered over the choice But in the darkness of my doubts You lifted the lamp of love And I saw in your face The road that I should take.
Dear Africa by Michael Dei-Anang
Awake, thou sleeping heart! Awake, and kiss The love – lorn brow Of this ebon lass, Dear Africa, Whose virgin charms Ensnare the love-lit hearts Of venturing youth From other lands Awake, sweet Africa Demand thy love, Thou sleeping heart! When the all-summer sun Paints the leafy boughs With golden rays, Know then, thou sleeping…
The Stars Have Departed by Christopher Okigbo
The stars have departed, the sky in monocle surveys the worldunder The stars have departed, and I – where am I? Stretch, stretch, O antennae, to clutch at this hour, fulfilling each moment in a broken monody.